DestiCorp 2.0

It's Not Social Media, It's Social Business - Do you care?

The five biggest drivers of business change right now can be summarised thus:

1. Customers now have the power to talk back, to talk with each other; and to attract enormous attention simply through the power of their own creativity. The value of a company is now directly related to the subject and quality of the conversations that take take place about it and determine a reputation. Between 60-80% of all market capitalisation of companies is tied up in intangibles such as brand equity, reputation, human capital,and  intellectual property. Never has it been so important, or, for that matter, so easy to LISTEN.

2. There's finally a recognition that companies aren't things - corporate entities only with legal rights and no responsibilities - but collections of human beings keeping company with each other and working to a common purpose. As Simon Sinek has said: 100% of employees are people; 100% of customers are people; 100% of investors are people; 100% of supliers are people etc. So it's not surprising to see that companies behave like the people who work in them.

Some companies seem to be super cheerful, energetic, happy, passionate and devoted to serve; others are rigid, buraucratic, stiff, slow, and affect a bored disinterest. We still talk about them as "brands" but what we mean is personality.

This trend, by the way, is sometimes described as "the humanisation of business" - as if there ever was a time when companies were run by robots. (That's in the future not in the past). So instead of companies fretting about transactions; we have collections of people focused on relationships. It's all soft & fuzzy; about feelings not product atttributes; and behaviours are harder to measure; highy subjective and utterly intrinsically SOCIAL. Hence the title of the post. So congrats if you have a Facebook page, a twitter account and your company President blogs. But that won't be enough. Unless you've opened up every business process (in human terms - every human task; item of communication; element of service) and looked at ways it WOWs the customer; while enabling the employee who are doing the wowing to feel that they are growing and developing too. 

 3. Because companies are human and because humans are in such a fix right now, there's a growing desire on the part of both employees to want to find meaning in their work and for customers to find fulfullment or feel good about their relationship with it. No longer can companies afford to be nothing but lean and mean transaction machines focussed on quarterly profits. Edeleman's Good Purpose 2010 report found that 86% of global consumers believe that companies should place at least equal weight on societies interest as in business' interest. 

In fact, there's now growing evidence that companies whose culture expresses a "higher purpose" are significantly more profitable than those that place return on investment as highest priority. If you want proof, read Firms of Endearment, a more inspiring book than Jim Collins' Good to Great, that highlights the spectacular results achieved by 30 companies run by CEOs who are happy to call themselves Conscious Capitalists. There's even an institute that is promoting an alternative to the kind of capitalism that has got western economies into the trouble we're in now. So when you think ROI, remember that it stands for Return on Involvement (see Interaction Associates) and, as importantly, start to think of who is involved.

4. Customers are changing too. The recession accelerated a change that emerged in the late 90s when a growing proportion began to tire of the endless cycle of consumption, obsolescence and waste. As boomers aged, it was inevitable that they would be driven less by Maslow's deficiency needs (security, belonging, esteem) and more by a need to develop, to serve, to find meaning and purpose. Perhaps as a result of watching their parents and deciding that they didn't want to be like them, we find that GenY and the Millennials want more than a pay check. Some 61% of GenY employees say they feel personally responsible for making a difference in the world.

There's a huge body of research that has been conducted since the recession that suggests anywhere from a low of 30% to a high of just over 50% of consumers could now be described as "conscious" - awake, alert and aware. They are taking more responsibility for their own decisions as their trust in traditional, authoritative "command and control" style organisations like Government, the Church, big companies is at an all time low. At DestiCorp we're so convinced that this trend will provide a means for tourism to get off the mass, industrialised bandwagon that we think is so destructive, that we'll be focussing all our work on ushering in a Conscious Travel movement. 

5. The role of women. Women have already shown their proclivity for use of social media. See an earlier post The Web is Female. We simply love communicating. But it's not all talk. Women also have the financial clout. According to Businessweek, American women make more than 80% of buying decisions in all homes.Their buying power  has soared 63% over past three decades. Some 30% of working women now outearn their husbands

While they are still hitting their head against the glass ceiling of senior management, it's women who undertake the majority of tasks that involve face to face or voice to voice contact with employees and, thereby, are directly reponsible for a firm's reputation. 

In summary. the decade beginning 2010 will be one in which companies thrive or wane on their ability to show they care; to create working environments in which human beings flourish and are active contributors to the healing, well-being and prosperity of their communities. 

Examples of travel-related Companies that Care include the Roger Smith Hotel in New York, where social media is derived from an inherent belief of its CEO and President, James Knowles. He believes in and encourages “the miracle of human growth.” The hotel’s connection to a community of people is based on story telling, off-line connections, and relationships built on passion, says the company. The team is always interested in telling stories that engage people while building relationships and relevant communities. The hotel says it is selling hotel rooms and events via the strength of its networking and content. To find out how Kimpton Hotels and the Joie de Vivre Group are showing they care, review this summary on the new Conscious Travel web site here.

So How Do You become a Social Business?

Becoming a truly social business requires some form of transformative shift in mindset at the top of an organization. First it means appreciating that a company, like a community, is a dynamic, living breathing system made up of living breathing systems who happen to be human beings. The distinctions between what is internal and external are artificial - the boundaries are highly permeable. And in these systems, the intelligence does not lie in the nucleus, the brain or the HQ of an organization but is distributed throughout with highest concentrations on the edges (or in the case of tourism, on the frontline where customers interacts with hosts). 

A conscious business acknowledges that all value resides in the nature of the relationship between supplier and buyer and the quality of those relationships is determined by the amount of self respect and mutual respect that exists in those relationships. Employees that are kept in the dark, not trusted by management, treated as children not adults, required to adhere to rigid "inhumane" policies and procedures etc. will pass on this antisocial culture to customers with disastrous consequences. The business might have a very active social strategy but implementation will fail if it hasn't addressed what it means to be a social business. 

Sadly most businesses are jumping on the social media bandwagon by trying to master the tools without any consideration of the deeper change in mindset that's required. This is where I find Simon Sinek's observations helpful - treat the business as if it were a person not a thing because every interaction with customers, suppliers, other employees and other stakeholders will always be personal.

Here's Simon Sinek speaking plain common sense about Social Business. Pour yourself a coffee and take 25 minutes to remind yourself how the world really works!

 

Essential Attribute for Success in 2010

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/zephyrance/2865451246

 

10 technology trends for 2010 - a strategist's perspective

While I have (for good or ill)  occasionally been described as ahead of my time, I resist describing myself as a futurist as the latter label sounds so pretentious. On the other hand, I do invest many hours a month reading, scanning, searching information that enables me to sense patterns so here are some things to watch in 2010. I’ll follow each of these topics over the next few weeks and identify what i think might be the consequences for places then – so stay tuned! The anticipated "buzzwords" for 2010 are highlighted in red. PLEASE feel free to point out serious omissions. Comments welcomed!!

 
 

1. Social Media Morphs into Social Business – you don’t need a social media strategy in 2010. That won’t be enough. You  will have to socialize your entire business, starting at home by engaging your employees, then your customers, in that order.  Keeping an eye on cost and returns  will be as important as it always was but more tools and metrics will emerge in response to the need to fine tune strategies and tactics and demonstrate accountability. Enterprises that remember it's all about people before process; purpose before profit, and passion before protocol tend to come out on top.
 
2. Integration & Identity - Thanks to widespread application integration and consumer desire to use multiple, diverse applications seamlessly and together,  identity will become a key issue in 2010 – who owns it, stores it, has access to it and under what terms? Could 2010 denote the "death of the login?" 
 Without  sharing my profile, how can I expect for the information I seek to be relevant and customized? But to whom  will I entrust data about me and who else should benefit from accessing it? Will we finally see travel-specific "widget" or web services shops to facilitate aggregation and smart mash-ups that can be used by amateurs and professionals alike?

3. Place-based Communities - we've seen the importance of community to people in the offline world and global connectivity has, in many respects, divorced community from geography. But thanks to the ying & yang of life, every trend has a counter-trend and technology will now enable people who share a common address (ie live in physical proximity) to find each other. I had no idea that YELP (one example of a hyperlocal site) attracts more visitors than Twitter. For whatever reason, I think we might slow down in 2010 and take more time to enjoy what is under our noses. Fed up with irresponsible national leadership, we'll see more community self-determination. Place brands won't be created - they'll emerge from the collaborative efforts of people identifying aspirations in common. They'll be recognized as social and emergent - now that is an important word. DMOs will recognize that they are, in fact, community facilitators, experience orchestrators and stage managers for a visitor's narrative. They'll invest in "destination webs" - the neural network that binds community members together and enables them to share intelligence and respond collectively to external threats and opportunities. 

 
3.Mobile phones and mobile apps will spread in number and intensity i.e., we’ll use them for more tasks; their content will get more real-time and richer, (more augmented);  more pleasurable to access; and smarter and more relevant to my activity, place and purpose.
They'll be used as content generators and payment devices just as often as communication devices - they might, one day, solve the identity issue identified in Trend # 2. But do you trust your mobile phone company more than Facebook. It's a tough call.
 
4.Content Curation. Content will threaten to bury us so the emphasis will be on curation, filtering and managing in and out of the cloud... Expect to see a number of companies try to bite at Google’s heels with more relevant, personalised, customisable search parameters that reflect the content being searched and the browser’s objectives. 

 
5. Video – it seems everyone wants to be on X Factor or a reality show. In 2010 their dreams will be fulfilled. Cheap HD cameras, Like FLIP,  that can stream to the internet in real time (UStream) will add to the mountain of pixels already clogging the airwaves. The new word for this is Vlogging and Cisco is leading the charge – well they would be, wouldn’t they? 
 

6. Customer Engagement & Crowdsourcing - while in 2009 content was being generated spontaneously by consumers, expect brands and destinations to take a more proactive approach to engaging customers in generating useful content and supporting their brand advocacy. BTW advocacay is the new buzz word for “word of mouth” and crowdsourcing becomes a way of engaging the entire destination community (visitors, residents, local businesses, associations and people) in inviting and caring for guests. 
 
7. Women – in 2009, more men than women were using social media and women’s purchasing power and style captured men’s attention. About time. So will 2010 be the year that women leap to the stage and start presenting at travel and tech events? Your guess is as good as mine. At the Phocuswright conference, women constituted less than 10% of the presenters but, as one of them was in charge of Google’s ad revenues, then maybe less = more.
 
8. Language – as many tourism businesses and enterprises rush to the developing world, where signs of the green shoots of recovery appear first, we’ll face a new challenge. The world is not WASP; cultures differ and people need to work in their own language. Expect to see a spate of translation services – automated and semi automated. Technology costs might go down but localization costs will make up for it. There might be a low cost solution (see trend 6) but you’ll have to wait till later in the New Year for my thoughts on that one.

 
9. Semantic or Synaptic Web – as humans rush up Maslow’s ladder in search of meaning, technology follows suit – hence talk of a Semantic Web. A new term that will crop up more frequently in 2010 is the Synaptic web – are they different?  Well the first is about deeper layers of meaning and the second is about connections and relationships. The network of the web is increasingly resembling the neural pathways in the brain. 

 
10. Collective Intelligence. 2010 will mark the end of the Age of the Individual and the emergence of a new form of collective thought  - a Global Brain - and action that emerges from the multiplicity of new, different and self aware connections. We’ll start to find ways of working without formal leaders and commands from above. We’ll emulate the working of computers while mimicking the behaviour of swarms. In 2009 a number of books on swarms and herd appeared on bookshelves – expect to see more in 2010 as we learn how to work across platforms, cultures and vast distances as a agile and adaptive teams. This is especially relevant to destinations. In 2010, expect to see DMOs focus on getting SMART and attending to the needs of the niche, smaller operators at the end of a "long tail."

And if this isn’t enough, the bloggers at TNOOZ have published their technology predictions for travel here. Surely enough food for thought to fuel and entire new year of feverish activity!!!

In Response to George Monbiot - The New Dividing Line

On Dec 14th George Monbiot wrote a cutting but insightful piece on the new politics. While he has titled the post “It’s About All of Us”, the content ends up focusing on "them" and "us". It was reproduced in the Guardian under a more militaristic heading: This is bigger than climate change. It is a battle to redefine humanity. 

He argues that the new dividing line in politics is not between right or left but between expanders and restrainers: those who believe that there should be no impediments, and those who believe that we must live within limits. He goes onto to say:

The vicious battles we have seen so far between greens and climate change deniers, road safety campaigners and speed freaks, real grassroots groups and corporate-sponsored astroturfers  are just the beginning. This war will become much uglier as people kick against the limits that decency demands.

While I dislike the language of wars and battles, I do agree with the fact the the divide exists, is growing and will widen before it shrinks.  

Fear is the force that is driving a wedge between these two groups. The expanders fear loss of control, position, power, wealth, comfort, familiar stuff (the list goes on).  Restrainers miss loss of access to cultural diversity, to well-being, biodiversity, health, community, security and happiness. 

It seems always to be about fear. Fear will trump ambition every time. But even fear runs out of steam when people have lost all – as Victor Frankl showed in Auschwitz. The human search for meaning stays alight among some amidst the darkest darkness. It’s that sputtering flame we must each kindle…

I wish I could write as eloquently as Monbiot – he can be convincing, except that there’s flaw in his thinking that comes from a flaw of perception. There are colours in our world. He has identified two modes of thought but not seen the connections that link and unify. 

I don't know about you, but there are  also colours in my personality – at various times I am an expander and a restrainer. Some degree of expansion is necessary, or entropy would take over and we’d all end up in a useless heap under our duvets. Some form of restraint is necessary or we’d all burst from satiation. George rightly alludes to the fact that each of us harbours a capacity for great acts of selflessness and goodness and horrific acts of selfishness and evil. I am “all of us” but so are "you" too – and from where you’re standing, the view is different. Before WW2, Carl Jung warned of the shadow that exists within each and the dangers of denying it. 

If humanity needs anything right now it’s to develop a universal capacity to grasp and feel comfortable with complexity, ambiguity even paradox.  It’s the ability to say “yes and” not just “yes but”. But in the same way our psychology has difficulty handling gradual threats and responds best to immediate danger, the media we have created (and especially the new, digital  social media) values the brief, the new, the instant, the “real-time”. Our thought processes are constantly interrupted, distracted and divided and our capacity to mull over an idea or article is reduced. Never was there such a need for our leaders to take time out to think (God forbid) but, when they do, we describe them as indecisive. 

Another new and promising writer, Jane Young of The Resonance Blog, has tried to capture this need to handle complexity in a slide deck that should enjoy wide distribution. Her blog is well worth a read too. 

Complexity & Humanity 2.0

View more presentations from ResonanceBlog.

I include it here not just because I enjoyed it but because it supports my last point – the dividing line (if there is such a thing) is not between people but modes of perception.  People can shift back and forth between different modes of perception relatively easily.  (In the illustration to the right, most of you can see an image of both a young  lady in a fine hat, and an old crone clad in scarf). 

One mode of perception views the planet as a living organism, a complex system continuously self-regulating and all forms of matter and energy as agents within that system, connected to and influencing all other agents. This paradigm necessitates a healthy respect for all other agents and an intrinsic, pervasive humility -  the complexity of the interconnections means that we never know how they might impact each other.

The other model sees the planet as a storehouse of resources that any set of agents (any tribe) can exploit ad infinitum for its own personal benefit. This mode of perception has developed its knowledge based on a paradigm that divides subject from object; that underplays the deep connections that constantly link the two;  and that assumes that agents can be neatly labeled, grouped, un-grouped and manipulated like the pixels on your screen. For as long as this paradigm “worked” (and it has for over 350 years) practicing humility was disadvantageous. What was needed was daring, courage, and boldness to break through barriers of ignorance and build new edifices that proved my tribe's superior intelligence and strength. 

After 350 years or so, it’s not just the physical resources that have been plundered and are running low, but a healthy sense of wonder; a willingness to realize that there is far more we don’t know about our amazing universe than what we could ever know. As students of nature we are all in kindergarten where a bit more hand holding would serve us well.  The old expansionist paradigm is losing its ability to describe our world accurately and predict the future - everywhere we read of systemic flaws, meltdowns and crises. 

So, methinks a real paradigm shift is finally afoot. 

If that's the case, then George, while  I respect your passion, eloquence,  intelligence, and wit, I reject your analysis of a new form of class struggle - even though I will fess up and state that I'm a moderate restrainer. If as you suggest, there are two mountains of thought separated by a chasm of misunderstanding, we need bridge builders and integrators not polarizers. Without such, it's gonna get a lot uglier….Let's not be responsible for that...It's not time for barricades but bridges......

Postscript

My tourism readers might be thinking - what has this to do with tourism?  Well everything. For starters,  I believe the tourism community can and should act as bridge builders. But I also see evidence for the perception division growing within our ranks as evidenced by recent press releases issued by the WTTC, the Ecumenical Council on Tourism and the UNWTO. More in next post!!

Possible Augmented Reality Innovation for Phocuswright Next Year?

• *    Have you ever attended a conference or business event and imagined how it would be great to have your name positioned on your forehead to avoid watching eyeballs failing to find contact as they search for the label known innocuously as a name tag but used as a social filter? 
•  *   Did you think that the ideas Pranav Mistry described in the previous post were too futuristic to be believable? 
• *    Have you wondered how Augmented Reality could be used in addition to finding nearby cafes, hotspots or bars that sell Stella Artois? 

If so, be careful what you ask for. The bright young folks at The Astonishing Tribe (TAT) have just produced a powerful demo eliminating the problem - whom do I talk to in a crowded room? What might we have in common? Simply whip out your iphone (of course) and point it at a person of interest (their face not their label) and layered upon your screen will be details of the individual which he or she has deemed relevant for the event. 

Would this app add value to an already amazingly good-value conference - Phocuswright, next year? or would it mean that, instead of looking at name tags, participants would be tripping over each other as they view their real world through the augmented lens of an iphone.  A new meaning for "stumble upon" perhaps? But then,  it won't be long before we'll have a nano camera attached to our bluetooth headsets (or equivalent)  that will deliver the relevant information orally and chance encounters - the source of innovation - will be few and far between. What a pity!

PS: Don't underestimate these guys - they hail from Malmo, Sweden the city that brought us Spotify....

Two more screen shots from the demo follow....

  

WTM Celebrates 30 years - video designed to encourage reflection

Thank you Dimitrios Buhalis for posting this video on Facebook. It's an 8 minute overview of the growth, evolution and potential future of what has to be the world's most global and pervasive economic and social phenomenon.Designed to inspire the 5000 exhibitors at the World Travel Market and the hundreds of thousands of visitors, who walk the trade hall floors,  to think reflectively about the future, it provides plenty of food for thought! It will be discussed at the Tourism 2030 event at WTM on 12th Nov - see here

Will Whitehorn, whose company Virgin Galactic aspires to move people carbon free, outside the earth's atmosphere, urged hotels to "become much more efficient through the use of solar, wind, waste and water power in order to live with the risk of expensive oil while dealing with a public that demands better, cheaper ecotourism".

While there were several heartening references to the need for responsibility, there appeared to be an implicit assumption that "industry" must also cater to what the public wants i.e. more, better, cheaper ecotourism...The Secretary General of the UNWTO, Taleb Rifai confirmed this by saying that "travel has become a human right, like the right to breath, the right to speak and the right to think" almost implying that any attempt to curb this appetite would be an infringement of those rights. 

Mr Rifai concludes with a bold and "optimistic" vision - "very soon, there will not be a single human being on ths universe who will not cross an international border as a tourist or as a businessman. This tremendous power of people moving all over the world is what is going to shape our industry and impact the world". 

You betcha... 9 billion people crossing an international border at least once a year equals a 10-fold increase in tourist arrivals...just as well they'll be flying in space. Now what kind of fuel will be used to defy the gravity sufficiently to lift off 9 billion souls eager to keep exploring? 

I'd like to think travel was a right but I think  its secondary to and dependent on the right to clean water, sufficient food to grow healthy bones, and a roof over one's head. So if Mr. Rifai's vision were to be realised, we've got much responsible work to do. 

Having spent my entire life serving this phenomenon we call tourism, I happen to really care about the future of the many dedicated and bright people engaged in it. But there won't be a future unless much higher standards of self-honesty and realism are applied. It's time to focus energy on creating a vision of a better , less harmful tourism and jettison ideas that we can continue with "business as usual." International tourism is a privilege NOT a right. It can bring benefits but incurs huge environmental and social cost - just ask the Venetians. Responsible tourism or Sustainable tourism will never fly unless both sides of the equation are recognized from the outset and we stop applying a woolly-headed, polyannnish, false optimism and got deadly serious about transformation.

Will DMOs* survive the next decade?

I was recently asked to write a paper on the likely changing role of DMOs. Having spent my entire career working with this institution in various parts of the globe, and intending to do so going forward, I’ve a keen interest in an accurate answer. 

This afternoon, two blog posts from very reputable sources caught my attention: 

Douglas Quimby from Phocuswright wrote a post titled Destinations: The Online Marketing Disconnect, justifiably bemoaning the fact that DMOs seem so unwilling to move significant chunks of their marketing budgets into the online space. I don’t know Douglas personally, but hope to meet up with him at the PhocusWright Conference in Florida mid November. I imagine him to be a bright, talented Gen X or Yer who ”gets it” i.e finds it impossible to imagine how destinations couldn’t see the obvious benefits of playing aggressively in the online space. 

The commentators to his post are each highly credentialed to speak and deplored the lack of appropriate measuring tools, lack of expertise and education. I suggested that the real problem is “culture” and to see why, please follow the thread…here.  As further evidence of the challenge, I’d  also recommend you read the last blog post from Vicky at Highland Business Research:  It Shouldn’t be This Difficult.   In this post, I can hear the frustrated anguish of someone who is incredibly talented and productive appear to hit a wall or be pushing a boulder up hill. I’m hoping it was her last blog post because she is sunning herself on a beach and has not given up the DMO community for good. 

The second very different post was from a DMO executive – one of the leading lights in social media (and, don’t get me wrong, there are many very talented people in DMOs pushing the edge of the envelope- see my blog roll as a starter. Troy from Denver was writing for the new e-marketing and travel site called, Toonz.com that should be bookmarked quickly by anyone in travel marketing. His post was called How The Industry Will Save the World – so you can see why it got my attention!!

Troy has a brilliant reputation for applying social media to marketing destinations.  So this was quite a step away from his normal territory. Having identified that climate change is an important issue, he appears to be applying travel marketers’ normal and contagious enthusiasm and proposes:  

The time has arrived to lend our voice to the congregation and become a part of the solution.  The travel industry…utilizing technology…can help lead the way.

Well I really hope so. And I welcome Troy and his highly talented e-marketing peers to join the conversation – quickly. But I doubt that the travel industry will save the world – if it’s at all fortunate, it might just save itself. But only if the DMOs recognize and own up to the fact that they are a major part of the problem. The transport cost of most international tourists constitute the bulk of carbon emissions. No one currently takes responsibility for that.  Tourism has to change if it is to make a positive contribution to a very different economy that is emerging from the melting rubble of the old. 

Take my word for it. There are no quick fixes. The current leadership of the tourism “industry” has first to shift its perception and see tourism as the analogue extension of the IT community – both simply connect people and places. They need to work together and fast to find a way of enabling the act of travel to coexist with the act of communication. Both have to find a way of delivering value without living beyond the physical means of the environment to support it. 

In summary – there are two major forces threatening and re-shaping DMOs: 

1. The need to deploy technology effectively or get out of the way; and 

2. The need to ensure destinations can live within the physical limits set by the host environment. 

DMOs could play a positive role in each endeavour but it will mean seeing things differently (a mindset shift); doing things differently ( a culture shift) and doing different things – a role change. Nothing serious – but certainly NOT “business as usual!!!”

To quote Troy – let the conversation continue but PLEASE may it soon lead to action. A good place to start is to join and support The Icarus Foundation, formed some 3 years ago to encourage the tourism industry to become more climate friendly. 

But  now we've started a conversation: what do think DMOs have to do to survive the next decade?

* DMO is the acronym used to describe Destination Marketing Organizations (responsible for attracting visitors to a place).

UK Tour Operators Lead in Thinking About the Future

Kudos to ABTA, British Airways, Carnival UK, Co-operative Travel, The Travel Foundation and TUI Travel plc  and Forum For The Future for leading the way towards some really thoughtful and intelligent debate on the future of outbound tourism.

The report, Tourism 2023, available here, should be mandatory reading for every tourism destination. It’s highly readable, full of substance and deliciously thought provoking. 

Even though it doesn’t quite achieve its own objectives – i.e. “to set out a clear vision of a profitable, successful future in which the travel and tourism industry recognizes its wider responsibilities to society,” it does makes a very good start. While designed to help the signatories identify and address the complex environmental, social and economic issues affecting outbound tourism, it contains enormous food for thought for all places that attract visitors.   

The talented team at Forum for the Future apply a scenario planning approach to paint a picture of four possible futures based on the inter-play of two key variables: the appeal of overseas travel and the presence of inhibitors to overseas travel. 


The four scenarios represent a caricature of a possible future but are described with compelling detail and logic. Sadly,  none is particularly attractive!

1.    Boom and Burst describes a world in which mass tourism continues to grow fast and furiously based on disposable incomes rising in developed economies and the middle classes of emerging economies exercising their right to roam the planet.  It’s a similar forecast to that outlined in the HBR article: Tourism: The Ticking Time Bomb and describes overcrowded, congested iconic destinations and the disappearance of wilderness. 

2.    Divided Disquiet describes a different world in which devastating impacts from climate change, resource scarcity and social unrest have rendered the planet as unstable and hostile; protectionism is rife, yet where the most popular form of  tourism is “doomsday tourism” with a few tourists wealthy or brave enough flock to see places before they disappear. 

3.    In the Price and Privilege scenario, high oil prices have also caused the cost of travel to soar. Many companies couldn’t cope with the efficiency gains needed and went out of business. Capacity shrank and long-haul travel reverted to the aspirational luxury status associated with the turn of the century. 

4.    Carbon Clampdown describes a possible future in which the high cost of carbon , combined with growing environmental awareness and concern, make travel both uneconomic and anti-social.  Tradeable  carbon quotas restrict demand and economies are more localized. 

I simply cannot do justice to this useful piece of work  in a short blog post, so will likely revisit the topic – often. I am also loath to be critical as I would hate to discourage others from showing such thought leadership. But there are some serious limitations – most likely reflecting the fact that a consortium commissioned the work and each company would probably like to think and respond to its findings privately.  

While no one can argue with the six motherhood principles for creating a sustainable future, the three areas where they say urgent action is needed sound lame and self serving: 

1. The industry needs to demonstrate and monitor the economic benefit tourism delivers to destination communities to help protect them for the future and increase their appeal and value to customers. (The insertion of the word NET before benefit would have made this objective so much more credible as it’s the destinations that generally bear the external costs and not the tour operators)      

2. Low carbon innovation – the industry needs to focus on trialling new technologies and taking them to scale; increase energy efficiency, reduce waste and use more renewables. (Of course, but why not set a big hairy audacious goal and say that enterprises based on the grownd will go carbon neutral while we strive to find less harmful ways of getting airplanes to stay airborne?)
                     
3. Driving Customer demand – develop further insight into what will motivate people to take sustainable holidays. (At no point is a “sustainable holiday”  defined nor is the problem addressed. Vacationers could all stay at low impact facilities and drive around in hybrid or electric cars but if the industry as a whole continues to grow at 5% per annum and increases its demand for concrete and kerosene at the same rate, it wouldn't qualify as sustainable)

Tourism 2023 does conclude with a proposed strategic approach that outlines the areas above in slightly more detail and provides one important target – that the outbound industry will sign up to the WTTC target of a 50% reduction in emissions by 2035. It also references the Global Sustainable Criteria but doesn’t go as far as Walmart, for example, in setting a Sustainability Index for the members of the supply chain. 

In addition to the good content and imaginative scenarios, the report does, however, throw down the gauntlet to the managers and policy makers in tourism destinations everywhere.  These are the agencies that should be doing this kind of work – aren’t destinations supposed to determine the kind of tourism they wish to attract and help their businesses operate in a sustainable and beneficial fashion and ensure that their communities benefit not suffer from the influx of tourists? It’s sad and ironic that such public agencies have been upstaged by a handful of tour operators but not necessarily a bad thing….over to you DMOs...... The stage is now set for some action from you…..How are you thinking about the future?

My iphone is useless

Hopefully that got your attention. 

The truth is, I love my iphone.

It was love at first sight – a multi-purpose device that kept me connected, soothed my spirits with its music, entertained, educated me during long flights with its videos, brought me up to date with the activities and musings of my Facebook friends while standing in front of the baggage carousel, prevented me from getting lost, told me how much to tip and did the currency conversion, even taught me some useful Mandarin phrases. But the real appeal was and is its design. It’s so pleasing on the eye and functional….wistful sigh….

So why my headline – well it works fine at home but when I need it – i.e. when I am roaming around the world – it’s too expensive to use. I look longingly at the 20 downloaded applications but can’t use them

After one week in Vancouver, I received a text from my friendly but monopolistic UK service provider informing me that because of over use, they were restricting my service.  They gave me a number to call but when I tried it, I was informed that the number was inaccessible from outside the UK!  So much for being in touch while mobile….Then, when I got home, I discovered a bill of £799.00. So much for falling in love….. 

So I can’t fault Apple for that – or can I? In the UK they initially  did an exclusive deal with O2 who have made a mint out of people like me….Let’s hope Vodaphone  - who will now compete with O2 - can give them a run for their money but,  as I am tied into a contract, I am not yet free to move. 

Now I have just spent three weeks on the road (three countries – Finland, Australia and New Zealand) and, as you can expect, turned data roaming OFF!  So much for the benefits of 3G. But that makes one utterly dependent on wifi availability and nothing prepared me for the challenges of traveling down under where wifi seems to be considered an alien from outer space. Broadband is not a commodity down here – it’s treated as a scarce jewel.  Few hotels offer it and the Ethernet connection in the room, which ties you to a desk and computer, is expensive, IF you can get it.  Even if there is a wifi connection in the lobby, you have to sign on in your room first so that renders access by iphone impossible. 

Here in sunny Auckland the sky may be blue but I can't access the cloud while I'm out enjoying this delightful city. So much for software as a service and the rise of cloud computing - if you want to be part of that revolution that is supposed to be the death of distance, you'll have to huddle together in cities with high speed broadband. 

Now it’s not my nature to blame. The problem is that none of the providers in this connecting ecosystem seem to acknowledge that they are in the connecting business nor realize their inter-dependence, nor the impact on customers. Apple sells its phones, mobile providers get their monthly pound of flesh, and hotels source an income to replace their dwindling mini bar sales. 

Douglas Wright has written an interesting piece called Destinations and Online Marketing Disconnect.  A good article, but IMHO the problem goes deeper. Tourism destinations are in the connecting business big time but many haven’t realized that to be really supportive of their customers they are the ones who should be putting pressure on the telecoms industry and their own members to ensure blanket free coverage of wifi in all major connecting places; airports, hotel rooms and lobbies, cafes, public spaces and meeting rooms etc etc.**** Or be really imaginative and offer a local SIM card that provides really useful visitor information, acts as a privilege pass and accesses special offers. I’d happily pay for that on arrival as the time saved from endlessly logging in and out of multiple systems, remembering arcane passwords, or paying for wifi in one hourly increments might make it a good investment…..

If, as Charlene Li suggests in Groundswell, as many as 84% of customers rely on the opinions of people they know before making a major purchase, then surely the objective must be a). ensure existing visitors want to rave about their experience and b). make it easy for them to do so while their positive feelings are fresh?   In short, if visitors are our partners on whom we depend upon to rave and refer and share their experiences, isn’t it time we made it easy for them to do so?

**** Postscript - the good news is that New Zealand's new government is rectifying this situation as quickly as it can with a mammoth investment in broadband to match the stellar attractions and hospitality that Kiwis are famous for! 

National Parks in Peril from Climate Change

Climate Change is the greatest threat our national parks have ever faced. That's the conclusion of a new report we're releasing today, along with the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization. National Parks in Peril highlights the 25 national parks most at risk.

via switchboard.nrdc.org

The "we" referred to above is the NRDC - that has issued a comprehensive report on current and future impact of climate change on the national parks in the US. Given that National Parks in Canada are likely to experience greater warming levels, such a study for Canada's parks would be timely. Please let me know what might exist. Go to the NRDC site for the report and check out the interactivity supporting this map showing the impact on western US. 

The livelihood of thousands of people involved in tourism around such parks in North America will be negatively affected over the next 20 years and,  given that during that short period, we know that global energy demand will rise by 50%; global demand for food will rise by 50% and water availability will decrease by 30%, the impacts on scenic values, ecosystems and biodiversity both in the Parks and out of them will sadly worsen.  Whether the tourism industry acts to avoid such changes depends on whether it really does care for future generations.

Any state, provincial, or national DMO that fails to include a strategy for carbon reduction in its future strategies is failing both the industry it serves and the future generations that might be their clients.