Change | Owen Organization

Get ready……

Happy New Year and welcome to 2017!

I’m not one for making resolutions, mostly because I change my mind so much! If you want to change something, better to just to get on with it than wait for some arbitrary date to start. That’s my excuse anyway. Similarly, looking backwards doesn’t help because we can’t change what has past – although as numerous people (apparently) are quoted as saying – if you don’t remember past mistakes, you’re doomed to repeat them!

So, in the interests of progress, let’s look forward.

I’ve read two articles over the end of the year break that I felt were right on point. I’ve attached links to these so you can read them yourself.

The first was by anti-aging & sports medicine pioneer, and futurist, Dr Robert Goldman (http://ow.ly/Akd9307C9Bt). Dr Goldman pointed out some of the changes that society will be subjected to over the next few years. What is most striking is the speed at which these changes will take place. I remember talking to a scientist with British Telcom back in the early ‘90s who said that they knew absolutely what developments would arrive within 5 years; they had a pretty good idea what would happen in the next 10 years but beyond that they were ‘wishing and hoping’! as Dr Goldman suggests we are now in the exponential age, where changes occur at an ever increasing rate. In many cases these changes happen faster than most businesses can adapt. If you read the article you’ll see that many developments will directly affect the Travel and Tourism Industry.

The second piece was by Christopher Elliott in the Washington Post (http://ow.ly/Hrvl307C9Ob). Chris is suggesting that 2017 is the year many people, especially Americans, won’t be traveling on vacation. He cites many reasons and offers suggestions of how as a tourist you can benefit (please go and read it!) but for those of us in the industry there are three main takeaways. That tourist will be looking for alternative accommodations, authenticity and satisfying their needs for instant gratification.

I’ve talked to many travel and tourism professionals over the past year and we’ve discussed the inevitable changes that are happening and I can’t think of anyone who has disagreed. After all, the signs are really clear – very ‘in your face’ as it were. However, many are not willing to accept the speed of changes.

Take ‘alternative accommodation’ – Airbnb in particular. Home sharing has expanded incredibly rapidly. Airbnb are now the largest accommodation provider in the world with over 2.5million homes (incidentally, they own no hotel rooms!) yet most of the vacation rental companies here in Northwest Florida’s Northern Gulf Coast seem to think think they are not a serious threat to their business model.

The past year the 1.5 million guest arrivals to Florida via Airbnb represent 114 percent year-over-year growth. This comes as Floridians increasingly embrace the home sharing platform as an opportunity to earn supplemental income and make ends meet. The Airbnb Florida host community grew 74 percent in 2016 to a total of 32,000 hosts.

Yes, the local industry says, but it’s in cities, not here.
This is the total supplemental income earned by Airbnb hosts in our local counties:

Bay County $4.9 million
Walton County $3.3 million
Okaloosa County $2.9 million
Escambia County $1.8 million
Santa Rosa County $683,000

That’s a total of nearly $13.6 million. True, it’s only 10% of the income from Miami-Dade alone, but its still remarkably significant.

People love the idea of either staying with a local host, or staying in the home of a host which they perceive differently than the relatively anonymous experience of a cookie cutter condo or a ‘standard’ hotel room.

This contributes to the ‘authenticity experience’ that comes from home sharing, boutique hotels and the like.

Chis Elliott also refers to ‘Instant Gratification’. I know I’m always talking about the attitudes of Millennials and younger Boomers but they do have have a seemingly out of proportion effect on our industry. Their behavior appears to affect the other sectors of our audience too. The ubiquity of smartphones and the ability to access information from wherever you are, makes the almost impulse decision to book a vacation all too easy.

You’ve bought things on Amazon. How many times have you been tempted by the ‘people who bought this also bought this’ suggestion?

Think what will happen when someone suggest “How about we go to The Gulf of Mexico next weekend?”. You look at your phone and up pops the local CVB websites – you see what events are happening, and guess what? You can book the Airbnb accommodation right there, and the concert tickets, and the Uber from the airport. Of course there was link to book flights too but you’ll probably want to do that with the airline because you get your miles there – and suddenly Delta Air Lines are offering 1 mile for every $1 you spend with Airbnb if booked through them – oh, and Uber credits too.

We have a change to the whole vacation booking experience, which is not taking 5 or 10 years to develop but is happening as we speak.

Put a note in your calendar to contact me at the end of 2017 and tell me if there have been no changes to your tourism business during the year. To be frank, I don’t think you’d be able to do that by June!

Whatever happens is going to be exciting. The evolution of the world’s biggest industry has always been fascinating and the near future won’t disappoint I’m sure.

Please follow the Owen Organization blog on www.owenorganization.com, sign up for the newsletter and follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/OwenOrganization. Lastly, check out the weekly ‘Talking Tourism’ column in the Northwest Florida Daily News every Sunday.

Generational disruption and other buzz words…..

An old joke in the ‘80s and ‘90s was “ I bought a video recorder that was ‘so simple, a 5 year-old could program it’. I ended up having to get my 5 year-old to program it as I couldn’t’.”

That five year old is now likely a Millennial generation adult and is having a major disruptive effect on the whole of the tourism industry.

The Millennial generation now comprises around 25% of the US population according to the US Census Bureau and they travel a great deal. PhoCusWright reports that 71% take at least one trip of three nights or less, 42% travel internationally (compared with 28% of older travelers), and they are twice as likely as older generations to take longer trips of 14 nights or more.

The Millennial generation also travel differently than previous generations in that they don’t always stay in hotels. They stay with friends and they use services like Airbnb. They don’t always use taxis, car services or rental cars – they use Uber and Lyft.

Unlike previous generations, they may take more trips but spend less. They are more connected, with 90% owning a smart phone – compared to 57% of older travelers – which 66% use to shop or buy travel. They use a wide variety of sources for their research and booking from OTAs, review sites like TripAdvisor and of course peer advice shared through a whole raft of social networking.

According to Samantha Worgull of ‘Hotel News Now’ and PhoCusWright, Millennials tend to book at the last minute with 23% booking less than one week before departure.

They seek experiences and want to share those with their peers and families through social networks. Experience is the whole raison d’etre for their traveling. No matter if this foodie, eco-tourism, adventure or pure excitement. The simple fact is that this group want to do more than lie on a beach.

To return to the old joke about video recorders, those same adults who sought advice from their children are now Boomers and are again seeking advice from their Millennial offspring. They want to where and how to buy their travel. They want reassurance that Airbnb or Uber are safe.

Marcello Gasdia, senior analyst of consumer research at PhoCusWright said during a recent conference “Millennials have been the trend setters, they are the ambassadors of technology.”

So, this is the disruptive influence the Millennial generation is having on the whole tourism industry:

They book late
They look for value
They seek experiences
They share their trips with others
They research intensively
They influence older travelers

How does this affect the traditional providers of tourism products?

For airlines and hotels the loyalty of the Millennial traveler cannot be guaranteed. Many fewer are members of loyalty programs, 22% compared with 41% of older travelers. The inference is that they may not trust the advertising and promotion of established companies blindly. They are more likely to take advice from friends and independent reviews, and change their booking habits accordingly.

Travel agents as we knew them are largely a thing of the past, particularly in the USA. In Europe and Canada the situation is slightly different but certainly the old style travel agent is dead. In their continuing quest for value, On-Line Travel Agents (OTAs like Expedia) are well in the mix to seek bargains and value. Anything that is not an ‘experience’ like a conventional hotel room or condo becomes a commodity, to be booked wherever the best deal can be found – preferably at the last moment.

The last minute tourist is still looking for the destination experience, the tour (hopefully not conventional but personally led by a local!) or activity will probably be left until arrival when the weather and local area has been checked out. Tour and activity booking specialist TripShock! confirm that most of their bookings are made after a guest arrives in the destination. Where does the Millennial tourist find the information? Again, peer advice or advice of a local. Local tourist boards (CVBs, Chambers of Commerce and similar organizations) are seemingly trustworthy sources, particularly in areas where the likes of TripAdvisor or Expedia do not have much content (Virtually everywhere except places like Orlando, New York or Las Vegas!).

The problem with local tourist organizations is that on the whole they further refer visitors to individual tour providers for follow up. Given the attention span of website visitors, they want to get advice and book there an then, not have to make lists and do even more research.

Experience from tourist organizations in New Orleans shows that if they offer advice and reviews and then enable on-site, immediate booking it results in more bookings for local businesses, happy tourists and a bonus of commission payments to the tourist board.

Disruption is a current buzz-word, but the Millennial generation has disrupted life in the tourism industry worldwide. Not only by their different travel habits and use of technology; their search for ‘experience’ and value, but also their influence on the other generations of traveler. Particularly the Boomer generation. The important factor with this group is that they have more opportunity to travel and have a higher disposable income. They also learn fast when it comes to technology.

The Boomers also learnt, back in the day, to listen to their offspring……

Not willing to just sit on the beach...... — Not willing to just sit on the beach……

Plus ça change…….

I read an article recently that prompted me to think about how the purchase of travel, and associated products, has changed over the years. More importantly it made me think about how things have stayed the same.

The article was published by organization Tnooz, which is a global provider of news, analysis, commentary, education, data and business services to the travel, tourism and hospitality industry. A sort of Owen Organization on steroids! It was pointing out how travel marketing has become more frustrating than ever because the cost of acquiring customers in the digital age has become very high. The article can be found here http://ow.ly/swbP304mz1e

Back in the ‘80s and ‘90s I was involved in a company selling long haul travel to people in the United Kingdom. The customers wanted to buy air tickets, accommodation and tours that would allow them to travel to Australia and New Zealand. Naturally this wasn’t an impulse purchase, and certainly in those days, it would be termed ‘a trip of a lifetime’. We found that although the customers would phone our offices and have long, long conversations about their proposed trip, many of them wanted to actually visit us in person. I’m assuming they wanted to make sure that we weren’t going to take their money and disappear into the night! These folks would travel a great distance to see us, often half way across the country. They’d arrive with great folders of information that they had gathered over a period. By the dates of the ads they’d torn out of newspapers, we could tell that they had been collecting info often for some years.

It wasn’t just one or two travelers who behaved like this, it was the majority. I guess that if you’re about to have the ‘trip of a lifetime’ then you would be tempted to take a long time in putting it together. The trouble was, that this was’t in general, a one off trip.These customers were ‘frequent fliers’ with us, although frequent meant once every two or five years.

That didn’t mean that they only travel to our destinations, but went on other excursions in the intervening periods, and presumably they put as much research into those trips as they did with the flights ‘down-under’.

That process all happened in the pre-internet days, when research meant reading magazines and newspaper articles. It required the tearing out and keeping of numerous ads from the travel sections of the national press. Watching every travel documentary they could find was almost compulsory. These customers knew more about ‘our’ destinations than we did.

The internet and the World Wide Web changed all that of course. Instant access to information, price comparison sites, peer reviews and OTAs – on line travel agents, have consigned all that to the dim and distant past. Or has it?

More recently I’ve worked with travel companies and destination marketing organizations who have been grappling with how to best spend their money to acquire customers. A great deal of thought has gone into when and where to place ads. Given the ability to track responses to digital ads and to measure the open rates of newsletters it’s understandable that those in charge of the budgets want to know, definitively, what is working and what isn’t. This is all well and good if we assume that all travel decisions are made on the fly and travelers do the same thing year after year.

Making those assumptions – impulse buys and repeating past decisions – encourages the marketeer to place trackable ads and then cease making ad buys that don’t result in immediate bookings, or at least bookings that can’t be linked to a particular campaign. However we must look at the the way people actually book.

A customer sees a print ad in a glossy magazine that prompts their interest. They ‘file’ that away in their memory either consciously or more likely unconsciously. They don’t remember the phone number in the ad, or the ‘trackable’ URL. While driving they hear a radio ad about the same destination. To be honest it’s unlikely they will stop and write down the phone number or URL and so, that’s just another memory. By some miracle the potential traveler either sees something on-line or maybe even searches for info on their iPad or phone. They may bookmark the info for later or perhaps even respond to the ad for more information. Enter the dreaded cookie that tracks their every on-line move, and suddenly every on-line ad they see is about that particular destination, hotel, airline or cruise. Magic! The DMO, or advertiser now knows everything about them and sends out teasers and newsletters. The success of those original print ads and radio spots is called into question. They did not, as far as the digital marketeer knows, result in a booking so it makes sense to stop that particular channel spend.

Our potential traveler now responds to the email they have received. They may forward the email to a fellow traveler or they may just click on a link. More likely, they’ll just remember the general email rather than the full link to the page they viewed. They’ll then go another device – the work based PC, or a phone or other screen to get more info. Of course there’s no cookie following that move, and they may even be using different email address for each inquiry.

Although as marketeers we may rewarded with the trackable booking, it’s more than likely that the ‘thread’ of the booking is lost numerous times.

Another distraction is the length of time it takes to make a decision. I can’t remember the number of times we’ve seen a destination on a movie or in a magazine and said we must go there – this year’s out of the question because we already have plans but next year’s a possibility or the year after…..

Down here on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico we had the tragedy of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010. The resultant exposure that region the received was the silver lining in that particular cloud. BP were forced to spend millions in the following years. CVBs along the coast worked together to promote the area but more importantly the media (bless ’em!) flooded the airwaves with images of our pristine sugar white sand and emerald green waters. Whatever their apocalyptic message was at the time, the names of Destin, Panama City Beach, 30A, and Pensacola became embedded in the psyche of people who had never heard of us before. Since then, tourism numbers to the Gulf Coast have continued to rise aided by the activities of CVBs (often in spite of the efforts of CVBs!). The area has even attracted groups of visitors who would never have thought of coming previously and now remember that the Gulf is a place to go, even if if they can’t remember what lead them to that thought.

So, have things changed? Maybe. The ability to track the source of bookings is there but definitive answers to what works is absent in the vast majority of cases. Although tourists make last moment buying decisions, those are usually based on ‘bucket lists’ formed over a long time.

To go back to original thought, that it’s becoming more difficult to know where to spend your marketing dollars, yes it probably is. There are many more channels, more opportunities and higher costs. However, people behave in much the same way as they always have.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Twickenham Travel's corporate travel department in the late 1970s. Not a computer in sight! — Twickenham Travel’s corporate travel department in the late 1970s. Not a computer in sight!

The tip of the day

The Economist recently published an article about tipping in the USA. The main thrust was that we Americans are as confused about tipping as the rest of the world is confused about our tipping habits. It made me remember an incident that happened to me way back……

I’ve been in the travel industry since Methuselah was a boy, and have been fortunate to have traveled to a great many places, including here in the US. On this particular occasion I was the host to a group in a New York restaurant. A great meal, good service and an enjoyable if not spectacular experience. I left a tip of 15%, which would be considered very good in the UK. Imagine my surprise at being approached by the Maitre d’ who asked what had been wrong with the meal. I told him nothing was wrong, it had been a perfectly good evening. I was told in definite terms that I should be tipping at 20-25%.

In Europe, 10% is pretty much the norm. In some places in Scandinavia, and certainly in New Zealand, tipping is considered an insult, and may result in a tirade from the person tipped – just don’t do it!

It’s true that we should be aware that different cultures around the world expect different behaviors and we should be aware of that when traveling. But should we be as guarded traveling in our own country? Surely a tip is a tip, wherever we are in the USA?

I’ll let you read The Economist piece yourself (it’s at http://ow.ly/xStZ303ZhdX). It’s worth a look if only to add to your confusion.

This also let me to consider something that’s been happening here on the Northern Gulf Coast of Florida, particularly the piece known as The Emerald Coast.

The area has traditionally drawn tourists from the whole of the South East, anywhere within a 10-15 hour drive to Destin, Pensacola and Panama City Beach. The tourists tend to peak during the period between Memorial Day and Labor Day – the ’90 Days of Summer’. This, due to schools breaking later and going back earlier, has been reduced to about ‘The 60 Days of Summer’, but that’s another story. Suffice to say, the market is mainly families who drive in. They are traditional in their approach and the families have in the main, been doing the same thing for up to 40 years. Things are changing though…

The shortening and concentration of the family travel period has opened up the rest of the year to new markets – people who can travel without kids, and at short notice. Primarily Millennials and Zoomers (Younger Boomers, Boomers with Zip!). These groups have different requirements than the families. They want experiences, great food, the ability have what they want when they want it – now. They also behave differently. Zoomers tend to have more disposable income, and Millennials tend to do more physically demanding experiences – although those are both very much generalizations.

The local Destination Marketing Organizations (DMOs – Tourist Boards, CVBs etc.) have been consciously aiming their marketing up market. Going after more affluent sector of tourists. Their efforts appear to have worked. For the 30A area (South Walton) this has certainly worked. Their area has been inundated with high spending customers. In fact, let’s face it, they’ve been inundated with all types of customers!

The same appears to be true of all the areas along the Gulf Coast. Tourist Development Tax (Bed Tax) is up across the region, and Okaloosa in the center of the region, appears to have had bigger tax growth than other neighboring DMOs. However, many local restaurants, particularly in the Destin area are complaining that tourists are not spending like they used to. Is this a justifiable view?

I’ve spoken to a number of restauranteurs and to accommodation providers. The later have said that their occupancy has been up, and their ADR (Average Daily Rate) is also up. One hotelier told be he goes out into his parking lot on Memorial Day and checks out the kind of vehicles that are there. He said that this year, there were far fewer trucks and many more upscale SUVs. That would surely show that the income group is probably rising. He also said that on the beach there were far fewer cut-off T-shirts and many more upscale bathing suits. There’s no real science in this approach, but he’s been doing this for many years an he can see a distinct correlation to the amount spent.

Pushing the restauranteurs on if they are actually seeing a decrease or stagnation in the amounts visitors are spending led to a revelation. It’s not the amount of the bill that’s declining, but the amount of the tips.

Tips in Florida generally (in restaurants) have been around 14% for some years. That’s a marked difference from other parts of the US. The North East is closer to 25%. The reason for this is possibly due to the number of overseas guests visiting Orlando, Miami and the other internationally visited areas. Remember that overseas visitors are used to tipping less. Up here in the Panhandle though, tipping has been closer to 20% traditionally. Not too many international guests up here, so what’s going on?

Digging further and doing some research I’ve found that there are other factors in play. It appears that Millennials tend not to tip at the same rate – check out the following articles (http://ow.ly/Xd9u303Zprh. http://ow.ly/26Vo303ZpBs) and try Googling ‘Tipping and Millennials’ and see how much confirmation you get.

It also appears that Zoomers will not just tip at 20% regardless. They modify the tip depending on the service received.

…and it’s not just those groups who are modifying their tipping habits. Locals, family groups and The Military are all reviewingtheir habits, subtly and subconsciously.

It’s not as simple as ‘we’re attracting the wrong people’. It appears we’re attracting the right people, but those visitors are not behaving in the way they used to. Another indicator that the tourism market is changing and it’s changing rapidly.

There’s a tip for you!

How to save a generation – from itself

Having been in the workplace for a long time and having always been in the travel and tourism industry, I consider it necessary – no, a duty – to take vacations. To travel to new and exciting places and have a good time. For me, the new experiences added to my professional knowledge. They gave me more ammunition to use in persuading my customers to spend money on travel, or allowed me to help my business travelers.

Now back in pre history, without the ever-on email, global communications and such, taking break always meant coming back to uncompleted work, piles of letter, lists of folks to be called back. That was the downside. The upside was the comments about the suntan, and the ‘Don’t you look rested’ remarks. Again, being in the industry helped and most folks I worked with and for looked on travel as an educational experience.

Indeed, one company insisted that in addition to vacation time, all our employees, from the front line staff to back office specialists like accountants and maintenance people took a long haul trip once a year – we were a long haul tour operator. We provide the ticket and the time. The idea proved its worth over and over. The people we worked with were motivated, knowledgeable, rested, and loyal.

A recent report by ‘Project:Time Off’ is called The Work Martyr’s Cautionary Tale – How the Millennial Experience will Define America’s Vacation Culture. It’s available to download for free.
http://ow.ly/gsDi303tDQb

It’s a fascinating and, to be frank, depressing work. It’s worrying from the point of view of a fellow human being, but frightening for our tourism industry. Although the report studies American attitudes, I have a feeling it applies to many nations.

Apparently the definition is based on belief that:

No one else at my company can do the work while I’m away
I want to show complete dedication to my company and my job
I don’t want others to think I’m replaceable
I feel guilty for using my paid time off

The workers who fit that definition tend to be slightly more female (52%), slightly less likely to be married (55% are married, compared to 62% overall), but what is most alarming is that they are overwhelmingly Millennials. More than 43% of work martyrs are Millennial, compared to just 29% of overall respondents.

I find all this strange given that this demographic have all the tools to take vacations, yet remain ‘in touch’ if they want to. Ubiquitous internet connectivity provides the means to avoid the backlog when you get back, or the ‘not being available’ worry – if you feel unable to cut the ties for a few days.

I’ll leave you to read the report, which if you’re in any sort of supervisory position you should. The future health of your employees and your organization depends on you being the change agent to modify this crazy mentality!

I mentioned this report to my researcher-in-chief (my wife!) who lead me to a Washington Post article (http://ow.ly/VHpX303tBEr) about why Millennials apparently eat cereal. Long story short, although it’s simple to pour the

Breakfast at the Ashford Manor in Watkinsville GA. Definitely worth leaving for!

cereal out of the box, and add milk, you have to clean up the bowl and spoon afterwards! No comment on the apparent laziness of this, it’s more to do with needing to be working rather than cleaning. This also gives a reason for the massive increase in the sales of coffee pods which grew by 138,325% (yes, you read that correctly) between 2004 and 2014. I actually do approve of coffee pods, as the alternative to me was a fancy coffee machine which I felt I had to use. That resulted in way too many espressos a day….but I digress.

So the need to concentrate on work appears to be the reason for not taking vacations and not eating cereal. Interesting sociological points.

However, let me address my fellow travel and tourism professionals……

What are WE going to do about it? (The lack of vacations, not the breakfast choice)

Hopefully as they age, the Millennials will chill out and start to consider their position. They’ll realize that there’s more to life than always working, and that dedication to work and vacationing are not mutually exclusive. In the meantime we have the Boomers and Generation X to rely on. Although not for long. If this mindset continues, it could spread both up and down the generations.

How does the Industry react and how do we – who depend on people visiting our hotels, resorts, attractions, locales and areas; on using our airlines, car rentals, trains, buses etc – make the vacation experience compulsive?

It appears that Millennials only listen to their boss, with 30% saying the boss is their most powerful influencer. Boomers on the other hand list their families (25%) and their doctor (21%) as the most powerful. Only 13% of Millennials consider their doctor – which is not surprising given their age. Perhaps the Tourism Industry need to deal with the boss. Making deals with companies to persuade their employees to travel for leisure? Allowing employees to tack leisure trips on the end of business trips? Using leisure travel as a reward for good work?

I don’t have all the answers (call me for some of them!), but it is a question that our industry needs to address – maybe while you’re relaxing on vacation….

The one constant thing.

Back in 500 BC, tourism wasn’t much as we know it today. However, in Ephesus in what is now Turkey, a gentleman called Heraclitus was pondering, as ancients tended to do. “Change’ he said (in Greek) ‘is the only constant in life’.

We can’t look into the future with any certainty, and no matter how informed or clever we are, there’s always something ready to throw a wrench (or spanner, for my English friends) into the works.

This certainly applies to tourism, of course. We know that nothing will remain the same. The visitors of today will age, and with age comes changes in needs and changes in desires. Possibly also changes in circumstances. Different demographics emerge – see the rise of the Boomers and how as their children grew and left home, their vacation choices changed. The emergence of the Zoomers – Boomers with Zip – who seem to be mirroring (but with more money) the ways of the Millennials. This Millennial group are always touted as having completely different needs to prior generations, but research seems to be proving that generalization wrong, or at least to be too simplistic.

Then there’s the change from where visitors come. On a local level, that shows up when a neighboring state or country experiences a change in fortune (for better or worse) that increases or decreases visitation. On a world wide level the emergence of new economies has major impacts. Look at the enormous increase in world travel from China and India. Of course the ‘wrench in the works’ law comes into play, and the burgeoning Brazilian market (for the USA in general and Florida in particular) has taken a major hit with Brazil’s economic woes. Same applies to Russia. However in the long game, these are probably blips.

The thing is, tourism is increasing and has been for many decades. It’s an almost unstoppable effect as humans are forever inquisitive and of an exploring nature (even if it’s ‘soft’ exploring!).

The chart above (From the US Department of Commerce and National Travel and Tourism Office) shows the continuing rise in tourists to the USA since just 1999. Yes, the ‘wrench’ effect applied following 9/11 in 2001 and again with the global recession of 2008/9, but the overall effect is ever increasing numbers.

The Skift report chart above shows the trend and forecast for international visitors to the USA. Since the post 9/11 dip and the wobble 2007/9 the results and forecast are ever upwards.

The World Travel & Tourism Council (in their Economic Impact 2015 – USA report
http://ow.ly/N9lX3039BTN) show that recent years have seen travel and tourism growing at a faster rate than both the wider economy and other significant factors like automotive and healthcare sectors. Visitors from emerging economies are now a 46% share of international visitors, up from 38% in 2000. The problems in Russia and Brazil will have a slowing effect but falling oil prices (which affect living costs, increases disposable income and lowers air fares) will provide a contrary influence. So, expansion of tourism is predicted to continue at a stronger pace than last year.

Back to Heraclitus. Change is the only constant. We know that the future will not be the same as the past. If we rely on doing the same things as we always have – if we don’t at least look at the possibilities for change, we’re going to fail. We have to reinvent, and we have prepare for change.

‘Destination Think’ interviewed Jan Hutton, the Chief Marketing Officer of Gold Coast Tourism (The Gold Coast is famous and well established tourist region on the east coast of Australia), Jan said:

“Our world is precarious, many legacy industries are crumbling and amid this mayhem, tourism is flourishing. Tourism is a top priority for every country around the world now, as a means to grow revenue, grow job creation, grow industry, grow investment, grow trade – it is the sharp edge that can lead to so much more for a destination. This means that we now need to be agile, relevant and smarter than ever in an incredibly competitive landscape.”

The whole interview can be found here: http://ow.ly/1tJr3039FsS

Getting back to Heraclitus again, we must be preparing for the change to our business that will inevitably arrive. We must look at where our visitors not only traditionally originate and where they are starting to come from, but where they will come from in the future. We must be ready to adapt to the way people will think not only in the near future, but in 5 and 10 years. We may not be completely accurate in our predictions, but we can make pretty reliable guesses. The one thing we will know for certain – things WILL change.