What Direction Now For Travel And Tourism?

For those of you who follow what I write and broadcast, you will have noticed a lot less activity since the pandemic began. Like everyone in the travel industry, I was waist-deep in operations for the last 18 months. I was rescuing my business interests. I also tried to help as many operators as I could.

?I am not shy to say the last 18 months have been the most challenging I have experienced in my business life. My ability or curse to be brutal in making quick business decisions ensured that I cast aside all that I could not save. A laser focus on what I could impact has resulted in fewer business interests.?

A combination of experience, effort and a big chunk of luck resulted in decent returns. I am currently exiting from being a hands-on adventure tour operator for the last 20 years of my life. The travel industry and the tours and activities industry segment that is my passion is at a unique point in history just now. It will require great strategy and leadership to navigate the future.?

Strategy For The Travel And Tourism 2021-?

Strategy at its core is simple!

?Travel businesses pre 2021 that executed on the most challenging things won.?

It's easy to say, but obviously, the execution was super hard. Those who mastered it did well. The bad news is this subsequent decade strategy execution has just got a lot harder. The pandemic, an unsure security landscape, technology developing at speed, and then off the scale environmental challenge will be a relentless wave of challenges that the travel industry must consider.?

Amongst all of this, maybe the most significant change is also happening? The psychology of the guest and changing habits and expectations. The travel industry does not exist without our guests, and they are starting to look at the world and their place in it differently.?

Thriving in a rapidly changing complex world will require the travel industry sectors and businesses to base their strategy on moral foundations, much more than any of us have done in the past.

More than most industries, the travel industry will constantly be in a world of discontinuity and uncertainty. Social and business norms are rapidly disintegrating, and to say that the travel industry is unsure would be an understatement. Anyone in the travel industry who tells you what the industry's future will be rather than what it may be. Treat with caution. Yes, that most certainly includes me! The only certainty is uncertainty.

The travel industry needs to take this opportunity to realign strategy with what the guests will expect in the future and what we can deliver. Design purpose-driven strategy built on foundation stones of :

1. Enhancing the customer experience.

2. Strengthening the natural environment.

3. Improving local societies that travel and tourism impact.?

It is easy to say, but of the charts, complex to do, and yes, it all has to be digital at many guest touchpoints. We will not achieve this in a top-down, industry-led way. The responsibility is with every travel company leadership to step up to and create the vision and culture to deliver.?

The traditional leadership approach to rely on data and analysis, which does bring great value, is not enough anymore. The challenges we all face are going to take more than that. It will take moral courage to do what needs doing. In the future company leadership, teams will be held accountable for improving everything you impact. Today you are just responsible for your own house and not the collective well being of everyone's. That is changing!

In these survival times, which I fully understand, it is so easy for leadership teams to spend their valuable time and brainpower focused on today and the near future. Please remember you have great management teams to work within real-time. It is your responsibility as the leadership team to take care of the future.

The different travel industry sectors have always been connected but often without anyone paying much attention to the connections. The connections between air travel and transport, accommodation and hospitality, tours and activities, and the overall entertainment industry run deep in the psychology of the customer's minds. Still, those in the industry love to treat them as separate entities because, as humans, we default to what is easy. The guest sees the day out or the weekend break as a journey of connecting experiences that involves travel, accommodation, food and entertainment.??

If you want to survive going forward, you will have to understand not just the customer's travel journey we all know so well: dreaming, planning, booking, experiencing and sharing. You are going to have to understand customers leisure time.

The nemesis of the travel industry of infrequent use will always be with us, and you could argue that the environmental challenges we all have to face may make travel more irregular. However, what if the current experiences you offer, be that transport, accommodation, hospitality or tours and activities, were all more connected in a digital way that aligns with our guests' expectations of tomorrow??

The leadership of travel and tourism, your time has arrived! It is time to grow up, take responsibility and create the connected future your guests will expect. Being an excellent individual experience will no longer be enough. The sector will have to fully embrace its place in the overall customer's leisure time experience.?

The guests want to be served better via digital channels and communications to enhance their whole experience. We may have them with us in our parts of the travel industry for X number of hours, but that day's guest experience is twenty-four hours. The pandemic has increased the speed at which digital is fundamental to the guest experience, and travel and tourism strategies must change to reflect this.?

A reasonably sized operator asked me the other day where they should be investing with now minimal resources. This answer applies to all operators of all sizes, from tiny to large.

1. Have you reduced your physical footprint costs by as much as you possibly can??

2. Have you reduced your fixed costs by as much as you possibly can??

3. Have you reduced your variable costs by as much as you possibly can??

Suppose you have done the above? Protect cash like you protect your kids; none of us knows if we are 10% into this ultra-marathon of 40%, we are certainly not at the halfway point yet.?

If you have done all that, revisit it several times to ensure you did not miss anything. Then take what resources of talent and finance you have left and invest them in digital projects. Projects should that will enhance your customer's experience and reduce your negative impact on the environment at the same time.

Digital is retail.?

Digital is communication.

Digital is service.

Digital is also now part of the product and experience.

Some sectors of the travel and tourism industry may never recover to the previous scale, and many sectors have lost vast amounts of talent. However, opportunity still abounds for those who can change to suit the current environment. We know that the most basic need we are we as humans strive for is social connection. Some studies say it has a stronger motivational pull than even food, water, and shelter.

Travel and tourism facilities that social connection and more than ever it is a hybrid of digital and face to face merged into just life. Demand for several years is going to be unfair with over demand in some destinations and under demand in others. However, overall demand will not be our challenge; our challenge will be to satisfy demand in a way that makes the guests experience much more connected than today. At the same time, at all stages, we must impact all stakeholders and the environment in a positive, not negative manner.

If the current challenges facing travel and tourism leadership teams are not enough, here is a prediction. I fully expect the environmental challenges we have to deal with over the next several years and decades to have a more profound impact on the travel and tourism industry than the pandemic has had! Time to get out and front and get ahead of what will change the industry.

We who work in the travel industry are lucky to do so. We have been presented with this massive opportunity to create a new travel industry fitter for purpose. It will be off the scale challenging to do so in a way that meets the demands of our guests and contributes positively to the environment.?

We are the industry most damaged by the pandemic, we are the industry with the most challenges going forward. We are also an industry that could be an example to others. Best we get on with it!

Pete