Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Touristology

Yesterday I had the opportunity to talk with a bunch of future Touristologists about one of to me most interesting topics “Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Touristology” I see gloaming eyes, desire to compete, hunger for success … I Also see eternal moaning heat-sitters, I-already- know- that-even- though- I- don’t- have- a- clue- about- what- you- are- talking- about   BUT I have trained my mind to focus on the first and make invisible the others and it works! It’s very easy the only thing that you have to do is pretending that ALL CAN BECOME WINNERS and your conviction, you inability to get demoralized become an emotional epidemic unable to resist!

As you know human beings are logical emotional and gregarious. If enough people are motivated ALL are motivated. More about that  here .

I love entrepreneurship. To be your own boss, to take your own decisions, to get the rewards and to train your mind to resist the punishment, because at the end of the day as Kipling said

“If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:”…

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Touristologist!

Well, maybe it wasn’t exactly in this way but you know that I have my own bias!!!

One of the most interesting ideas that I conveyed to them was that to become an entrepreneur is not an easy task. It’s the kind of activity that you have to do only if you are sure about its potential success. How do you know that? I’m glad you ask it!

Let’s see if I can provide a little framework (I love frameworks but you already know that!!!) in order to be sure that our baby enterprise is in the good track… An easy test to know if your business plan will be a success or… something that will provide the opportunity to began again more intelligently (Do you see as elegantly I skip the word failure!?!?!).

1) Internationalization:  You’re a Touristologist right? So, clearly your market is the whole world. In the same way that you can send your tourists to any place in the world and soon even further. Read  here for more information By the way don’t miss the opinion of Rick Tumlinson of the Space Frontier Foundation, “I hate the word tourist, and I always will .... 'Tourist' is somebody in a flowered shirt with three cameras around his neck.” Rick as entrepreneur you must be a start-rocket but as a Touristologist you are just a stone-rock!

I don’t say that to have as a customer Inhabitants or tourist already there is a bad decision. I just say that in order to be sure that you are competitive enough you have to play in the big league of international tourism.

2) Do you control your chain of value? Or at least other doesn’t control it? In order to remain competitive you have to control the chain value not only your business or tourist destination. That is, control over meeting places for international tourists (social networks, universities, mass media ...) outgoing travel agencies, transport companies, incoming  travel agencies,  providers of tourism services, or not related to tourism but clearly related to the their motivation for travel.. As a Touristologist you don’t have an enterprise or a tourism destination, you have several chain of values linking you to different segments.

3)  Finally, last but definitely not least, to create and use the Internet and associated technologies (Mobility, Data-mining, Geo-positioning, Web services ...) to manage the value chain as a system (point 2) in an international level (point 1).

I don’t want to create a tourism enterprise depending on subventions or always afraid of and international competitor creating something similar for a lower price.

I want to create a company endurable or at least something that provide the knowledge, the ability and contacts to create the next one. As Albert Einstein said “Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving”