The other
day, I got the opportunity to talk with my fellow Touristologists (The best
audience in the entire world as I tweeted
) and a set of the best professionals working or willing to work in the tourism
sector. There were other charismatic people as well, but as you know, I’m very
good at focusing on Touristology! It was
an interesting experience! We only had 10 minutes to explain our ideas so it
was an opportunity to show our ability to go straight to the point and talk
about the most important things we were desiring to convey.
To me, it
was an easy decision! Which are the most important things for a Touristologist,
for a tourism destination, for a hotel, for a travel agency, for any
organization working in the tourism sector?
1) Local
versus International. Nothing wrong with playing local tourism (inhabitants or
tourists already here) BUT if you claim to be an expert in the tourism sector,
you have to prove it playing in the big league of international tourism.
2) First
specialized, then generic.
3) We have
to create chains of value able to work as a single organization. In the same
way that a successful implementation of Revenue Management implies to break the
silos between departments (booking, marketing, finance, information
technology…), a competitive chain of value has to work as a single
organization.
I talked
about these three ideas, but in this post I want to focus on the second one.
So, first specialized, then generic.
When you
offer something generic usually you have to mark down the price and get fewer
margins because you leave the chain of value’s leadership into the hands of
powerful intermediaries. You can call them a big touroperator, the most
powerful search engine in the world or the most successful group buying and
flash sales site.
Check out
these slides for a graphical representation:
On the
other hand, when you specialize, price isn’t the most important thing!
…But
you don’t have a lot of customers - quickly replies the person in charge of a tourism product that for
many years has vindicate the value of generic tourism or “the more the merrier”
motto!
…BUT
now you can use globalization and new technologies to create a social
networking site (SnS) and get 100 here, 50 here, 20 there and end up with a
good bunch of potential tourists located in different parts of the globe, talking
about something they love. Do you know what that means? Sooner or later one of them will say “maybe
it is a good idea to get together and have a face to face meeting” That sounds like
an opportunity for Touristologists to me! - Even quicker replies the Touristologist.
…But
this is not possible! All my metrics (by the way, related to my salary) value
my capacity to reach as many people as possible and to appear in as many sites,
blogs, magazines… as possible. - Again claims the expert.
Wrong
metrics! Sometimes less people means more profit, because, as all
Touristologists know, the profit comes from the chain of value’s leadership! - replies again the Touristologist
Who wants
to be an expert in tourism when you can be a Touristologist!
I agree
with Gandhi when he said “The expert knows more and more about less and less
until he knows everything about nothing.” To avoid ending up in this final
result you have to build up a strong nucleus, I mean 1,2,3 theory for
specialized tourism. Then you can pass from my own 1,2,3 to a super 3 following
the butterfly strategy. Finally, you can add layers … people that want to sell
interesting things or make a market research or whatever activity that you can
imagine!
Check out
this slide for a graphical representation:
Then you
don’t have to make any effort to attract generic tourism because your tourism
destination or your tourism enterprise has become a pull of attraction and...
...you
have become a Touristologist!
