Specialize! Specialize! Specialize! OR First specialized, then generic.

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!