Platform Business Model in Tourism.

These days I have been travelling in Web-Engineering land. I have been enjoying how to create Deep Learning models in TensorFlow and PyTorch, learning how to make them available in a native mobile application, trying to combine them with Augmented Reality and Blockchain… I like to travel in Web-Engineering land!!! BUT… You know, my Touristology’s voice never sleep! So, to me, it is almost impossible not to listen to experts talking about our beloved sector! In my opinion (WHAT DO YOU THINK????) there are two important missing ideas when they talk about Platform Economy and Tourism that I try to summarize in this post…

1) Experts in whatever applying their knowledge in Tourism… Stop highlighting the customer journey (inspiration, consideration/planning, booking, experiencing and sharing). Is this journey important? Of course! BUT in Tourism exists a REAL journey… the trip! For that reason, successful Tourism platforms will be the ones providing a customized experience from the beginning to the end of the trip.

This experience has to include all the services needed for the Tourist. Which services? the ones decided for and by the Tourist! Syndication technologies (Web Services and Web Scraping would help us to provide an INTEGRATED and SYNCHRONIZATATED digital customer experience. Welcome to Web 3.0!!!

2) Experts in whatever applying their knowledge in Tourism… Stop highlighting INDIVIDUAL experiences… start focusing on COMMUNITIES experiences. Start thinking in the power of groups created for and by the Tourists! Groups in order to get discounts for services. Groups in order to get customized product/services for the community, even to create, communicate and commercialized new product/services based on the interest of your community. Groups creation is a fundamental action for building profitable Tourism enterprise AND it is strongly connected with PLATFORMS where people go to share, meet… create GROUPS!

Here you can enjoy the vision of John Hagel. In this article, He conveys the necessity to change from the three I’s—intercept, isolate and insulate (the PUSH) to the three A’s: attract, assist and affiliate (THE PULL).

Intercept means getting people’s attention wherever they are and whenever you need them. Then you isolate, trying to get your message across without interference or distraction. Finally, marketers have tried to insulate people over time to create a walled garden where it’s just you and me forever.

On the other side, Attract means motivating people to seek you out (or as Touristologistly we say… Seduce!). Assist means helping people before and after a purchase, so they get more value and use from your product or service (Remember in Tourism, that means during the TRIP, the real one!). Finally, instead of focusing on one-to-one marketing, bring in any and all participants that could be helpful to the prospective buyer, creating a broader ecosystem of participants that the customer wants to interact with (So, create groups BY and FOR the customer. Create communities!!!)

In a nutshell, the customer journey? Of course, the REAL trip! Offering Transformative experience better satisfied during a trip and inside a Group! This will mean a better transformative experience for the Tourist and a more profitably enterprise for intermediaries/infomediaries and service suppliers! How on earth is possible that Hoteliers define groups as an important segment (we can discuss if Groups is a segment 8-)) and don’t promote and make easy for the Tourist the creation, communication and commercialization of their own packages!

Start building communities, if your Tourists don’t talk each other, don’t create groups of interest, and create, communicate and commercialize their own products focus on satisfying necessities better satisfied during a trip… you don’t have a community, you have a bunch of customers and above all else you are NOT making the most of the Platform Economy!!!

But.. JORDI! - all these concepts customized, syndicated, Pro-Am creating groups… are very similar to the ones we practice with the name Web 2.0 Business Model, right?

Exactly, Touristologists! Thanks for noticing it!

Touristology is a science and you are at least, as good as any other scientist, my fellow Touristologists!!!