This is a new year! Time to focus on new paradigms, time to focus on new business models, time to provide #Security to OUR Tourists, #Profitability to OUR Tourism Destinations and Enterprises and #Sustainability to our beloved sector! The Three Wizard Kings bring to me three specials gift this year. The first gift? Well, it is a GIF! Trying to convey the vision of the future of Touristology! The second gift? The courage to implement it! I got it! Doubts, fears and uncertainty have disappeared. Strength, hope and entrepreneurial power run through my veins! The third gift? A team to build it! I am building it! I have been a Touristologists builder for the last 30 years! I have been mentoring and creating teams for the last 30 years. Time to build one more time! The gift in gif format say to US...
Build your own communities: Some people have pass from the same 4P’s (product, price, promotion and place) for everybody to a customized 4 P’s for each Tourists. It doesn’t sound bad to me... BUT ... In the process, some of them have loose the power of GROUPS. Remember Touristologists, to build a community in your own platform is a source of profits for your Tourism Destination or Enterprise. Ignore old Business Models using Technologies: Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence and Augmented /Virtual Reality are technologies mixed in heaven to provide Trustfulness, Scalability and Ubiquity to OUR operations and processes. They also allow us to reuse OUR beloved concepts Customization (in Real-Time) Syndication and Pro-am to generate new business models. Disruptive business model? No, they just IGNORE old ones! I am talking (for instance) about.. Ownerships sharing: Instead of a single owner, multiple owners will own and rent Tourism Services. Services focus on value (NOT IN LOW PRICE). Micro-payments based on Non Fungible Tokens. Fungible? It means it can be easily replaced /interchangeable by something identical. Non-Fungible? It means that each one could have CUSTOMIZED information or attributes based on desires and acquired rights that make them UNIQUE. Examples? A plane ticket: Different passenger names, destinations, departure times and seat numbers ancillary services, recommendations of 3 C’s (I mean, Content, Commerce and Community). IoT mixed with AI can provide Scalability to this customization and easy payments. Blockchain can provide Trust. Spatial Computing (AR /VR ) can provide Ubiquity making this 3C’s to appear at your fingertips in Real-Time! Stream Processing: All this 3C’s will generate a wave of events (the World Wide Wave!!!) that Touristologists have to manage in order to provide solutions and opportunities to improve/transform the personal and professional life of the Tourists and members of his/her community around the world, Inhabitants and local Enterprises! We are wave data managers, and we have to combine it with our skills as wave managers of Tourists in order to get more secure, profitable and sustainable Tourism destination. We are Wave managers! We are Touristologists!!! Just remember, Touristologists! Put off your worries, BUT don’t put off your dreams neither your duties that you know you have to do in order to get them!
I ask this question to myself, Touristologists! When I was a child, I never understood mathematics. I didn’t like Math. Just learning formulas that I didn’t understand... Then, one summer, I found a wonderful teacher and I saw the meaning of Mathematics. I fell in love with it! In my first job as a Touristologists builder in the University, I was the Math Teacher, Financial Mathematics to be precise.
I was known for My Touristologists as “the teacher of Math”. It was in 1992! I was the teacher able to explain difficult things (Math) in an easy way. Can you imagine what my little me would have thought about that? Everything is possible in life WITH continuous effort, trial-error methodology and whatever it takes attitude! When, I began my Doctoral Thesis in 1996, one of the Teachers (The excellent PhD. Jaime Gil Aluja) was talking, all day long, about Fuzzy Logic and Neural Networks. At the same time, all the teachers and my colleagues were talking, all day long, about Internet. You know me, I always try to control everything (in my dreams!!!) So, I went deeper in my Math knowledge. I also learnt how to code for the Internet (HTML, JAVA (Specially, Servlets) Web Servers (basically, Tomcat) Data Base (Oracle and MySQL)... I chose Artificial Intelligence for my doctoral Thesis. Of course, trying to find a practical application to our beloved sector. In 2000 I got a “Cum Laude” for it! Since then, I have been teaching other subjects in Touristology. Nowadays, I am more focus on Marketing and the improvement of Operations and Processes of Tourism Destination and Enterprises. My favorite Operation? Yield Management. It is a wonderful combination of Marketing, Finance and Web-Engineering! I still am, from the point of view of My Touristologists, the Teacher able to explain difficult things (Math, How to be a Developer...) in an easy way! Then, in 2015, several technologies appeared and other reappeared. I am talking about Blockchain, Augmented/Virtual reality AND Deep Learning. Deep Learning? Well, it was an improvement of all the things that I had practice, long time ago, in my doctoral thesis. Neural Networks have now plenty of names: Artificial Neural Networks (ANN), Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN), Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) as Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM), Generative Adversarial Networks (GAN)... So, here I am... falling in love AGAIN with Mathematics mixed with Coding skills (nothing beats JavaScript for the frontend, Python for building Deep Learning Models, Java for Stream Processing, Swift for the Apple Ecosystem, Flutter for the Google one... AND, of course, visualizing new Business Models and how to improve Operations and Processes in our beloved sector! Here, you can visualize one example that make me Tweet... Working with one of my favorite topics #AI Applying it to OUR beloved sector #Tourism Visualizing new Business Models and Opportunities Implementing the operations and processes! How to add TRUST in the process? #Blockchain How to add #HybridExperiences? #AR and Virtual Reality I love #Touristology!!!
Do you see? In order to deal with new technologies in order to improve Business Models and Operations and processes of Tourism destination and enterprises, you have to work hard! You have to practice your Mathematics and Coding skills! If you really want to adopt new Technologies (Blockchain, Augmented / Virtual reality, Artificial Intelligence...) you have to do whatever it takes! Touristologists... when somebody or, even you, say to yourself “You are not able to learn Mathematics or Coding skills” Remember! They are excuses finders. They are not members of the elite club always looking for opportunities, always looking for solutions! You have to choose! You want to be an excuses finder OR... Do you want to become a Touristologists?!?!? If you choose to be a Touristologists. I will be here, waiting for YOU! This is NOT my blog. It is the blog of the ones who fell in love with Touristology!
These days have appeared new ideas trying to find alternatives for our beloved sector. I try to identify, classify and, together with my Touristologists, improve them in OUR classes, seminars, in-company training or start-up meetings. A fundamental question for our Science is... How to make a clear difference between New Segments focus on SERVICE/PRODUCT or focus on PEOPLE? This is of great importance in order to guaranty security for the Tourists and profit for Tourism enterprises and destinations. Because, if you have a New Segment focus on People... 1) You can create and build a community. 2) You can benefit from the power of Platform Economy and create your OWN platform. Then, 3) Inside YOUR platform, YOU (or your Tourists using PRO-AM allow you to achieve SCALABILITY) can create GROUPS. As you know, “GROUPS” is another word carved into my mind. There is nothing wrong with individual tourism BUT, If you want to run a profitable business… it will be easier, powerful, endurable… if we work with groups! Managing groups gives you more bargaining power, economies of scale, more leadership and control over you chain of value… so, what are you waiting for? 4) Even if to travel is not possible, your platform can offer to YOUR Tourists:
International contacts
The possibility to share ideas with similar or complementary people
To get news perspectives
Access to anything related to their motivation...
Let’s see a few clues in order to know if your Segment is focus on People and not in Products/Service?
Do the members of this Segment Identified themselves as…? Are they proud of going to a place that treat them as…? Do you think that they love to meet with other members that are similar or complementary to them in order to improve their private or professional life? You can describe them as a segment BUT if they don’t describe themselves, if they don’t share interests, if they don’t want to be together… then it won’t work!
Ok, let’s review some new ideas that have appeared recently for Hotels and Airlines.
First, some examples of Segments focus on SERVICE/PRODUCT A) Co-working or Co-living: Local people that can enjoy having more space, better equipment and a relaxed environment in a Hotel instead of working at home. You also can call it “Day-Cation” Here you can see the examples of Hilton’s WorkSpaces or Hyatt Hotels’ program, Work From Hyatt expanded throughout North America. B) Something similar, but in this case focus on Tourists is “Workation”. Tourists that can stay in your destination /hotel for a long-stay
C) There are enterprises offering to sell your rooms by hours (to work, for romantic experiences, to just relax before a meeting...) like you can see in this add by... By Hours
By the way, interesting idea to offer its services as a SaaS (Software As A Service) and to play a little bit of Platform Economy or Butterfly Strategy!
D) Ghost kitchen in their hotels or Airlines Here you can see the example of Singapore Airlines offering “dining experience inside the Airbus A380” Another option is the “in-flight dining experience in the comfort of their own home”
More information about the possible evolution of Ghost Kitchen here
E) Your balcony as the best seat. Transform the balconies of your rooms as the best stands of a Rock concert as VIK Hotel Costa del Sol did! F) Others try to play the Subscription game, a kind of Netflix for Hotels or Airlines As you can see, in this article "such transitions could take time to bear fruit: You can’t speed up subscription profits — you have to play the long game. That may not be the quick fix the hotel industry needs right now."
All these ideas are very interesting BUT, as more and more enterprises are doing the same we can see the evolution from a Blue Ocean to a Red one!
What about... Instead of focus on selling YOUR products, YOU focus on satisfying Specialized Segments’ needs? Necessities... solving problems... finding opportunities... In this trip! In any trip! In anything important for this Specialized Segment! Time to try Deeper Segmentation. Let’s see some examples of New Segments focus on PEOPLE 1) Do you remember, Singapore Airlines that we talked about above in this post? They also offer “behind-the-scenes tour of our training facilities for the entire family.” Do you see the difference? Find out what it takes to be a Singapore Airlines cabin crew and pilot. Enjoy additional activities like the junior cabin crew experience, flight simulator training session and so much more. You can provide a learning experience for PEOPLE, wishing to become a member of an Airline. OR to provide a bonding experience for single dads or working moms or.... You can create a platform focus on this segment, you can seduce the members of this community to create groups, you can seduce them to travel together in a Bubble trip! Shangri-la does something similar they have a problem of low occupancy during weekends because most of their customers are business people. They Touristologistly make the most of nowadays social tendency... I want to be the best professional BUT ALSO THE BEST Parent!!! So, you can promote to your customers… use you hard earned points of OUR loyalty program to appear in OUR hotel during weekends and enjoy especial activities for your kids. Not only you are a great professional you are the parent of the month! By the way, good example of Versions Of Me !!! The business people doesn’t appear during the weekends BUT yes, the lovely parent! You can read this article and see how they are practicing these ideas. “In 2017 Shangri-La Hotel, Shenyang, in Shenyang China, launched its second round of “K20 Activities.” This two-day training program, available to travelers and locals, pairs up to 20 children ages five to twelve with professionals at the property for fun “training” sessions that provide insight into the in’s and out’s of luxury hotel operations.” Interesting practice Shangri-la!!!
2) YurbanHotels is offering its Hotels in Barcelona as studios for film and advertising shootings. A wonderful opportunity to focus on this Specialized Segment focus on People. The ones that want to create the movie, actors and actress willing to participate, producers wishing to invest time and money in the process. You can create your own platform. Offer hybrid events. Create and manage bubble trips offering SECURITY to your Tourists and Profit for your Business...
Touristology is yelling to YOU.. Don’t focus on selling rooms, food and beverage or meeting spaces! Focus on selling whatever your Segment need, when they need it, in the way they need it! Are you listening to your inner Touristology voice???? Pay attention!
4) Or Disney Resorts allowing Dogs! It is NOT a Dog. It is a member of My Family!
4) Airbnbn now focusing on long-term stays Airbnb now focusing on new segments: Digital Nomads... Segments with necessities that will be better satisfied during a trip (international contacts/experiences, a boost of creativity, bonding experiences for professional or family groups…).
5) NH is offering Hybrid Events! They aim to Multinational Enterprises of groups of families. I am sure that you can visualize more examples of Deeper Segmentations Touristologists! The future? You visualize it! You design it! You create it!
6) SchoolCations “The $475-a-night Four Seasons Punta Mita, on Mexico’s Pacific coast, is launching a “schoolcation” program that provides tech support, classes, and “study buddies” who can supervise remote learning from a Wi-Fi-equipped beach cabana. (Stay for the semester, and it could cost $50,000.)”
7) Blind? Visually impaired? But... ready to Travel!
You can get help from AI! Seeing AI
You can also get help from Human Beings! Be Me Eyes As I always say mixing AI and Humans is the perfect solution!
Do you see the difference between focus on SERVICE/PRODUCTS and focus on PEOPLE? Do you see the power of creating and building a community? Do you see the power of having your own platform? Do you see the power of creating GROUPS inside it?
Here you can see a framework that will allow you to validate if a segment is focus on PEOPLE
1) Chip Conley pyramid: If I customize my Hotel/Airline/Tourism Destination... and my activities to them... Will it be a STRONG connection between the segment and the Service? 2-A) Butterfly Strategy: Could I sell other services from other enterprises? 2- B) "This community" world congress: Could my Hotel become a MAGNET for people / enterprises around the world wishing to do Marketing Research, sell something, hire employees... 3) Long Tail: Can I find this segment in Specialized places? Can I do, there promotion and distribution with more efficiency and less cost? IF the answer is YES...It is a good example of Long Tail! Then, as a consequence You can create Hybrid experiences for this Segment! You can create Bubble trips for this Segment!
Do you have any doubts? You can always ask to my #Touristologists !!! They are the best minds in the best sector ever!
These weeks I have been working with very interesting projects, a proposal of Tourism consulting, a new, new, new... startup, the creation of new Master and Postgraduates studies... I love Touristology’s projects. I love to work with people that you can trust, respect and admire! In all these projects I try to remind to myself and everybody three ideas strongly connected with Touristology’s principles. The necessity to build and manage the chain of value. The necessity of first focus on specialized Tourism and then in Generic one. The necessity of using Tourism as a profit generator for other economic sectors in your country (Technology, Games, Culture, Commerce....). Would you like to go deeper in these principles? I love to go deeper!
1) The necessity to build and manage the chain of value: It is not possible to provide Security to the Tourists and high Profit for your project if you are unable to build and manage the value chain. I mean, the set of companies and organizations that the Tourist uses from the beginning to the end of the trip.
In this way, you can create Bubble Trips (Groups of Tourists travelling together from the beginning to the end of the trip). You can solve any problem that the Tourist has to deal with. You can provide opportunities to improve her/his professional or personal life. If we seduce OUR Tourists to use OUR technological platforms instead of other people’s platforms that gain benefits and do not have the inconvenience of all the Tourists at the same place in the same moment (some people call it OverTourism. You also can call it... LackOfTouristology!!!) How is it possible that in XXI century people still focus on manage the Tourists only when they are in the Tourism Destination or in their enterprise? 2) The necessity of first focus on Specialized Tourism and then in Generic one. We have to define Specialized Segments. Show to them how to improve their professional or personal life through a trip. Allow them to book any service that they need through YOUR technological platforms. Then, you can complement this Specialized Tourism with the Generic one! How is it possible that in XXI century people still believe that first you have to promote Generic Tourism and then you can complement it with Specialized one?
3) The necessity of using Tourism as a profit generator for other economic sectors in your country (Technology, Games, Culture, Commerce....) If you select OUR Specialized Tourists, we can offer to them other services and products NOT related to the travel but highly related to their necessities which will enhance synergies with other sectors of the economy. How is it possible that in XXI century people still believe that we have to choose between Tourism and other sectors? If we build and manage the chain of value. If we first focus on Specialized Tourism and then in Generic one. Tourism will become a profit generator for other sectors!
Listening to the news, reading articles, talking with experts... Some people always highlighting negative scenarios, others saying that we have to reinvent our beloved sector BUT don’t explain How to do it! Who is able to visualize these new opportunities? You!!! Time to be proactive! Time to look for new opportunities! For instance, this article explains the possible effects of these bad moments in Tourism. Made me reply...
In life, always appear problems waiting for people able to provide solutions! Opportunities waiting for trained eyes to visualize how to catch them. It happened before... Do you remember, the evolution of E-business that we learnt in OUR classes?
At the beginning, all were Static websites then, appeared the opportunity to customize the 3C’s (Content, Commerce and Community) that John Hagel described in 1995!!! Then, it was possible to send and get these 3 C’s to other websites or mobile apps or... Why some people only see the possibility to put your 3C’s in Social Networking Sites (SnS) or to use Channel Managers to appear in On-line Travel Agencies (OTA), Central Reservation Systems (CRS) or Global Distribution System (GDS)? Of course, it can be interesting BUT remember, you are selling YOUR services to THEIR CUSTOMERS!!! What about to define YOUR segments and offer to them ANYTHING they need? ANYTHING related to “this” trip ANYTHING related to “any” trip Anything related to what is important for this Segment!!!
Who is able to visualize and seduce these Segments? YOU! Who is able to help these Segments to better achieve their goal through a trip? YOU! Who is able to define and build a chain of value for any trip? YOU! Less highlight negative scenarios, less saying we have to change without explaining how... Time to be proactive, Touristologists!!! I repeat, in life, always appear problems waiting for people able to provide solutions! Opportunities waiting for trained eyes to catch them! Ready for another example? Do you remember, the evolution of Games that we learnt in OUR classes?
At the beginning, only big enterprises then, appeared another disruptive innovation, as usual a combination of Technology and Social interest. Unity was founded in 2004 looking for seduce indie developers looking to provide new games in this new channel. Now, augmented and virtual reality is building a new level. Allowing to develop hybrid experiences, mixing People in the Tourism Destination (Tourists, Locals) AND People in the country of origin, that want to share the experience in different devices or inside a game. Can you visualize the opportunities for the Tourism sector? Of course, you can! You are the best minds working in the best sector ever!!! Today, before, always... opportunities will appear BUT only for Touristologists with trained eyes! Keep practicing, keep learning, keep enjoying Touristology!!!
To guaranty safety and profitability you need to create GROUPS. You have to seduce these GROUPS with anything related to any trip AND their motivations to travel. Can you create and manage GROUPS in other people’s Platforms? I know... I know... summertime... hot weather... BUT We are living complicated times! It is NOT time to just complain, to look for excuses, to look for shortcuts! We have to make things happens! 1) We know how to define and seduce specialized segments. 2) We know how to help them to better achieve their goals through a trip. 3) We know how to define and build chains of value providing support from the beginning to the end of the trip. 4) We know how to provide services (Servuction) inside these chains of value. Tourism is NOT something that just happens. It is something you build and manage! It’s time for action. It is time to focus on results. To change the way we enjoy, define and manage our beloved sector!
I love to be a Teacher! I have been a Touristologists builder for the last 30 years!
I love to learn new Business Models, new Technologies, new Methodologies. the new, new thing!
Then, I get practical experience doing consultancy or creating a new enterprise and I convey this Knowledge to My Touristologists!
Watching them improving his/her professional career, starting a new disruptive start-up, helping to change the way we define, enjoy and manage Tourism, makes me the happiest Touristologists builder in the world!
To me, real Teachers bring real experience to the class! For that reason, I love to combine my vocation as a Teacher with being a consultant and an entrepreneur. Doing these two activities I have learnt a lot about Product Management.
First, as a Product Manager for an ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) for the Apple Ecosystem.
Then (and today!), collaborating with the public and private sector designing business model and operations and processes for new start-ups in our beloved sector!
Then, as a Product Manager in Deloitte. Memories and friends forever!
Then, building a PMS (Property Management System) for the lodging industry in the cloud. Defining the Segments (Do you remember this Study Case Touristologists?) Defining the Chain of Values. Defining and finding the people inside the organization. Defining the operations and processes and developing and integrating the Technology to implement the Business Model for this luxury apartments working as an Apart-Hotel. I remember the goal “When the last bricklayer leaves the building, we have to see the first Tourist going inside!” I still keep the first on-line reservation!!!
I also enjoy mentoring People, Start-ups and Enterprises! Visualizing new Business Models, new Segments, new Opportunities!!!
The previous weeks, I have been talking with experts in “Agile”, I also reviewed some books about this methodology (or as they/I prefer to call it... MINDSET). I realize that my experience in the jungle of realbusiness make my absolutely agree with the four principles of Agile:
1) Individuals and interactions over processes and tools.
Do you want to use Java, Kotlin or Flutter? Objective-C or Swift? Python or.... I don’t care, give me a good team willing to share his/her knowledge and build new one and the project will have a better estimation of success!!!
2) Working software over comprehensive documentation.
Show the code working in a good interface and the documentation will be written in the brain of the users!
3) Customer collaboration over contract negotiation.
Specially, when you want to build the new, new thing! When, through iterations, you will learn more and more!
4) Responding to change over following a plan.
Changes in the mind of your users, in their perception of OUR Business Model, in the amount of time they spend using OUR software, in the business opportunities that appear during the processes!!!
Changes in the mind of your collaborators, trying to control the chain of value...
Changes in the strategies of your competitors OR when a new one appears offering something similar and cheaper!
Changes in the mind of your suppliers...
Changes in the mind of your investors...
Time to adapt... Time to Survive!!!
Of course, in Touristology and in OUR classes we apply these principles... adding some of our beloved FRAMEWORKS! Do you remember them?
I’m sure you do!
Furthermore, remember Agile methodology is all about improving communication between all the stakeholders of the project. You have to know what is possible to ask! You have to know what the pros and cons of new technologies are (Augmented Reality, Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain....)! You have to know how to ask for any feature!
You have to prove that you are the best mind in the best sector ever!
Enjoy summer! Enjoy practicing, living, making TOURISTOLOGY great!
