Yesterday, Today... ALWAYS!!!

You can always apply Touristology’s principles. They are always good under any circumstance. Otherwise, we wouldn’t call it a Science!

Touristology knows how motivate Tourists to travel. It is always looking for providing improvements in Tourists’ quality of life: International contacts, broader perspectives, overcoming illnesses, improving work or family relationships... thanks to the transformation power that travel brings to human beings.

It is always looking for to take care of culture and create richness and employment for the tourist destination.

These objectives force to study, analyze, manage Tourism enterprises and Destinations taking into consideration the following ideas...

1) Tourists’ segmentation must be carried out taking as the main variable the transformation power and improvement of the Tourist through a trip. Forget about country of origin! Build your own community of International Specialized Tourists!

2) Tourism enterprises and destinations must visualize, manage the ENTIRE value chain as a way to increase its competitivity. Not only your company (Hotel, Travel Agency, Airline ....) You must coordinate and manage with different competitive Business Models, all the companies / organizations that the Tourist must use from the beginning to the end of the trip . This is what AirBnB calls the “End to End Travel Platform”

Booking and Expedia “The Connected Trip”

and in OUR seminars, in-company training or start-up meetings... Chain of Value Management!!!

So, we must provide support to the Tourists from the beginning to the end of the trip. Recommending and helping the Tourists to do activities in the Tourism Destination that will help her/his transformation. We can also provide notifications about what is going on in the country of origin of the Tourist. 

Maybe, you are willing to enjoy a few examples... 

I know that the Tourist is HERE I know that He/She is looking for a gift for his/her son... WE send a notification providing this information. We know the Tourist’s location, with his/her permission, of course! Just remember...Customization without privacy is a nightmare! We can use GPS or better a beacon OR even better an Augmented Reality App with not only provide the location of the Tourist ALSO what He/She is looking at, with who is travelling now and what is his/her mood at this moment... Knowing Tourist’s context is the big driver of processes improvement!!! 
  

Are you ready for more examples? 

I know that the Tourist is HERE I know that He/She is looking for a temporary job (a few hours of consultancy) WE send a notification saying that a near enterprise has this vacancy. OR I know that the Tourists is HERE I know that He/She needs an advice from a mobile developer. We send a notification from a local expert. 

Do you see? Thanks to a trip you can improve your life. You can even earn money! Specially, important in moments of economic problems! Some people say... “No money no Travel!” What about to Travel and Earn money? What about we create networking activities where we put together locals and Tourists to do commercial exchanges. 

Do you want to sell wine? I have some contacts in my country of origin! 

Do you want to set up a restaurant in your country of origin? We can introduce you some experts, some service providers, some... 

Do you want to know how to build a Hotel from Architects point of view? We can prepare some meetings (Physical and/or virtual)... 

Do you want to learn how to manage a Hotel.. A travel Agency...a transport company... We can set up meetings with managers, we can provide blended education with several Universities... 

Tourists of the World! Travel earn money and be ready for the future!!! 

Touristologists of the World! Help them to help YOU!!!  

Forget about INDIVIDUAL Tourist! Forget about Hyper-Segmentation. You define a Segment of similar people with similar interest from any place in the world, right? Help them to create groups! Help them to create, communicate and commercialize their own packages in YOUR own platform! This is the power of Deeper Segmentation! This is the power of using your OWN platform!!! 

In Touristology thanks to Servuction (Thanks Mr. Eigler!) we know that we need the Tourist in order to create the service... ONLY if we have a Tourist here, we can create physical experiences BUT we can also create digital ones mixing people here (Tourists), Locals AND people related with the Tourist that want to share the experience. This kind of activities thanks to the power of virtual Reality and Augmented Reality can provide a solution to "many Tourists at the same time /place" AND also can provide another layer of profits for Tourism destination. YES! But only if the Tourist, the Locals and the people in the country of origin are using OUR OWN PLATFORM! Do you remember the ideas of Platform economy, right? 

  

So, yesterday, today… ALWAYS!!! Don’t try to seduce EVERYBODY. Create your Tourism enterprises and YOUR OWN Platforms to seduce specialized Tourists. To them create International routes! Is it important that they visit your Tourism destination? Of course! But is far more important that you manage the trip of YOUR Tourists! In this way, you will reduce the dark side of the Tourism (all Tourists at the same time in the same place...) and you will increase the blessings of Tourism: More profit for your Tourism Enterprises! Higher salaries for YOUR Touristologists! Higher revenues for local public services! 

I love Tourism! I love Touristology! I love Touristologists!!!

WWW? World Wide Wave!!!

Are Serverless functions interesting? Of course! BUT... is it a big change... the new, new, thing a disruptive technology? 

To me, the big change is to be able to trigger these functions when a Real-Time event is going on! Right Here / Right Now! 

Let’s put a couple of examples in our beloved sector, shall we? 

YOUR Tourist is travelling... 

1) He/She wants a solution to any problem DURING the trip, both IN the Trip or AT home (where are colleagues, relatives and friends), Right Here / Right Now! 

2) He/She wants to know any opportunity to make the most of the transformative power of a trip, to meet someone special, to do a customized activity. Not enough Tourists to do this activity? Let’s help them to create a group inside OUR community! BUT... Jordi, meet someone? How do you know if it’s safe? 

We will need to know, in real-time, if we can talk or meet with someone. We need to have access to a virtual meeting if it is necessary (thanks to VR and AR). We need to know if we can trust on this information and (very important), we have to guaranty the privacy of this data. 

Trustful information with privacy? It seems that we are talking about Blockchain! 

In a near future, some people will be able to travel as usual (the ones that will developed an immunodeficiency to the most relevant illness) but others maybe they have to be at home... is it possible to organize mix meetings using the power of VR and AR? Enjoy the video to visualize some ideas!  

We have to be able to get this wave of events from different sources, enrich, combine, transform, filter, validate...them and use this knowledge in order to manage the waves of Tourists we will seduce to visit our Tourism Destination or Enterprise! 

In this post, We describe ourselves as Waves Managers. We talked about wave management. We compared Yield/Revenue Managers with surfers. 

The difference? Surfers adapt to waves. We can also manage AND create them! We can follow the waves In a Macro-level: How many Tourists making a reservation NOW for this specific day? AND In a Micro-level seducing customers to go to a specific attraction /Activity at the best moment to THEM and to US. 

We also can create new waves for different segments The old Yield/Revenue Management idea of a single demand curve is over. We have to generate demand/s with new segments. We have to compensate current demand with the new ones. We have to increase profits. 

We have to reinvent Yield/Revenue Management! 

We have to focus on CURRENT demand BUT ALSO on generating new demand from NEW segments. Segments with different patterns that you can seduce in different ways in order that they appear in your Hotel/Tourism enterprise when is more convenient to you. 

Furthermore, you can compensate high demand of one of the segments with low demand of the others AND THE OTHER WAY AROUND. So, compensate low demand of one of the segments with high demand of the others. 

We are wave managers! It seems obvious, in order to provide these services Right Here / Right Now in a customized and syndicated way we need to use the most suitable technology together with the right business model. 

We need to embrace the World Wide Wave of real time data and events. We need to embrace Streams processing! Interesting time for mixing new Technologies and Tourism! Interesting times for Touristologists!!!

Stop thinking about your Enterprise/Destination... Start thinking about your Specialized Communities!

This February, I have been in my natural environment, talking with several Entrepreneurs looking for advice from an old chap always learning new tricks, sharing some Touristology’s knowledges with People / big Enterprises wishing to find a new disruptor idea,  listening to the future of our beloved sector talking about a new project for the Tourism sector....

- We have a small hotel... so; we have to take this into consideration when we propose new business model...

Are you sure? – Touristology’s voice began to say – If you have a Specialized segment loving the way you customized the Servuction process, loving to share, comment, create groups inside your community... you can send them to any hotel, apartment... willing to customize its Servuction process. That is the power of focusing on the Tourist!

When you have a Specialized segment, defined by Psychographics and NOT Demographics as we explained here you will have a profits generator based on providing value to your community. Value related with satisfying its needs in a better way through a trip. This will show that Touristology is the Science dealing with transforming and improving Tourists life: International contacts, broader perspectives, improving relationships with families and professional teams, overcoming illness or personal problems... and ALSO taking care of culture and richness creation for the Tourism destination.

I will try to summarize the drivers of profit generation from defining and visualizing a Specialized Segment in the following slide:

1) Build your own platforms

I remember, 12 years ago trying to seduce Tourism Enterprises and Destinations to use social networking sites. It was a very good idea BUT nowadays we also have to see the benefits of creating our own platforms focused on Specialized communities satisfying their necessities in a better way through a trip. At the end of the day... Platform Economy? Time to build our own Platforms!

Basically, for two reasons:

1-A) Platforms, usually, are Generic. So, by definition, they are not useful in order to seduce specialized Tourism. Nothing wrong with Generic Tourism BUT... the price is the most important thing... It is necessary to sell plenty of services... plenty of Tourists in the same place at the same time... Can you finish the sentence?

1-B) Who control the platform get the profit and decide in which way you will use, see, manage... THEIR customers!

2) Transform your place into a magnet for anyone interested in “this” Specialized Community

Furthermore, in the specific case of Tourism appears another driver of profit generation!

What is the biggest different between Production and Servuction (thanks Eigler and Langeard!)

We need the Tourist in order to create the service. No Tourist, no service! For that reason, we have to use Yield Management in order to seduce the Tourist to appear (or to stay longer) in our enterprise this specific day. This can also be very interesting, if we have a specialized community one specific day in our Tourism Enterprise / Destination we transform our place into a magnet for members of this community, member of the chain of value, competitors (that will become collaborators!), people/enterprises willing to sell, to hire, to do marketing research... to OUR community. We will become the “This Community” world congress!!!

Time to focus more about OUR Tourists and less in your Enterprise/Destination!

If you have any doubt… don’t ask me! Ask any of my Touristologists, they are the best minds working in the best sector ever!!!

Always adapting. Always learning... whatever it takes attitude!

Long time ago, I began putting my developer hat on, I practiced the usual examples of “Hello World!”. You send from a client to a server then, you get an answer. Nowadays, we have to deal with a new paradigm:
Push Versus Pull: Technically, known as Event-Driven Applications.

Time to adapt, time to visualize the big picture! So, nowadays when I practice examples of FaaS (Function as a Service), from the beginning I try to apply this new paradigm.
- What do you mean, Jordi?
- Let’s put an example #Touristologists! You know my motto “If you are unable to give an example... you don’t fully understand the Theory!!!

You create an app in FaaS format ready to get a trigger. For example, a message from an IoT device that have a Deep Learning model at the edge in order to detect YOUR Tourists.
Is it necessary to repeat (again) that this recognition process will need the authorization of the Tourist? Just remember “customization without privacy is a nightmare!”
Blockchain technologies can help a lot in this subject!
Once a Tourist is detected, the IoT device will send a message to the FaaS application that, at the same time, will send a notification to a mobile app used for OUR #Touristologists able to propose the best opportunities in order to increase the transformative power of a trip OR the best solution for the potential problem the Tourist is facing during the Trip.
Thanks to Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality technologies these Touristologists can visualize where is the Tourists and what is going on.
These Event-Driven Applications can improve the operations and processes of any Tourism Enterprise or Destination.
In the same way, that trip can improve Tourist’s life and better satisfy some necessities that they can have. As we discussed here...
“Travel has always been a great provider of international networking for business or for sharing a passion. You can think to Marco Polo for instance! Travel has always been a great provider of new perspectives because you get isolation of your normal environment. For that reason, divorce Hotel or divorce Tourism are good business endeavors. Travel has always been the origin of a bunch of creativity. Was Darwin travelling when He developed one of the main ideas in Biology? A trip has always been an excellent way to create bonds between Tourists travelling together. I’m sure that you know examples of team building for enterprises or for families both classic ones or new ones (PANKS, Single Dads, GrandParents…).”
So, better operations and processes, improving the transformative power of a trip...
AND...
If YOUR Enterprise/Tourism destination is running the show...I mean, managing the trip from the beginning to the end, with YOUR Platform, seducing YOUR Tourists... You also will see an improving in your profits!
Ready? My #Touristologists are!

Technologies increasing the transformation power of a trip!

These days (just remember, Touristologists don’t take holidays, they just travel around and abroad in order to know other markets, make international contacts, plan future business…) I had read “Competing in the Age of AI” a very interesting book related to one of my favorite technologies.

As you know, I also love Blockchain and Augmented Reality. BUT, above all else, I love to combine these technologies (or the ones that can appear in the future) in order...

1) To increase the satisfaction and transformation power of a trip in a Tourist 

AND

2) To increase the wages, profits and cultural conservation of a Tourism destination!

Anyway, in this book the authors mention the success story of “El Peloton”.

You can enjoy this video to get an idea of its Business Model and Operations and Processes:

In this video, the creators of the successful startup “El Peloton” don’t use augmented reality but you can see a person enjoying at home and sharing experiences to people in other cities.

I agree with some comments that “El Peloton” would be a more profitable enterprise if they focus more on the software and less in the hardware BUT... what is important in OUR blog is... Can the combination of new technologies like Augmented Reality, Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain...be an exponential improvement for a Tourism package?

As always, I watch, read, talk... with my Touristology’s glasses on! I am sure that you wear them as well!!!

Can you visualize how to improve the experience, how to increase the transformation power of a trip using Augmented Reality? 

Can you see how using Artificial Intelligence you could provide scalability to all your processes and customize them for every Tourists at any moment at any place?

Can you see how Blockchain could provide trust when the Tourist has to deal with any enterprise/person/organization... in any place around the world?

Can you image a professional group, a startup or a big company sharing experiences when part of the group is at the office, other at home and other in different places around the world?

Can you image a family group (grandparents, parents, relatives...) sharing their experiences, views... feeling the transformative power of a trip?

Do you think that using AI, AR and Blockchain you can provide a better transformative experience before, during and after a trip?

Can you visualize how any Tourism enterprise can provide a solution to a Tourist in any place of the world?

Can you visualize how any Tourism destination can increase the number of Tourists without following the dangerous path of OverTourism?

Do you think that it could make your Tourism destination or enterprise more sustainable and profitable?

Augmented Reality is one of the topics that will help to redefine, improve and change our beloved sector. The same with Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence. Are you ready?

If you have any doubt you always can ask to any of my #Touristologists they are the best minds in the best sector ever!

2020 is coming...

As you know, I have two intellectual lovers, Touristology and Web-Engineering.
I have been working in Tourism since 1992. I have been working with Internet Technologies since 1996.
In 1996, I began my doctoral thesis. Everybody was talking about the world wide web. So, to me, it was crystal clear! I had to do my project about how Internet technologies would change, improve, redefine our beloved sector!
Now,  2020 is so close. I would like to highlight the most important features that Internet technologies can provide and the three technologies that then and now can affect the best sector ever!
If you remember, in OUR classes, seminars, in-company training or start-up meetings we always talk about chain of value management, other people prefer to talk about digital ecosystem, or to create an “end-to-end travel platform”  or “the connected trip”... Different names for the same idea... 

To provide support to the Tourist from the beginning to the end of the trip, making all the enterprises/organizations that the Tourist can need in a trip working as a single organization. 

How is that possible? Using the magic/science of New Technologies!

These are my proposal of the combination of Features and New Technologies that will have a big impact in 2020. Of course, if you want to add something, improve it, go deeper... I will be here waiting for you!!!!

In the rows, we have interesting Features that technologies can provide:

Syndication: Allowing to pass FROM my web/mobile application providing MY Services TO the web /mobile app providing 3 C’s (Content, Commerce, Community) provided by any organization interesting for the Tourist.
Edge Computing: FROM silly client / Intelligent server TO Intelligent client / Intelligent server. Mobile phones, IoT.. can do much of the things interesting for the user in the same device. Faster, with less battery use, working even without Internet connection AND above all else... with more PRIVACY!
Push Versus Pull: Technically, known as Event-Driven Applications.
FROM waiting to the user to ask something TO provide 3C's when something relevant happens. Don’t’ worry Tourist if there is a delay, we will notify you and present the best alternative. Focus on the trip Tourist, everything is under control at your home, at the office...
In the columns we have three interesting New Technologies:
Augmented reality, Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain
The combination of the features and these three technologies will bring plenty of possibilities in Tourism.
Let’s see a few examples, shall we?
Artificial Intelligence in the edge increasing the privacy of the user. Which allow him/her to use their own data to build their own models OR using transfer learning customized models already available.
Augmented Reality offering relevant 3C’s when it is important for the Tourist. Of course, in a customized way and from “the” organization able to provide the fittest solution for the potential problem the Tourist is dealing with at any moment before, during and after the trip!
Blockchain as a single source of truth providing trust for the images and 3C’s provided by an Augmented Reality application.
Artificial Intelligence allowing scalability to any process. Making possible to customized anything to anyone at any time!
Do you know the most important thing about these features and these technologies? The synergies that they can create will improve the management of the chain of value, increasing the wages and profits of the one managing it!
Be sure, that you are the one able to run the show!

From simple to complex. From basic to sustainable and profitable!

The other day, I found this interesting example of Servuction. Some enterprise needs staff right here, right now. Somebody is available right here, right now. Let’s make a deal!
BUT...
Why only to practice a reactive approach? 
What about we build/seduce demand? 
We are Yield Managers! We are Wave Managers!!!
What about to be proactive!
Allow customers to create GROUPS, organize parties, events...
Allow Hoteliers to create groups, organize local routes...
Let’s increase the level! 
What about to create INTERNATIONAL parties, INTERNATIONAL routes created from customers (TOURISTS!!!) and Hoteliers from around the world!
What about a little bit of Bleisure?
What about to give to your users the possibility of becoming the next digital nomads, travelling around the world and earning a living working in Hotels, Restaurants, Events....
What about customizing the notifications thinking about Versions of Me, Geolocation, Proximity?
What about selling anything the user need using the power of Syndication, making the most of a distributed network?
Let’s make the most of Platform Economy!
Let’s enjoy practicing Touristology’s principles!!!