Today, yesterday…Tomorrow! Tourism and Internet!

The best years of my professional life have been linked to the best sector ever (Tourism, of course!) and Internet.

30 years ago, I taught my first class in Touristology.

I soon realize that my students in their last year knew more about Tourism than myself. I put all my energy and effort to change that! I learn from my students (I still do!), I learn from other teachers, I become a regular in the library, I talk with any professional related with Tourism… The more I learn the more I wanted to become a Touristologist! I knew that the best way to learn something is to teach it. So, I got voluntary to teach any subject: Financial Maths, Business Administration, Statistics, Technology, Economy, Entrepreneurship… anything BUT with always ending up “TO TOURISM”. After two years I was absolutely in love with Touristology. When I decided to do my PhD. I chose as a topic … Touristology, what else!!! 

At that time, everybody was talking about Internet. So, I tried (I still do!) to see how new technologies could improve our beloved sector. How new technologies open the door to new business models and then, how to implement them improving operations and processes of Tourism enterprises and destination….

Soon, I realized that in order to fully understand the potential of Internet and visualize new business model I had to learn how to code Internet apps, how to store information, how to transform this information into knowledge using Artificial Intelligence.

Today, this vision is the same, I try to highlight this evolution in this animated gif. I hope you like it.

 

As you see, there are similar things…

1) Browser: Build your own Ecosystem!

Java (JVM) Applets...

Rust Wasm

2) Neural Networks need memory, need context…

3) Dynamic Packaging in Tourism

In the 90s, Tourism destinations/enterprises began to create webpages (plenty of them, just uploading its brochure on it!)

Forget about customization of the service (Servuction)!

Forget about offering services from other companies related to the trip or its motivation!

Do I have to highlight again the importance of understanding new technologies in order to visualize new business models and know how to manage its implementation?

Nowadays is the same just different technology (that we have to know when to use it!)

You can call it Databases, Web Services; Web Scraping……

You can call it Blockchain/NFT, Stream Processing…

Biggest Difference between Internet in 1994 and 2022?

Ubiquitous computing / Metaverse breaking Space/Time prison!

Metaverse will open the possibility to Humans to be more similar to a God. We can be a little bit out of SPACE/TIME prison.

In the Metaverse, we can share an experience with our friends, relatives, members of our community even if they are in a different SPACE/TIME. We can be Tourists in one Tourism Destination and the others can be around the world… 

So, we can break SPACE.

What about the TIME? We can share an experience and rewind it at any moment!

If you want to be more specific…

1) Thanks to Artificial Intelligence providing scalability and transforming 2D images in 3D scenes ready to appear in hybrid experiences in the Metaverse!

2) Thanks to Blockchain providing trustfulness about the desires and rights of all the members of the chain of value in real-time.

If somebody, ask you who is better prepared to deal with the #Metaverse… just listen to your inner #Touristology’s voice…

The #Metaverse is OUR place #Touristologists!!!

 

They are still here!!!

I began this blog with an homage to all the people with a lack of knowledge about Tourism and responsibility over it.

(By the way, the post was written mixing Spanish, Catalan and English… I love mixtures!)

They are still here; they are very powerful… if we want TOURISTOLOGY to become the best Science ever! If we want Touristology to be the driver of increasing add value of our beloved sector…we have to say goodbye to them... the homage didn’t work!!!

Long time ago, I enjoyed practicing a little bit of “Bleisure” in Peru. I gave some classes in the morning in different Universities. Some consultancy projects the rest of the day… Some visits to wonderful places…

I was perplexed, when I discovered that in some Universities of Tourism, in the subject of Geography they taught the geography of Spain! Why? Maybe, some copied the subjects from Spanish Universities… maybe….

Nowadays, I have the same feeling when I saw Universities of Tourism that just teach how to manage Tourists when they are in the Tourism Destination or Enterprise. 

Forget about managing all the trip!

Forget about understanding and building a Chain of Value! Forget about offering International Routes!

Forget about TOURISTOLOGY!!! 

WHY? 

Maybe, because some people don’t know about how to create and manage trips…

Maybe, because they don’t believe that Tourists can improve their personal/professional life through a trip meanwhile they also increase the profit and wages of local enterprises and take care of local culture and heritage.

Maybe, because they like to say that Tourism is a low-level Grade in the University.

Maybe, because they think that to teach Tourism you only need to be an expert in another Science and provide some examples about Hotels, or Tourism Destinations…

Maybe, because they like, so much, to say that Tourism is a low add value sector.

Is it so difficult to see that almost any sector in the world is low value IF YOU DON’T CONTROL THE CHAIN OF VALUE and you are focus on customers low price orientated?!?!?! Is it so difficult to understand that Generic and Specialized Tourism have different chains of value?

Maybe, because some people don’t believe that Touristology is a Science…

All these experiences arousal in my a very interesting question… What is the criteria to select the subjects, the teachers, the competencies, the concepts, the language of the subject, the necessity to teach how to code to the future of Touristology????

As always, Ferreter and Mora can help us to make a good consideration… “extremes are not for situating yourself they are for knowing your situation” Let’s see the two extremes

We want to help to create minds able to improve our beloved sector… Or we just want to get temporally happy students?

Can you imagine in HEALTH… the important thing is to have HAPPY CUSTOMERS?

Obviously, in health the important thing is to be healthy!!!

The same in EDUCATION. The important thing is that they learn USEFUL things that allow them to understand reality and be able to improve our beloved sector!!!

The battle is going on my fellow Touristologists!

Be aware, be ready! Be the best minds in the best sector ever!!!

Web3.0? THE WEB!!!

Long time ago, we wrote a post talking about Web 3.0 from Touristology’s point of view, of course!
Now, that everybody is talking…again…about Web 3.0 We can remember the key ingredients that we highlighted in this post with the potential of improving our beloved sector.

-    Improve our beloved sector?
-   Of course! Helping Tourists to experience an improvement of their personal or professional life. Helping Inhabitants to get a new vision of their reality and visualize opportunities in a connected world. Helping Local Enterprises (related to the trip OR to the motivation of it) willing to increase exportations, to make international contacts, to do marketing research from other countries, to hire the best candidates with an international vision…

 
In this post, the key aspect highlighted were:

INTEGRATION AND SYNCHRONIZATION.

 
Web 3.0 can make a chain of value built for a specialized community, work as a single ecosystem.

So… no matter which device the Tourist, employee, collaborator, or inhabitant is using... no matter which with  member of the chain of value they talk or have an open process (Marketing, Human Resources, Finance, Servuction, Yield Management…) all the members with a direct relation with the operation and process will get the CUSTOMIZED 3 C’s (thanks John Hagel for creating the 3C's = Content, Commerce, Community) with total privacy for anyone.
In order to achieve that you can use Data Bases, you can use Blockchain, you can use Holochain...

 

you can use…
As we also mention in this other post Web 3.0 is already here. We believe that there is only ONE WEB!
Web 1.0, 2.0, 3.0… (you name it!) are not an evolution of the web BUT an evolution of our use and understanding of it!
We are NOT people that create/have a software/solution looking for a problem. We are Touristologists looking for the best technology and Business Model to improve our beloved sector! 

Blockchain (NFT) as an investment? It could be interesting! BUT… We are thinking about a way to generate TRUST and customized processes in Real-Time while the Tourist, members of the chain of value, Inhabitants, Local Enterprises are part of OUR Ecosystem/Community!
Artificial Intelligence to analyze BIG DATA? It could be interesting! BUT…We are thinking about providing Scalability using Intelligent Data able to customize the Servuction and Yield Management processes. Generating groups of similar or complementary people and seducing them to appear when and where is more convenient to them and to us!
We also think about how to pass from a few pictures to a 3D Scene in Real-Time. A key ingredient in order to create Hybrid Experiences!
Augmented_Virtual Reality to recreate OTHER worlds? It could be interesting! BUT …We are thinking about a way to increase the transformation power of a trip and provide opportunities and solutions to potential problems from the beginning to the end of the trip! Reviewing and sharing Hybrid Experiences Before, During and After the trip! Breaking the Space/Time prison!!!

By the way…
#Blockchain + #AI + #AR_VR = #Metaverse

We will be here spreading news, selling you as the best professionals on earth and developing with you our own pirate ship to seal Touristology’s seas!!!

The Metaverse, like the chain of value…. You have to create and BUILD it!

Both concepts, The Metaverse and the Chain of Value are very important in Touristology’s principles.
Both concepts, ESPECIALLY when we talk about SPECIALIZED Tourism,  have to be created and BUILT. Otherwise, you will end up using other people’s Metaverse AND/OR chain of value that, usually, is what it happens in GENERIC TOURISM!
When you use other people Metaverse/Chain of value…
They will send THEIR Tourists when is more convenient to them, without taking into consideration any carrying capacity issues.
They will offer to them THEIR hybrid experiences. They will get most of the profit.
They will impose to you their commercial and technological conditions… wake up!
Increase the number of Specialized Tourists (the ones willing to improve their personal/professional life through a trip) visiting your Tourism Destination (or enterprise) through the chain of value you create and build.
Define your own segments based on Psychographics! Forget about demographics (Age, country of origin…)
Then, inside this Chain of value, build your own Metaverse, in order to provide solutions from the beginning to the end of the trip. In order to provide your hybrid experiences before, during and after the trip.
Be sure, that you proof to YOUR Tourists that using YOUR Metaverse they will get a transformative Hybrid Experience with the potential to improve the lives of the Tourists, inhabitants, local enterprises and members of their specialized community around the world!

Stop using distracting devices! 

Stop promoting other people business model (you can call it FastGram or TukTak or….)  

Be a deleter of the “IM” letters in the impossible word.

Don’t be an excuses finder!  

Don’t be a “I listen 5 minutes if I don’t understand... I disconnect!”  

AND Become A Touristologists!!! 

See you in Touristology’s world!  

See you in the Metaverse’s world that WE have to build and create!!!

 

First International Then Local!

As you remember, one of our favorite Touristology’s principles is “First Specialized Then Generic”.
We also have another beloved one, always discussed in OUR classes, seminars, in-company training or start-up meetings in order to define (or redefine!) their (OUR???) business model ….
“First International Then Local”.
Nothing wrong with Local Tourism BUT as in our beloved sector we have the carrying capacity issue... as we have limits in the time and resources… in order to be sure that we build a profitable and sustainable Tourism Destination /Enterprise… First International Then Local.
In a nutshell, these two principles enlighten the way to focus on Specialized Segments. To be sure that you fulfill their needs through ALL the trip and you can prepare to them International Routes!!!
This is only possible, if you have the skills, the contacts, the attitude, the knowledge… in order to visualize, select all the members of the chain of value, visualize and implement the activities/events that best help them to improve their professional and/or personal life, either in this world or in any world (for instance…the Metaverse).
Let’s enjoy this example that I was sharing with the future of Touristology…

  

To be sure that, Touristologists run the show, they have to know how to BIND together all the enterprises, the people important/relevant for the Tourists and the people, enterprises who can benefit by the visit of international Tourists. Remember, IoT? Internet Of Tourists!!! Tourists can help your inhabitants, your enterprises to be more productive, profitable, and sustainable. This is the power of Touristology!
I said BIND?

Let’s enjoy this video by Rainer Stropek talking about one of our favorite technologies WASM and the new language programming which we felt in love with: RUST

Do you see, He talks about “wasm_bindgen” passing data between Rust and JavaScript using Serialize/Deserialize (for instance!).
I love to mix Touristology and Web-Engineering. Well, it is very easy, because both Sciences were born to work together!
WASM will help us to increase the communication between all the members of the chain of value!
WASM will help us to gain control of the Chain of Value. In this world and in the Metaverse! Where important enterprises will try to build their Metaverse and charge high commissions to other people to use it... 

“Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other Meta executives have previously criticized Apple for charging developers a 30% fee for in-app purchases via the App Store.”
I have a message to you in order to avoid that!!!
If we use the browser using WASM. If we can distribute code using WASI we can help to build a more open Metaverse!

 

Touristology and Web-Engineering

I always love mixing together Touristology and Web-Engineering!
I, strongly, believe that the main problem when we try to apply New Technologies in our beloved sector is the lack of trained people able to…
1) Visualize new business models made possible by new technologies and then,
2) Implement them into Tourism Destinations/Enterprises.
These trained people have to visualize how the transformation power of a trip can improve the personal and/or professional life of Tourists meanwhile, improve the profitability and sustainability of the Tourism Destination.
These trained people have to apply Touristology's principles and best practices. Tourism has some key differences with other sectors that they have to take into consideration.
SERVUCTION: In Tourism (like in Health and Education), they have to visualize and implement new technologies in order to make easier for Tourists to choose specific behaviors, because, as you know, Tourists are an input in the process of Servuction.
YIELD MANAGEMENT: In Tourism they have to visualize and implement new technologies in order to seduce Tourists to appear in our Tourism Destination at the best moment for us and to make the reservation when we have a low booking pace because, as you know, what you don’t sell today is lost forever.

Even though, these limitations in Space and Time can be a little bit broken thanks to the Metaverse!!!
WE DON’T SEND PRODUCTS. WE TRY TO SEDUCE/BRING TOURISTS: In Tourism, in order to improve our profitability and sustainability we have to control the chain of value of all the trip. If we don’t do that, others will do it! Profitable enterprises control the chain of value of creation, communication and commercialization of their products (think in Apple for instance, they control the production, the design, the apple store and App Store…) with a big difference… we don’t send products away! We try to seduce Tourists to appear here from any place of the world! As we always say in OUR classes, seminars, in-company training or start-up meetings in order to define (or redefine!) the Business Model and the Technology Scheme…Customer journey in Tourism? THE REAL TRIP!!!

Thanks to new technologies, we can make all the enterprises that the Tourists have to deal with, to work as a single ecosystem. 

We can use WebScraping to get and send the 3C’s (Content, Commerce and Community) in all the websites, mobiles apps of the enterprise’s members of the chain of value.
We can use WebServices to get and send the 3C’s  in all the Data Bases of the enterprise’s members of the chain of value.
We can use Blockchain to do the same, because all of them are using the same “Data Base”.
We can use Events /Streams processing in order to get and send these 3C’s in Real-Time!
Now, appears a new possibility (well is the rebirth of an old one. First was Java with Applets and “Write once, run anywhere” in 1995). It is Rust using WASM and WASI providing portability and security
 

If you increase the connections between all the members of the chain of value, you can better control it! You can better seduce your Tourists to appear when is more convenient for you and to them! You can better customize the servuction process!
By the way, the name of these professionals able to visualize and implement these improvements in our beloved sector? TOURISTOLOGISTS!!!

The best sector ever needs the best minds!

Traveling is a basic human need that offers plenty of potential to improve/transform the personal and professional life of Tourists. Like all other basic needs (eating, sleeping, learning…), it needs a Science for its study and proposals to satisfy it in the most effective and efficient way.
I’m a Touristologists builder! I love to build the best minds for the best sector ever! My job is to create frameworks able to encapsulate/concentrate knowledge that, at first, they seem difficult to learn BUT, when you make the effort, when you make these frameworks YOURS frameworks you can improve the profitability and sustainability of any Tourism Destination or Enterprise!
I am feed up of people with neither knowledge of Tourism nor a strategic vision about how to make it more profitable and sustainable critizing it… saying that Tourism is a sector with low add value… saying that the Science of Travel doesn’t need the best minds to properly manage Tourism Destinations and Enterprises.
Nowadays, something similar happens with the Metaverse. Like Tourism, the Metaverse is not something that happens… It is something that we have to build!
If you want to build the Metaverse and use it to improve the profit and sustainability of Tourism Destination and Enterprises, you have to know about Tourism and, the set of technologies mixed in heaven that help to build the Metaverse
I mean, Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence and Augmented /Virtual Reality which respectively provide Trustfulness, Scalability and Ubiquity to OUR operations and processes.

Let’s take for instance, Artificial Intelligence…

In The Metaverse, it will appear scenarios both develop for designers BUT ALSO real scenes based on where the Tourists’ camera is looking at. Creating Real-Time point cloud of the physical environment using SLAM (Simultaneous Localization And Mapping) captured by photogrammetry/photoscanning (a lot of photos turned into 3D models), LIDAR (Light Detection And Ranging)…
AI can increase the performance of this process helping to create these 3D scenarios in Real-Time. You can enjoy this video to visualize the idea…

Do you see? Experts in the Metaverse and Touristologists can visualize, create, and animate these scenarios from real places, also new characters, new skins. Characters develop as mesh and riggings BUT also scanning real Tourists/Inhabitants, members of their specialized community around the world. 

Together, they can trigger events rooted in the Tourists’ space and context. Events based on “Anchors” 3D models that all the members of the community will see in the same position and place. Events that will generate a wave of events (the World Wide Wave!!!) that then can be processed (Stream Processing ) in order to provide solutions and opportunities to improve/transform the personal and professional life of the Tourists, members of his/her community around the world, Inhabitants and local Enterprises!

Let’s consider Blockchain or similar alternatives focused on build a decentralized Internet. 

You can enjoy this video of one of the most fun and enlighten series, “Silicon Valley”

 

 

One interesting proposal is Holochain they define themselves as “An end-to-end open source P2P app framework”.
Do you see? Experts in the Metaverse and Touristologists can visualize and implement the best decentralized technology in order to build the best Metaverse!
Paraphrasing Linus Torvalds who said “Talk is cheap. Show me the code.”,  when people talk about Tourism and Metaverse…
Show me your knowledge in New Technologies that are helping to build it! Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence and Augmented /Virtual Reality.
Show me your knowledge, management experience in Servuction, Yield Management… about how a trip can improve the personal and professional life of specialized communities of Tourists, while take care of culture and create richness and employment for the tourist destination.
Show me your desire to learn and help to improve profitability and sustainability of the best sector ever! Otherwise, you are just talking!