Stop looking for the key to success in the wrong place.

A Touristologist on holiday ? No way! Like a cinema director going to the movies, like a magician enjoying some magic trick… you can’t stop thinking, looking for the good moves, detecting the bad ones… talking about the bad… time flies but one usual mistake repeats over and over. 

Some people working in the field of tourism seem to have made a promise that they never would lock for a new international customer. They patiently would wait until someone brings the tourists to them, then they would offer a good service and everything would be great! So, they focus on the service that they have to provide and expend all their budget improving their installations (a new SPA, a covered swimming pool,…) and let communication and commercialization in the savvy hands of big intermediaries, big search engines, big social networking sites or the new group buying and flash sales sites.

 It doesn’t matter if year after year, they see the same results… less price, less margin, higher dependency on others to listen/talk/sell to their customer. It doesn’t matter if they get customers basically focused on the price… They are stuck in the idea that others have to bring the tourist. 

They are looking for the key of success where they are used… I’m sure you know the story about a man who is searching for his car keys under a streetlight (paraphrasing… a hotelier or tourist destination relying on mass tourism). A Touristologist happens along, and after appraising the situation, asks the man where he had last seen the keys. The man points toward a dark alley. Then why aren't you looking over there?" asks the exasperated Touristologist. The man calmly replies, "Because the light is better over here." 

I strongly recommend that you developed your own chains of value aiming to different segments from different nationalities. I strongly recommend that you help incoming local travel agencies OR local inhabitants to do this task for you. To me, this will be much better than to pay high fees to external intermediaries which will transform YOUR customers into THEIRS!!!

Don’t worry Touristologists sooner or later this will change, the market will realize that it is necessary to have experts in detecting new segments around the world, in adding value through a clear identification about what special needs tourists have while travelling and what they can get through travelling , in designing the service (servuction remember?) not only in the tourist destination but also before, during and after the trip. Those days are closer and closer and you will be the fundamental drivers of change of the tourism sector...meanwhile…. 

SMILE and KEEP STUDYING, KEEP WORKING, KEEP BELIEVING!!!! 

Just remember “The hardest thing you can do is smile when you are ill, in pain, or depressed. But this no-cost remedy is a necessary first half-step if you are to start on the road to recovery”. Allen Klein

Top-Down versus Bottom-Up approach

As you know, I have two intellectual lovers: Touristology and Web-Engineering, which I think are strongly related.

A case in point, a few days ago I went to a Tourist destination trying to dynamize their tourism activities. You know, the usual rules which make me love Touristology!

- You have to seek International Tourism,

- Aim to get more revenues AND profit for local companies through more control over the chain of value…

- Then create international routes…

 I began to talk about the different approaches that they can follow if they want to be successful. For starters, Top-Down and Bottom-Up.

Our society is still rooted in waiting for the miracle, the hero, the big thing. So, it is easy to rely on Top Down approach… and to mention the successful case of the Camino de Santiago, you get a nomination as a heritage of humanity, you are lucky enough that Paulo Coelho writes a book about it and an American director shoots a movie… as a result you get plenty of tourists without any special or great effort for the population of the tourist destination.

A bottom-up approach on the other hand means a network of small and medium size companies working together as a single organization (CHAIN OF VALUE, remember?) using trial and error methodology and doing what it takes to get their goals! The final result is more control over the chain of value and, as a consequence, more profit and the trust of the tourist that will allow you to create international routes, but… you have to work hard. It is not an easy thing, but definitely worth it!

So, using bottom up approach in tourism means aiming to specific segments, then trying to build a chain of value putting together people and organizations, then trying to build tourism packages, some of them will work others no, then TRY again!!!!!

You can visualize this chain of value in this figure:

Where the goal is to create an efficient and organized network, based on decentralization and distributive Intelligence.

Dynamize a tourist destination following Bottom-up approach means to follow Tom Peter’s advice “Leaders don't create followers, they create more leaders.” You don’t rely on THE leader you create leaders.

At the same time, I was working with a webapp (porlets / JQuery) database oriented. As usual I wasn’t alone (I love to be surrounded by small teams of A+ Players!!!). The webapp was putting our faith and persistence to a test. I was repeating all the time (quietly for myself and louder for the team)

“Destiny tests your determination to succeed. This is just a test… Keep working!”

Finally, it works smoothly and clean! Soon you will see the results!

Suddenly, I realized why Touristology resembles web-engineering! Web-Engineering is not Mathematics where you have your theorems and axioms and you can get a result following a top-down approach! In web-engineering you have a set of strategies and tactics and you try, you document the mistakes, create small modules which work and finally assemble all of them together. It’s a chain of value changing people by code and organizations for modules!!!

Bottom-up approach works in web-engineering and in Touristology. It’s a harder path but at the end the tourist destination will create their own companies with knowledge, abilities and contacts to become successful.

- Jordi I don’t see the differences between Top-Down and Bottom-up approach

- Neither do I!

- See Jordi, you have to explain this better!

- Ok, OK let’s leave this in the savvy hands of my Touristologists… Can you explain the difference with your own words? Can you give specific examples? Hmm, it’s starting to smell like a Study Case around here!

Come on Touristologists! Use your brain, you will help other to understand Touristology and on the journey… you will become a Touristologist!!!

A study case? Or just a marketing stunt?

The other day a fellow Touristologist send me this link...

what do you think, Jordi? - He asked me. Can you make a study case of it? Well… I’ll do my best!

To make a long story short, Gordon is a professional of the tourism sector (umm, did you realize that I don’t use the sacred word TOURISTOLOGIST? Mistake, bad spelling, it-is-the-same, I-have-my-own-reasons…?) He travels around the world doing consultancy for tourism enterprises, specially restaurants and hotels. I love this game!

On this occasion he visits Juniper Hill Inn where a gay couple is managing the Inn. One is the investor, the other the director/manager.

Gordon has been hired to overcome some serious problems in the hotel. To me, these problems can be summarized by:

1) They are in the red.

2) Workers are unhappy, unorganized and making a low standard performance.

Let’s see, after reviewing the video…

Do you agree that the previous problems are the most important ones? You know, when I prepare study cases sometimes I forgot important issues!

Can you use Touristology’s framework to find a solution? In real life, not providing a good solution means no money or bad word of mouth! In OUR class…feel ashamed in front of colleagues? Low self-esteem? Lower grades?

1) Can you use Bermuda triangle?

2) Can you use 1,2,3 theory? It can be useful to review the hotel’s website. It is obvious that after Gordon’s visit they changed a few things. Can you analyze and propose improvements to this web site? Do they practice any kind of segmentation? Can you improve it?

3) Can you use service recovery and servuction ideas in order to define a proper servuction?

By the way, isn’t it bizarre the study case’s title? Maybe is a clue to begin your investigation!

Come on Touristologist use your framework, use your brain! Remember Carl Sagan saying “The brain is like a muscle. When it is in use we feel very good. Understanding is joyous.” 
…And being a Touristologist is the best intellectual adventure ever!!!

 

Revenue Management breaking departmental silos

The other day we talked about Yield /Revenue Management. We saw a generic view, a holistic approach… today let’s work with something a little bit more specific which clearly will prove the necessity of Integration of all departments, employees and software involve in the task of Revenue Management. At the end of the day, this will be our motto “ If we want to offer a better service we have to break the departmental silos”.

When I teach as a lecturer in the university or doing consultancy related to Revenue Management  I always realize that Revenue Management, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Loyalty programs are strongly related, but in hotels and tourism destinations they have the tendency to have different silos. 

Jordi- that is the normal thing isn’t it? At the end of the day, we have different software, different departments, different employees…. I always reply. Do you have customers like this?

As you know I strongly believe in the future of Consilience and I think that Revenue Management, CRM and loyalty programs are a good case in point. As a matter of fact I strongly believe that its integration is one of the biggest challenges Revenue Management is facing nowadays!

When we talk about tourism we have to achieve a chain of value working as a single organization. In the same way, if we want to design a better servuction for our hotels we have to break the departmental silos, which means the integration of all departments, employees and software involve in the task of Revenue Management.

To do so, I like to convey the necessity to use two mindsets: Business model and Technological scheme.

Let’s see a few examples related to the business model, shall we?

As I pointed out in this tweet..

Successful strategies in Revenue Management should focus on a LONG term vision. In this article appears an interesting case in point:

In a nutshell “Consider this scenario: A large company, which a hotel has been trying to make inroads with for some time, is trying to book a group stay at a hotel. They want a good deal and the revenue manager is tasked with working out what this is going to be worth to the bottom line. His decision, which he relays to management, is to reject the booking – it is not as valuable as the business it would displace. Is this the right decision? What if the company finds another chain willing to do the deal and for the next five years becomes a loyal and regular customer on that competitor’s books?”    

This is a classic example of short versus long vision. If you want to be prosperous in the Revenue Management field you have to take into consideration ALL the aspects of each deal… Revenue Management’s Framework remember?

Let’s see another example Rhett Hirko, Director of Revenue Analytics, International, Hyatt Hotels & Resorts declared in this article “I have yet to see any hotel company target a consumer based on that customer’s purchase history and demographics (CRM) – I suppose casinos do some of this with their frequent guests, but we aren’t there – yet. We are definitely working on it.”

Do you see?  Integration of departments, people, software and processes will be increasingly important in the near future. CRM information, financial information… the use of segments accountancy…

So, do you want to run in this race? Don’t forget that apart from the business model you will need the other hand the technological scheme!

To get the experience that you will need, you have to get your hands dirty and practice with real software. 
Jordi, but this is better to leave in the expert hands of engineers isn’t it?  I don’t think so, remember what Henry C. Link said “While one person hesitates because he feels inferior, the other is busy making mistakes and becoming superior. ”

So, download a virtual machine player. A good option is vmware then get some virtual machines (or virtual appliances) to play, you can go to virtual machineware market or  go to Bitnami, which is a very good provider of virtual appliances. In there you will find virtual appliances related to CRM. Then download a portal. Liferay would be an excellent option!. 

A portal? YES! Because it would allow you to integrate, in a single spot, information from different applications (a CRM, the loyalty program, etc).

But Jordi!  Can’t I focus on selling rooms to the generic market through generic intermediaries? Well, of course you can but let’s study the facts. Do you believe that you can be a good revenue manager doing ONLY that?

If you follow my advice you will develop two mindsets, the business model and the technological scheme…… You will become a better Touristologist and the SKY will be the limit!

Does Revenue Management seem difficult? It is! For that reason you will need to become a good Touristologist!!!