TIME TO INVEST, ADAPT AND ENHANCE TO SUCCEED
As difficult as it might be now is the time to invest in tourism destinations to ensure their relevance for the future.
Traditional ways of working, thinking and collaborating will just give us back what we already had - destinations and businesses that we already looking tired and lacking in quality and innovation. Continuing to use the same language, narratives and imagery to attract potential visitor, nor will it change perceptions of a place for the host or the guest.
If we continue to measure the success of tourism using pre-COVID19 metrics we will have failed to heed the lessons of growth and greed.
It is time to call upon the hybrid thinkers to come forward with the hybrid solutions. It is time to seek out the new pirates whose investment priorities are driven by goals that stretch way beyond the profit line.
We need to change how others think about tourism, how we think as tourism professionals and where and who we look to for help and support as we move forward.
This means that we must:
Re-assess how we want to measure success - and failure in tourism in ten years time
Re-assess what are the real and meaningful assets of our destination and what are their respective capacities to cope with the new demands from tourists
What talents will be needed by those who will work in and lead the industry forward - lets stop looking purely at skills and expertise
Lets go out and identify those we want to work with; those who share the destination’s core values and its hopes and ambitions for the future; and who want to help us achieve those goals
Its time to change many of the ways we have grown tourism in the past 30 years…. and the future starts today.
