“THE JIGSORIUM OF IDEAS” & THE ALCHEMY OF DESTINATION MANAGEMENT
People don’t know what is possible. We are entering a period of unprecedented experimentation where old models, traditional forms of partnerships and tired business models are no longer relevant. We need hybrid solutions by hybrid thinkers and, as my good friend the visionary Founder of Design Hotels, Claus Sendlinger, once said…. “the problem is that the tourism industry is insufficiently innovative and creative to deliver these hybrid solutions on their own”. So, how are you going to extend and broaden your networks to allow brave new voices into the conversations about the future of tourism - poets, musicians, life science innovators, the social disruptors the young and the old?
All the research shows that most real innovation in tourism and leisure began outside in other sectors and with other disciplines. Who is ‘doing the deals’ now? It is Amazon and Google.
The long-term will be defined by what we do and how we behave now. There is less than ten years to go before we are meant to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals so we have time to be creative about how we move tourism forward in a sustainable, resilient and more competently managed manner.
Just as the financial justification for the great stadia and concert halls of the world is looking ever more precarious so too are many of the major, large volume tourism schemes. Having said that we know of multi-million pound schemes still schedule to proceed in many parts of the world. Overall, however, there is now a chance to reset, even re-invent, the industry as we enter the recovery with substantial sustainability, preparing for visits to less-travelled places, getting to know our own ‘filltir sgwar’ (square mile in Welsh) and developing honesty and trust between host and guest.
According to DIRECTIONS - the annual excursion into tourism trends by The Future Lab and Design Hotels - we need to prepare for the arrival of the PROMADS a pan-generational tourist who has a new mind-set. They will travel to produce and contribute not consume. Booking.com surveys are consistently revealing evidence of this new motivation. These travellers are “creative, fluid, purposeful and opposed to over-tourism and driven by local concern.” They will demand authenticity, word-of- mouth credibility and address their whole needs (mind, body and soul) = Regenerative tourism. Destinations that are rated and ranked for health, safety, security and honesty and admired for all.
This all demands a competent approach to destination management.
The picture headlining this article shows an attempt to manage over-tourism on on the Gower Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in the mid-1970’s. The signs were erected at three strategic locations on the main roads into the peninsula. They show the capacity and status of each car park during the progress of peak day visitations. It worked - up to a point!!! The problem was that the signs had to be changed manually by a poor guy who when he got the news about spaces being available he had to cycle between the three locations to amend the signs and, inevitably by the time he changed them the situation had altered.
