Things I’ve noticed in 2017

In an ever-evolving marketplace, 2017 is yet another exciting year presenting many new developments. Some of the major trends, in general and in tourism, include sustainability, virtual reality, the growth of the sharing economy, increased personalization and focus on the customer experience, social media storytelling, a stronger role of video in content marketing, and many others. Here are some of the things that have caught my attention in 2017:

December 2017

Humans have been telling stories for thousands of years and talented storytellers have always known how to capture the attention of their listeners. Nowadays, social media offer great possibilities for storytelling, especially with regard to experiential tourism. The difference is that pretty much everybody wants to tell a story now, given that modern smartphones and digital cameras make it so easy to share travel impressions on different social media platforms. User-generated content (UGC) is the name of the game and destinations come to understand that instead of doing it all by themselves, marketing is increasingly about making it easier for visitors to share their experiences. Not only does this add authenticity and credibility but it also facilitates content creation in a multi-channel world, including all-important visual content such as high-quality images and short videos, to promote a certain destination or product, or should we better say: an experience.

Chile Travel: Find your Chile

Destinations can complement this trend by adding testimonials, for example by including the voice of a member of a community that benefits from tourism, or a guide that loves to share his passion for a certain place or activity. Essentially it is about engaging visitors on an emotional level, communicating core values and allowing the customer to be part of the story or the adventure. With consumers being constantly bombarded with marketing messages, the era of boring clients with sales arguments in a bullet point kind of style is fading. Keep it simple, find a unique and compelling story to tell and invite your clients to be part of it.

November 2017

One megatrend that is here to stay is the sharing economy, a phenomenon driven mainly by the desire to save money and engage in more sustainable consumption patterns. Some well-known examples in tourism include Uber and Lyft in the area of transportation, Airbnb and Couchsurfing with regard to accommodation and BlaBlaCar and Liftshare in the realm of carsharing. But the trend is also permeating many other areas like the job world, with business models such as coworking spaces and virtual office assistants becoming more popular. Not only do these represent money-saving solutions, but they also allow users to network with a greater community, stimulating creativity and helping them to solve their clients’ problems with greater flexibility and effectiveness. With an increasing number of people who are self-employed, these new facilities allow to constantly adapt to new challenges which nowadays are more defined by shifting projects with different clients than by fixed roles within established companies; thus creating new economic opportunities and income streams.

Reinvent: An Animated Overview of the Sharing Economy

There is no doubt that travel has proven to be one of the key areas in which the sharing economy has taken hold. As people travel more and become more experienced, the desire for authentic experiences and more genuine interaction with locals in the destination tends to rise. In addition, many price-conscious consumers don’t want to spend money on fancy hotels with all the bells and whistles but rather value a reasonable level of comfort and atmosphere for their money. Luckily, many homes offer more facilities than a hotel room, like the possibility to use a completely equipped kitchen that allows saving on meals, as well as full laundry facilities. Despite a few horror stories from both sides of the Airbnb experience, online reviews make it relatively easy and safe to identify a suitable option, which is often located in ordinary neighborhoods rather than expensive touristy areas. Likewise, recommendations on what to see and do in the area provided by a homeowner tend to be more pragmatic than the usually fancier, or more commercially oriented, recommendations given by hotel staff. So what is the main lesson for the hospitality industry that feels threatened by the sharing economy? People nowadays want authenticity, and they want to connect on a personal level. And they don´t want to pay extra for things like internet access. Some cities, like Barcelona, now put tight regulations on Airbnb but the hospitality sector should really take a more proactive, consumer-focused stance and address these legitimate motivations. In any case, it is important to remember that despite all the headlines, Airbnb only represents a small percentage of all room nights in most destinations.

October 2017

Planet Under Pressure: Welcome to the Anthropocene

Earth has a history of roughly 4.6 billion years. Humans have been around for about 200,000 years, without altering the balance of Earth’s ecosystems during most of that time. But then, in a blip of cosmic history, starting with the industrial revolution which began in England in the second half of the 18th century, humanity started to leave its mark on the planet. The fifties saw the beginning of what is now called the great acceleration, unleashing technological advancements and introducing new developments that were not imaginable just a century ago. Our only home – Earth – has never been the same ever since.

Consider anything from agriculture to population growth, industrialization, economic development, sprawling urbanization, nuclear power and the atomic bomb, aviation and space exploration, globalization, mass tourism, internet, deforestation, biodiversity loss and climate change – all these factors have forever changed the face of the earth and our shared destiny. Like never before, humankind has left a profound impact on the earth’s ecological balance. Collectively, we are engaged in one big experiment with an unknown outcome. We have entered the Anthroprocene, a new geological epoch.

In the year 1972, an iconic picture appeared for the first time – that of a fully illuminated planet Earth, taken from space by NASA. Looking at the “Blue Marble” from their spacecraft, astronauts have reported a phenomenon called the “overview effect”, a profound shift in consciousness; what´s more, British scientist James Lovelock suggested with the Gaia theory that Earth is essentially one self-regulating organism. A lot of evidence is pointing to the idea that this organism is out of balance. Yet, the pale blue dot, as astronomer Carl Sagan once called it considering the vast nothingness that surrounds us, is all there is to sustain humanity and all life. In a highly interrelated world, in which a trivial act like the purchase of a pair of jeans can involve parts from more than a dozen countries, we all need to become more aware of our individual role within this one big organism.

September 2017

The World Tourism Organisation UNWTO has declared the year 2017 as the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development. As one would expect, this year has been filled with lots of activities relating to policy making and best practices in the field sustainable tourism. A somewhat smiled-upon niche market 30 years ago, sustainable tourism has become fashionable and can be increasingly felt throughout the tourism mainstream. Many important players aspire to be sustainable now – destinations, hotels, airlines, event venues and, last but not least, the tourists themselves. Of particular relevance in this context is a UNWTO publication titled Indicators of Sustainable Tourism which points to an essential consideration regarding sustainability: if it is of any substance, then it is also measurable. Anyone involved in establishing and measuring these indicators or even simply understanding them knows that sustainability is a never-ending process, an ever-continuing effort balancing many considerations. Striving for sustainability is typically reflected in a gradual and constant evolution of these indicators and based on continuous improvement in the various areas of a company or destination. So any serious sustainability approach very much reflects the spirit of kaizen, the Japanese philosophy of continuous improvement in small steps.

Why small steps? Because they are realistic. No tourism company or destination, usually part of a complex web of relationships with external stakeholders, can turn sustainable overnight. Hopefully, the International Year of Sustainable Tourism contributes to that spirit of continuous improvement – monitoring the news, it does seem that unrealistic claims have been the exception; and that a generalized understanding, in the sense that sustainability is accomplished in a long-term perspective, prevails.

2017: International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development

August 2017

The central idea of virtual reality is no other than to fool the user’s brain into perceiving the virtual world as real. This – undoubtedly intriguing – premise is rapidly finding more followers. It is estimated that the number of users of virtual reality technology will increase to 171 million in 2018, representing a sharp growth of 450% compared to 2014. As virtual reality is entering our daily lives, some areas in particular are seeing changes. These include:

• Gaming – gamers are eager early adopters of VR technology and love the realistic feel of imaginary battlefields in medieval times or adventurous explorations on the Mars surface. Haptic feedback virtual reality suits have arrived to add to the fun, allowing the player to experience physical sensations through wearables.
• Sports – VR will allow sports aficionados to view the action in totally new and exciting ways, from 360-degree views to following a game from the perspective of a player.
• Travel – virtual reality allows consumers to visualize in a realistic way what it is like to be in a destination, impacting booking decisions. This technology works well in combination with now common drone videos, showing the world’s attractions from new perspectives in an immersive manner.
• Cinema – the first virtual reality cinemas are now opening around the world, including WeAreCinema in Switzerland and the Virtual Reality Cinema in Amsterdam.
• Medical training – among many other uses in the medical field, virtual reality allows aspiring doctors to do virtual surgeries, without putting anyone at risk.

What’s more, as Google Daydream is poised to be a common VR complement to the increasing number of “Daydream-ready” Android smartphones, virtual reality will become ubiquitous and accessible for the majority of consumers. That said, there is no doubt that similar to the arrival of the internet, virtual reality will impact society in ways we cannot yet fully anticipate.

July 2017

Seth Godin is known to speak frequently about permission marketing. The basic idea is that instead of interrupting people with ads they don’t care about, they give permission (or should we say, the privilege) to receive marketing messages, based on a sense of trust and respect and anticipating that the content will be highly relevant to them.

Putting it in metaphorical terms, he speaks about “dating” your customers. That is not a bad way to think of it and of course, marketing has a lot do with making somebody fall in love – in this case, with a product or service. It points to an element of courtship and playfulness in the customer relationship that the brute force of million dollar budgets and obnoxious ads typically cannot achieve.

Permission Marketing: Seth Godin on “dating” your customers

June 2017

A number of studies indicate that consumers trust brands less than in the past and that as an overall tendency brand loyalty is going down. Just think of the image damage inflicted by the financial crisis or the Volkswagen scandal involving emission manipulations. Especially millennials tend to maintain a skeptical attitude and prefer products and brands that are backed by highly transparent and traceable practices. Other than that… well, welcome to “No Brand’s Land”. A recent market study, published by global marketing consultancy Edelman, underlines the importance for brands to not only proclaim certain values but to consistently demonstrate practices that support these values. According to the study, 50% of consumers consider themselves to be ‘belief-driven buyers’ and 57% of those consumers will make a purchasing decision, either positive or negative, based on political or social issues. The message is simple and clear: Purchasing behavior is not just about the product anymore but also about a set of values that the product represents. Consumers increasingly expect companies to serve a broader agenda and play a role in solving the challenges of modern society.

Edelman: The Earned Brand Study

Billionaire Richard Branson has this to say about the future of brands: “The brands that will thrive in the coming years are the ones that have a purpose beyond profit”, referring to yet another study carried out by Havas Media. This so-called Meaningful Brands study claims that the majority of people would not care if 73 per cent of brands ceased to exist. Welcome once again to “No Brand’s Land”.

May 2017

Good Hotel Amsterdam was conceived as a floating non-for-profit hotel and social business that re-invests its profits into education, training and entrepreneurship. In November 2016 it relocated to the UK, reopening as Good Hotel London in Newham’s Royal Docks and branding itself as ‘premium hospitality with a cause’. The CSR policy of this unique hotel includes aspects such as local sourcing to benefit the community, recycling, professional training focused on unemployed individuals with the goal to raise their opportunities in the job market; and sustainable management of the hotel by utilizing energy-saving measures and making use of eco-friendly materials. Nowadays there are many sustainable hotels out there but supporting unemployed persons represents a rather unconventional and remarkable approach. Try it out on your next trip to London and support the hotel’s applaudable social mission: www.goodhotellondon.com

Check out this video on ‘Good Training’ in Dutch language with subtitles in English:

April 2017

Horwarth HTL, an international group dedicated to hospitality and tourism consulting, recently has published a market report on the situation of hotels and chains in a number of European countries, analyzing 14 markets in total. Through a system of uniformly applied KPIs, it compares the different hospitality markets, demonstrating that countries like Spain and France have a very strong presence of chain hotels compared to domestic hotels, versus countries like Austria and Italy where domestic hotels play a much stronger role than chains. You can download the report here:
Horwath HTL – European Hotels and Chains Report 2017

March 2017

TourCert is a sustainability label for tour operators, with presence mostly in the German market. During the ITB Berlin tourism fair in 2017, it presented TourCert Latina and TourCert Danube, two initiatives geared towards certifying incoming agencies in Latin American and Danube countries. Since sustainability cannot truly be conceived if it is not permeating the entire tourism value chain, this approach is the correct way to go. If a German tour operator offers sustainable packages, as for example those affiliated to the trade association Forum Anders Reisen typically do, then ideally the partners in the destination also work with that philosophy in a verifiable manner. TourCert aims to ensure this consistency, thus enhancing the credibility and consolidation of sustainable tourism across the value chain.

February 2017

Doing market research, I came across this data. Here’s the median age of a few selected countries:

Brazil: 31.6
China: 37.1
Ecuador 27.4
Germany: 46.8
India: 27.6
Italy: 45.1
Japan: 46.9
Kenya: 19.5
Nigeria: 18.3
Russia: 39.3
United States: 37.9

Well, that gives the term “Old Europe”, once coined by Donald Rumsfeld in an entirely different context, a whole new meaning. With its aging demographic, Europe above all faces a range of challenges to maintain its competitive standing in the world; increased health costs being just one of many. And with regard to tourism and marketing, it is no surprise that wellness is on the rise on the old continent. Hospitality industry and destinations, take note.

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Los Angeles recently has published a great little destination video. Instead of presenting all kinds of LA sights and icons, it focuses on getting across the vibe of the city, and is rather effective by making this deliberate choice. The panoramic views taken from the Griffith Observatory are combined with music by Souls (“I wait for you”). A good example leaving no doubt that less can be more in destination marketing.

Discover Los Angeles – It’s more than a city. It’s a vibe.

January 2017

An interesting article by Skift about trends in the hospitality industry that shape the guest experience in 2017 highlights ‘lean luxury’as a trend. So instead of the in-your-face, ‘bigger is better’ kind of luxury overwhelming you with excessive stuff, it is about personalized service and refined essentials, about smart touches, an eye for details, about aesthetics and style. Exclusivity will always be valued, but it is mindless opulence that seems to be fading. I recently researched some luxury lodges in Peru and Ecuador that exemplify that spirit to a degree – they are still eco-lodges, not 5 star resorts, but there are so many nice touches and such a great natural environment that a stay truly amounts to a luxury experience for the discerning traveler. Part of the whole experience is a strong commitment to conservation and community involvement. One such example is Napo Wildlife Center in Ecuador, a luxury eco-lodge in Yasuni National Park, known for its outstanding biodiversity, that has received a recognition for its sustainable tourism practices from the Rainforest Alliance.

Napo Wildlife Center – A rainforest trip to the Ecuadorian Amazon

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