Fresh perspectives - an industry interview with Sara Borghi
Like many businesses, we receive our share of CVs and work experience enquiries. I’m afraid the majority reveal little real interest in or understanding of our company. But about six months ago, an approach from a Tracking Tourism reader in Italy made us sit up and take notice - so much so that she has just completed a period working with us on a postgraduate placement.
Sara Borghi has been busy helping us on research projects relating to online customer feedback, while also gaining visitor facing experience over at the Sutor Creek cafe in Cromarty. This dual customer facing and business facing perspective was deliberately planned to give her the maximum practical experience to support her excellent academic credentials.
What she has brought to us, and I wanted to share here, is the fresh perspective of someone technically savvy and emerging from advanced education in tourism (a Masters in International Tourism at “Università della Svizzera Italiana” in Lugano, Switzerland).
I asked Sara to tell me what, in the perspective of someone coming into the tourism sector fresh, is the industry doing right and wrong?
Sara explained “Being just at the beginning of my journey in the tourism industry, I’m so excited about the opportunities that this field will constantly keep evolving to offer to both us, tourism marketers, and the travellers around the world. However, my perspective related to the global industry, is very positive on some aspects and less on others”
“My first is related to knowledge and to what I’d call the big picture. I would say that there’s a big gap between the resources that come out from Universities and the requirements that are needed when involved in any kind of decision that in the future will have to be made. What is lacking in my opinion, is a clear understanding about some numbers and some changes in world geopolitics. By 2020 the number of international travellers is expected to reach 1.6 billion (almost twice as last year) and the average growth rate of emerging markets over the past decade is 8%. Some countries have routinely exceeded that level.”
“As the World Tourism Organization has reported, when taken as a whole these poorer markets have been growing at twice the rate of the OECD countries. And that is very significant; dropping the market share over the past decade of North America and Europe by some 10% with the majority shifting to Asia. And doubling the African component.”
“Then, as a consequence, consider the sweeping global issues that are inevitably propelling these poor markets into a new paradigm, where the world will have to shoulder its responsibilities to adequately and sustainably finance and deliver on the development promises. And where tourism can and must play an increasingly pivotal role.”
“Personally I don’t think there a real understanding of this massive changes (and of course potential opportunities) among the different tourism actors on the supply side as well as in an academic environment. There’s still a very “local” approach in the way many businesses and destinations are managed, and from my point of view, this lack could be poisonous for the industry in the future.”
“On the other side, I would add that the way the industry is dealing with climate and environment as well as technology is on the right path: many tourism stakeholders with a sense of responsibility are putting climate into the core sustainability mix and the technology contribution to this achievement is absolutely relevant. Also, the technology contributes at easing internal processes and increasing the returns (companies) ,as well as enhancing the travel experience and help the traveller in the decision process.”
“And as the global mobility increases, technology will more and more play a central role in assessing most of the previously mentioned issues. Neo-graduates, with their highly-tech savvy mindset , could have a great impact in the future, if they’ll learn how to strategically use them, and, most of all, having sustainability as main goal.”
Sara’s point about the tech savvy mindset of this new generation coming into the travel and tourism industries is an important one. We oldies may think we’re with it, but increasingly the travellers (and the managers) of the future will be coming from the generations of digital natives, like Sara, for whom digital technologies are something they have grown up with rather than learned.
Their expectations may easily be ahead of our abilities as businesses to deliver if we are not investing internally in the right skills mix (and I believe it is about core technology skills and awareness, not in simply acquiring the latest tool or gizmo).
I asked Sara what she thinks travel & tourism businesses should be thinking about when it comes to engaging this younger generation of digital natives.
“Most of the students belonging to my generation are nowadays deeply tech-savvy and their approach to exploring and engaging with new technologies and taking risks is remarkably high. They are the people that actively participate in communities , plan their travel experiences totally online, run blogs and post reviews, and finally, that are much more likely to bring mobile devices into work and connect them to work systems and resources. They are also much more likely to install and use unsupported applications on company systems and they are more comfortable using social networks and Web-based collaboration systems.”
“Their potential then is extremely valuable for the travel industry, especially if funnelled at changing the way companies are managed (for example by embracing collaboration and group communication) and internal processes are dealt with. So, in my opinion, the most effective way for engaging this new generation is giving up some control on the previously established models, by embracing them and their ideas, their dynamism and self confidence.”
While Sara was working with us, Stephen and I tried to focus very strongly on exposing her to the practical, actionalable aspects of tourism research - the “so what? factor” we talk about so often. This is because theory and best practice is all very well, but if it doesn’t get translated back into action at an individual business level, it is ultimately worthless. By beginning to think about what an organisation can actually do to action the data it has, Sara saw a direct contrast with her academic learning.
I asked her what she would feedback into the advanced tourism education system, based on this experience with us.
“There needs to be more business people involved in the tourism education process. The world is evolving so fast and the academic sector is so slow - the only way to fill this gap is by providing real experience from real people, even if that is just in the form of case studies and workshops. Without this input, you miss the evolution in managing a destination or the evolving of customer behaviour. It is real people on the ground who can add the insight into how things are shifting and what the future we will be working in might be like.”
I do agree that Sara has a point here - but I would add that it is not a case of simply blaming the universities. I think as businesses we can be proactive ourselves in supporting the academic processes, by conducting workshops, sharing case studies and trying to provide meaningful practical experience for those emerging into the industry.
By taking the time to build a rounded learning experience for Sara while she was here at Highland Business Research, I think I can honestly say we probably learned more from her than she did from us! But I also know that she will be a highly productive employee for someone faster and more creatively than if she had not made the considerable commitment to actively come and acquire this direct experience for herself.
This entry was posted on Monday, August 4th, 2008 at 10:16 am and is filed under Industry interview, Opinion, Training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.