To my mind, this attitude is not one of caution or inclusion. It is rather one of unwitting slow suicide.

The image on the right is a reprint of an advert that appeared in the Wisden Almanack in the 1920s (possibly earlier?). You’ll notice that all three establishments have had this new-fangled device installed called the telephone so that you can make bookings and inquires. You also notice that they sell themselves on the fact that there are ‘electric lights and bells throughout’ and no charge for attendance or lights.

The point I am making in pointing to this is that lights, telephones, internal communications mechanisms are now taken for granted in hotels. They are not optional extras. And in the same way, modern standards of service are not optional extras – they are as fundamental as electric lights and telephones.

As a colleague recently said, “I don’t expect to pay for my towels so why should I be expected to pay for WiFi?”

So, to my mind, it would be ridiculous as a DMO to overly indulge a bed and breakfast owner who was losing bookings because he wasn’t sure about having a phone line. Put brutally, he would deserve to go out of business because his business model was fundamentally flawed (note that I’m not talking here about isolation holidays or that kind of thing).

And in the same way, tourism businesses that are unsure whether they should

• respond to email enquiries;
• have a professional website;
• have online booking; or
• attempt to understand what travel 2.0 involves;

should feel the chill winds of the current climate and either step up to the plate or make way for someone who does understand these modern business fundamentals.

You might think this is an exaggeration – surely it is only a minority now who act like this? Maybe so but I fear its a larger minority that we sometimes suspect (I speak only of the UK here) and there sometimes seems excessive attention paid to their concerns which frankly seem more like indulgence that encouragement. My recent experience suggested that this was at the cost of those who had made moves to improve their businesses through adoption of these fundamentals and who now needed that little extra advice to take it to an even higher and successful level.

Whenever I am in North America, I am often impressed at how hard many travel companies work to earn your dollars. There is often a level of intelligence and aspiration that, whatever the level of the product, signals a more grown-up market with big aspirations. However, while they look to the stars, it seems that we are too often left staring at the floor.

Perhaps I’m being unfair here – let me know how I am wrong!

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.

We’ve been really working hard in the background with the University of the Highlands and Islands to develop a series of ground-breaking new, practical courses aimed at organisations who want to get more value from their web activity. I’m posting about it here in case you or your colleagues might benefit from this hands-on course and because I hope to ensure the class I’ll be teaching will be packed with enthusiastic people!

The first course is in eMarketing starts w/c 12th May and runs for 15 weeks. (The date has changed). The course will be 100% online, is non-technical and is aimed at helping marketing managers, business owners, tourism organisations and web/communications managers to get more results from their online efforts. Further courses in web analytics and web value optimisation will follow later this year.

While the course is aimed at businesses and organisations of all types, it was nevertheless designed with our tourism sector experience in mind. The course reflects the challenges and issues we see tourism industry businesses and organisations facing time and time again as they try to maximise returns from their online activity.

Why take this course?

• During the sessions you’ll devise specific, actionable improvements for your website
• Understand how visitors use your site so you can improve their experience and your results
• Improve your ability to brief and manage third parties such as designers, developers and SEO agencies
• Build an online marketing strategy for your site
• Learn to optimise your paid search activity and search engine rankings
• Understand conversion and how to measure and improve the return on investment from your activity

You’ll learn from your fellow students, from me and by working closely on real-life examples from your own business sectors.

Who is the course aimed at?

• Busy people like you
• Non technical people – business owners, marketing and communications staff, web and
• Its not just e-commerce!
• Tourism organisations, destination marketers and business owners

Unlike many text books and existing courses, this is not aimed only at those in e-commerce. People in tourism, the public sector, voluntary organisations and with business to business sites will get as much value from this course as those with pure e-commerce sites.

We know you’re busy (we are too). That’s why the course is 100% online to allow you to progress in your own time. The support/teaching will be delivered online too,for maximum flexibility.

You don’t have to be based in the Highlands (or even the UK) to take part – the online approach means time zones are not an issue!

For more information

The course is being run by UHI, but has been developed and will be taught by Vicky Brock of Highland Business Research. To book or for more information about the eMarketing course is available from UHI’s department of Continuing Professional Development - or you can email cpd@uhi.ac.uk .

There is more information about the course in this 3 minute video

I’m also happy to answer any questions about course content etc if you want to email me direct, but I’m not involved in the booking/admin process, so its best to direct that kind of enquiry to UHI.