Can Servuction be a game?

The other day we talked about the future of mobile. I recommended you a good presentation about it and I claimed that something was missing… The future of mobile passes through providing good Servuction! In this presentation, the authors highlight the increase on the users of smartphones and tablets and the fact that users do on mobile things that they usually don’t do on-line, specifically play games! Ummm rings the bell of Gamification to me!  Gamification? Jordi, are you creating new words again? This time… I’m not the one who creates new words, Touristologists! You can check this video out to learn more about it!

If you get interested and want to see some applications of Gamification in tourism you can explore the ideas proposed for...

To me,there is plenty of room in Touristology for mixing Gamification and Servuction

At the end of the day, tourists participate in the Servuction process and if we want to be successful in the pro-am era, we have to promote this participation in all the processes of our enterprise, or even better in all the processes of our chain of value!  Processes related to the creation of dynamic packaging, in its communication, in its commercialization, in service recovery, in marketing research…

What better way to involve a tourist than using a game? What better way to show a tourist the way Servuction works in our organization? As Benjamin Franklin said, “Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.”  Mr. Franklin, you really know about Education methodology. I’m sure that you were very good at creating frameworks… like this one where I try to explain the evolution of Internet from looking for information to becoming social and finally to doing things (implementing processes!!!)

 

Do you see, Touristologists? The secret of a successful professional career is to never work! When you are doing what you like it’s just a game… Like building a science, TOURISTOLOGY, with my fellow Touristologists!!!

The future of mobile apps? Provide good Servuction!

The other day I posted about the necessity to analyze social networking sites, online travel agencies, central reservations systems, a fancy monument in their tourism destination …You name it, inside a chain of value, which can be specialized or generic. Something similar happens when somebody creates an application for smartphones.

If this application wants to improve the level of satisfaction of one tourist it must offer a set of services fully integrated with the chain of value aiming to get the trust and add value to this tourist. Makes sense, rigth? But, usually, this is not the approach. You can watch this very interesting presentation about the future of mobile.  It’s really good, BUT something is missing. To me, the future of mobile apps passes through providing good Servuction!

Luckily we are seeing things moving in this direction, WorldMate which we talked in a previous post created a good video where the main character makes fun of mobiles apps that do a lot of things but NOT useful ones! Worldmate itself create mobiles apps which integrated all the members of the chain of value in what they call an itinerary travel.

I like to highlight those sentences from this article:

1) “Our company is built on the fact that mobile will be the primary device for travel suppliers for informing, communicating and transacting with travellers. According to us, mobile should be first and foremost a service channel and can only become a successful sales channel if you get the service part right. So the only sale you’re going make is the sales that is being perceived as a service,” explained Van Velzen CEO, Sound of Data.

2) “Mobile provides unique opportunities to improve the traveller experience, which can lead to customer loyalty. It can also be a great mechanism to capture incremental revenues through upsell of ancillary revenues and reduce operating costs through self-service. This is the primary lens through which travel companies should view monetisation, says Glenn Gruber, AVP, Market Development, Travel Technologies, Ness Technologies.”

Perfect! At the end of the day, mobile apps are just a physical support and, as you already know, we have to add tourists and staff in contact and then define the interactions between them. Welcome to Servuction world! (more about Servuction here and here).

Touristology’s framework clearly recommends/guide us to put trained people inside viable and competitive enterprises and all them inside a chain of value. Then you can create and offer services from the beginning to the end of the trip! Check this video out to get a visual explanation...

 

Opening doors and connecting dots

And old Chinese Proverb said "Teachers open the doors, but you must enter by yourself” and I add… Once inside, begin to connect the dots to create your own frameworks. Touristology is a door, definitely worth opening and the 1,2,3 theory and chain of value can help you to connect the dots. I mean your segments from countries of origin around the world and the services that you provide. 

As I always say, you can use a chain of value already created/there or you can set up your own one, BUT you can’t ignore their power. If you really want to be successful in XXI century Tourism you have to use 1,2,3 theory. What? You still don’t have a clue about 1,2,3, theory? Ok, time to introduce my video! 

People (not Touristologists!) like to talk about the latest social networking site, the latest gadget, the latest central reservation system, a fancy monument in their tourism destination. A good Touristologist likes to talk about chains of value.

Take Pinterest for instance, (check this video out if you are not familiar with Pinterest) it can be more or less interesting as a business model.  You can also analyze it with the matrix I provide in this post.

What do you think? Does it seem useful for the Tourism sector? Can you use it as a marketing research tool? You can take beautiful pictures of your hotel, resort, heritages… and you will learn what your customers find interesting and worth sharing. Do you want to make your website appealing for different segments? Are you not sure what kind of pictures, video… work better for each segment? Maybe Pinterest can help you!

BUT the real thing, the Touristology one, when Pinterest becomes really interesting is when you integrate it into a chain of value!!!

Let’s consider that you want to attract a segment of affluent families, this will be number one, (even though I strongly recommend to use a higher level of segmentation as we mentioned here) then you customize your offer, this will be number two, and finally you use or set up a chain of value, number three.

In this chain of value, Pinterest could be interesting as a meeting place, basically because affluent women like to use it and they are the ones who usually plan the getaways for the entire family!

To me, it is a must to analyze social networking sites using a web 2.0 business model (like the one that I propose above). In the same way, when we are planning / doing consultancy / setting up our own enterprise…in tourism field, analysis only makes sense if you see the entire picture. I mean the possible chain of value that will allow you to get the trust of the customer and add value in order to satisfy their needs.

So, as a Touristologist, we analyze reality with our own glasses.

A new Social Networking Sites like Pinterest? Let’s analyze it as a possible member of a chain of value! Obviously, first you have to decide if you want to create a generic or specialized chain of value, but you already know that!

Now, our work begins adding the right members into this chain of value and then being sure that this chain of value works as an organization, in order to do that we have to make all the commercial and technological agreements. This is Touristology’s thinking!

Do you think/visualize travelchannel as another meeting point complementary with Pinterest for the segment of affluent families? Do you see tripology as an outgoing travel agency in this chain of value? Not sure? Maybe you need to go over this article and make up your mind!

Are you watching a television program on the travelchannel and you would love to travel to this place having the same experience that the main character or anchor has? Tripology can organize the travel. Do you think they fit in your chain of value? What kind of tourism products are they communicating and commercializing. Can we do something similar? Can we do something complementary? Can we create something for specialized tourism and then build up over a generic one?

Let’s continue with our chain of value, shall we? We see meeting places, then an outgoing travel agency, now it’s time for an incoming travel agency which can set up all necessary things in tourism destination, finally, suppliers of tourism services must be ready and coordinated as well. The final result? Tourists get support from the beginning to the end of the trip AND...

YOU HAVE BECOME A TOURISTOLOGIST!!!

Can you make a proposal for the commercial and technological agreements? Do you want or not to become a Touristologists?

IT’S TIME TO PROVE IT!

A theory is only good if it explains real life

The other day I introduced WorldMate to my Touristologists. It is a very interesting native app (everybody knows the difference between mobile web app and native app, right?) available for Android, iPhone and Blackberry which recently won the Best Mobile Travel App Award at EyeForTravel’s Social Media and Mobile Strategies for Travel 2012 conference in San Francisco.

I read about it in this article and I challenge my Touristologists to use the web 2.0 business model to classify WorldMate.

They put on the usual poker face that usually means I-don’t-know-but-let’s-pretend-I-do-otherwise-Jordi-gets- depressed! I appreciate their effort! It’s much better than the I-don’t-know-AND-I-don’t-care! At the end of the day, their attitude will be the bedrock of a successful career as a Touristologist! As Thomas Jefferson said “Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.”

I hold my position and wait for the good ones, the real Touristologists, the ones that will occupy a place in the mental warriors of Touristology that I talked about in this post. I knew that sooner or later they would begin to made questions, comments, and good opinions.

But… First things first… a little bit about the story of WorldMate.

In a nutshell WorldMate native app helps their users to create their own travel itinerary. When a hotel, a car rental, airline company send an e-mail to a tourist’s Smartphone notifying about a booking, users resend this e-mail to WorldMate and thanks to XML…(what? You don’t know what XML stands for? Don’t worry you always can ask to any of my Touristologists!!!) a customized travel itinerary is created. Based upon it WorldMate can provide the right set of 3C’s (Content, Commerce and Community) in the right way.

If a tourist uses this application frequently WorldMate can create a profile that allow them to make more accurate offers when a tourist searches for a specific tourism service, or even to suggest new services.

They also provide the connections that you can find near your trip thanks to an agreement with linkedIn.

This year they add a Price Alerts service which offer alternatives to room reservations based upon the price. It’s just a matter of time that somebody (any Touristologist reading this???) creates an improved version based on add value. It will be another step along the path of showing all the relevant 3 C’s both objective and subjective.

You can learn more about WorldMate visiting their website or enjoying this funny video:

Coming back to my Touristologists’ challenge…It was a very interesting debate, indeed! Would you like to participate? What are your opinions? Are you able to provide the business model and the technological scheme?

I love Touristology’s games!