Oct 29, 2013

What, exactly, do you want Jordi?



Sometimes (well, often) My Touristologists ask me, fed up about my obsession to give my subject in English, fed up of always demanding International examples, fed up of always asking for more examples of specialized Tourism, fed up of my methodology which consists of ME presenting the whole theory in the first sessions , then THEM preparing study cases and projects making all the concepts interact, then THEY give presentations to the rest of the class and have to integrate their ideas, proposals, improvements…Jordi, exactly, what do you want?!?!?!
I want YOU to be successful Touristologists! That is what I want! I’m only good if you are good. At the end of the day, I’m a Touristologists builder, remember? I’m only good if masterpieces appear to astonish the world! I want to contribute to the creation of the greatest Touristologists on earth. That is what I want!
I want to avoid, by all means, that you just memorize concept after concept and then regurgitate them in an exam. As I said here I could use a methodology which means less work for you and for me! Sure I could! BUT with this kind of interaction I’m sure that my Touristologists don’t learn the subject by the book. I want YOU to become master and commander of Touristology’s Framework. In order to achieve, there is nothing better than using a trial and error methodology!
In a real job, in your start-up, it won’t be theme 1 and theme 2… You will have to interact with concepts, deal with different opinions and point of views (customers, investors, suppliers, collaborators, employees…) then analyze this ever changing reality and REACT in the most effective and efficient way. I try to mimic this reality with this methodology. I try to prepare you to survive in this reality!
The other day, we talked about, that to develop the skills, the contacts, the knowledge to deal with specialized tourism it is an important framework to keep in your Touristology’s toolbox!
I also want to be sure that you can apply these ideas for a job interview, Touristologists! If the only thing you are able to offer is your capacity to attend the tourist when She/He arrives at the hotel, camping site, Tourism destination… you are a kind of commodity. You are doing something, though very important, a lot of people know how to do.
I want to be sure that you can apply these ideas to your new start-up, as well. Local tourism is OK, but.. You are a Touristologist! The world is your office and you have what it takes to be competitive in a global environment. If you only focus on local tourism you are losing plenty of opportunities!
 If you are able to integrate ideas and points of view, if you are able to seek for new customers and attract them as a magnet to any place that you choose and then become a Super3 and add layers of profit as we explained here. I, strongly, believe that you can earn more money and build up a successful career as a Touristologist!
If you are able to do that… you don’t need to worry about your competitors, some of them still believe that local tourism is the way to go, that Chinese tourism is a fairy tale, that marking down the price is the most intelligent tactic ever in order to increase your profits, that Marketing, Human Resources, Finances… can operate as silos, that you don’t need to try to control the chain of value…
Globalization makes anyone in the world a possible competitor. More and more people have access to information, to knowledge, to international contacts. If we want to succeed we have to play in an international environment with international scope and become problem-solvers and profit generators!
You’re another species, you are an evolution: Better educated, trained, motivated and connected to an international world. You’re a Touristologist! You are the flavor of the month, you are the future of our beloved sector!
Are you with me in this battle? Good warriors know when they have to fight a battle alone, when it is better to use a small and highly specialized group and when they have to use all men and women available. If Touristology has to win, we will need all possible help.
If we stay together we will succeed and will sing VINCERÒ! …at the end of the battle!!! As sure as Touristology is a science!!!


Oct 22, 2013

Scalable Touristology and swimming pool level



The word scalable is an important one in Touristology. You need to have a scalable technology infrastructure able to deal with the possible (and desirable!!!) success of your internet adventures.
Even though, we as a Touristologists, try to get a continuous influx of tourists equally distributed into the Tourism destination in order to avoid “all at the same time, all at the same place”, in Tourism is normal to see an increase in the number of customers due to seasonal reasons.
So, your Internet system has to be scalable. This is one of the advantages of cloud computing. You can get as much power as you need at the specific time you need it. You can experiment by free with GAE if you want or with AWS for a small quote, at least the first year.
But… Always two minds, remember?. Which is the relationship of this word with the other Touristology’s mind, the one related to the Business Model? You remember the web 2.0 business model, don’t you? 

In this post, we deal with a very important idea in Touristology. We can go and try to seduce customers in the big segments (basically, leisure and business) where price usually is the main driver and as a consequence, big intermediaries (Touroperators, the biggest Search Engine, the biggest Social Networking Site, the best Metasearch Engine, the last flash-sales….) usually gain control over the chain of value and try (unlucky for you and great to them), to transform your Business into a commodity. On the other hand, the big advantage of this approach is that you don’t have to worry about communication and commercialization. Well, at least, this is the opinion of some experts. In my opinion, leaving my chain of value in the hands of others is a mortal sin with a big penitence. But you know, I am only a humble Touristologist!!!
The other option that we have is specialized tourism (you can read about the advantages that it provides here).
Scalability in generic tourism is easy to achieve, at the end of the day, you rely on others to do that. So, it is in their interest to provide this feature.
Scalability, in specialized tourism can seem difficult to obtain for untrained eyes. You have to focus on small segments and then rely on long tail ideas in order to communicate and commercialized your services in small Social Networking Sites, virtual communities, blogs…  It seems difficult to manage 10, 20, 1000 segments BUT only if you don’t use the pro-am ideas. That means, inside any segment, finding the people able to help you to create, communicate and commercialize your services. Then you have to integrate them into your chain of value and, in this way, you will transform your business model into a scalable one!
As you know, one of my favorite books is “The tipping point” by Malcom Gladwell. This author claims that, when we talk about spreading the word, not all the people are equally important. Gladwell classifies them into:
1) Connectors: The kind of person that is able to have and maintain a thin connection with almost everybody. The one that walking with you in YOUR neighborhood gets greeted instead of you! They are also the kind of people who connect two or more worlds, these can be hobbies, sports, or sciences. I love the last ones. They are consilient thinkers! they are able to link together sciences like Touristology and Web- Engineering. I don’t know why, but this character sounds familiar to me!!!
2) Mavens: The person that people search out for advice, they respect them and specially they respect his/her expert opinion. As Malcolm Gladwell states, "Mavens are really information brokers, sharing and trading what they know"
3) Salesman: The ones able to sell almost anything to anyone!
So, you have to choose carefully, the pro-ams you will need in each one of the segments, in order to make the idea scalable!!!
How can I know who they are? I’m glad you ask! Using the skills you learn about Social Networking Sites here and sharpening up your skills related to webscraping  and Syndication maybe this video can help you to get a vision: ….SalesForce Marketing Cloud….!!!


But… Jordi! Why is it so important to deal with specialized Tourism? I will never fill up my Hotel with these smalls segments!  Well, What if you do, Touristologist? What if then you can use community power to become a Super3, to add layers of profits over this community as we saw here?
Anyway, even if you only get a small number of specialized tourists you will improve your swimming pool level. The what?!?
The swimming pool level concept. It is an interesting one for any lodging facility. It makes reference to the percentage of occupancy that you already have for sure. Maybe, because you have an agreement with some companies, or with the public sector or with a hospital near to your hotel… OR because you define and work with some segments of specialized tourism!
Your negotiation capacity with a low level swimming pool is low, as well. Especially, if the others you are dealing with (tour operators, intermediaries…) know it! And believe me, nowadays, they know it!
They can get information from the market, from your face, from your attitude… I don’t know you but I prefer to keep some aces up my sleeve. Specialized tourism, long tail theory and pro-am ideas can be of great help here!
Don’t get me wrong…Generic Tourism is perfect… BUT so it is, Specialized Tourism.  The last one needs a new framework and a lot of practice in order to develop the skills, the contacts, the knowledge and the attitude to be sure that you have it in your Touristology’s  toolbox  AND  to know how and when to apply it!
Be sure you get it Touristologists! It will increase your swimming pool level, your opportunities to find a high paid job AND my pride to have you as a battlefield companion!!!

Oct 15, 2013

Good Servuction? You will need a good definition of Homus Organizativus and Mental States!



Apprentices of Touristology always ask me: Jordi! What does Homus Organizativus mean? Well, it’s the way we define people (employees, collaborators customers…) ready to integrate into our organization (I have to repeat, once more, that in Tourism the organization is the chain of value? That we have to provide good Servuction from the beginning to the end of the trip?).

We talked about Homus Organizativus here. Sometimes I see my Touristologists (the apprentices’ ones) having difficulties developing  good examples about this essential figure in Touristology!

When we are dealing with Servuction I always remind my Touristologists that quality in service is a subjective concept, which depends on segments’ perception. For that reason, it is always important to segment properly.

The other day, a bunch of Austrian, Dutch, German and Finnish Touristologists (I love to give international classes!)  gave a perfect and well structured presentation (below you can see the picture!) in which they define the following segment: Golden Age people with mobility problems staying in a hotel in order to recover for some health issues.

Once you have the segment, you need to find out which are the most important drivers of complaints AND satisfaction for this segment. Let’s give an example of each one. Shall we?

If the lift is not working this can be a small problem for the average customer, but this can be “The” defect for the segment we are talking about. It can be the reason they never return and the main feature they highlight of our hotel when they explain their experience to their friends.

On the other hand, if when they arrive at the room we provide a tablet and a trainer that teaches them how to use the device in order to have a video conference with their grandsons, this can be the thing that they will remember.

So, now that we have the segment and we know the cues to promote and the ones to avoid, it’s time to design the kind of Servuction that will match our goal.  Here we can be helped by our old friends Homus organizativus and mental states, what else?

We have to give him/her the task of verifying if the lift is working.

Associated with this task comes a responsibility, something positive and negative that will happen to him/her related to the right or wrong execution of the task.  Please, avoid saying more money or you will be fired!!! Be creative, Touristologist!

How do we know if He/She carried out the task, properly? We need a variable of control (it can be a number of customer’s complaints for this reason. It can be a software that inform us when the lift is not working and for how long…) we also need the average and standard deviation of this number.

We need a communication protocol. For instance, the software we talked about previously, send a SMS to the employee reporting about any incidents, then the employee has the authority to ask a mechanic (internal or external) to repair the lift.

What about mental states? How can we make every employee / collaborator / customer involved in the mantra “lift always working”?

For instance, if you (the customer) warn us (using a mobile applications, for instance) that the  lift is not working you will get points in OUR loyalty program for something you like (customized rewards and versions of ME, remember?). As I always say “Help them to help you!”

So, Segment properly, learn what is the most annoying and the most gratifying experience for them, then avoid the former and provide the latter. Finally, if something goes wrong always possible in Servuction apply the art and science of Service Recovery. What better way to achieve all that than with Homus Organizativus and mental states?

Difficult to do? Not at all! It’s just a matter of common sense (the least common of the senses) and motivated and properly trained employees /collaborators and Customers.

Can you provide more examples Touristologists? If you really are a Touristologists, it will be very easy. Servuction is in your DNA. You are Touristologists, the best minds working in the best sector ever!!!

Oct 1, 2013

Real-Time Web for Revenue Managers!

As I said, at the beginning of this series about Revenue Management. To me, Revenue Management is a combination of:
1) Strategic Marketing: Marketing Research, define the segment, build/use and try to manage the chain of value, playing with the 4P’s…
2) Strategic Finance: Segments Accountancy, RevPar, GopPar, RevPaSH (Revenues per available SEAT and HOUR when we focus our attention on increasing revenues and PROFIT in restaurants) and…
3) Web Engineering:
Web 2.0: Which thanks to Syndication We have “Channel Managers” systems who manages rates and availability for all distributors from one single system user interface.
 Web-Scraping: Which allows us to compare prices (Insiders like to call the software that able to do that “Shoppers”) and establish /assess our on-line reputation as we saw here, and now…
The Real-Time web… Real-Time web is another tool for chains of value willing to work as a single entities OR as a complex system as we describe here.
The other day, We talked about Real-Time web for Touristologists. We saw two interesting examples showing how tourism enterprises and destinations can make the most of instant and fast-update communications between all the members of a chain of value and the tourists to whom, they aim to gain their trust and add value from the beginning to the end of the trip.
Of course, Hotels and any lodging facility can use those ideas as well, but here in this post I would like to offer a customized example for Revenue Managers.
Jordi! How can you relate Real-Time Web to the daily task (short vision) of a Revenue Manager?


Good question Touristologists! Let’s see if I am able to convey my vision…
A hot topic today in Revenue Management is how to increase revenues (AND profits We Touristologistly add!!!) for every single customer. Here it’s a must to talk about ancillary and upselling services.
For starters, let’s provide a clear and, an arguable, good definition of ancillary and upselling services:
Ancillary (or auxiliary) products are close to the definition of cross-selling in CRM (Customer Relationship Management) I mean, other services that can be a good complement to the services the customer had already bought or it’s about to buy. A case in point could be… are you here in my hotel to assist a seminar about how to apply Real-Time web in Revenue Management? What about an on-line seminar before going to the conference? What about an aspirin and a massage after the seminar (just kidding!!!)?
On the other hand, upselling services is all about offering upgrades to the same service the customer had already bought or it’s about to buy. A better room, a better view… a complimentary Internet access…
It’s worth mentioning (and good to highlight!!!) that both ancillary and upselling services…
1) Can be related to services of the hotel AND any service from any member of the chain of value. We are a system, remember?
2) In order to be effective, they have to be as customized as they can be. Not any upgrade… but the one which fits the customer’s needs!
So, We have a Hotel practicing the science and art of Revenue Management. They know that in order to make the most of up-selling and ancillary products, they have to customize their offers. Their Data is saying that the most appreciated up-sellings are, to be upgraded to a king suite, follow by a late check-out and/or early check-in, also to be upgraded to a higher floor with better views.
Thanks to their CRM, Loyalty programs and Social Networking Sites activities they know which one is the favorite one, NOT for the average customer but for each of them. They also can play the game of different “versions of ME”.
So, We have the knowledge and thanks to the Real-Time web We are able to send this customized offer right here / right now. For instance, through the mobile at the moment He/She is doing the reservation!
Maybe this is also a good moment to make a suggestion for a gift (ancillary or upselling) to a loved one or a travel companion…
Maybe this is a good moment to help our customer to help us and himself… For instance, allowing him to create a group for a customized service and get a discount. Welcome to the pro-am era!
Some people will say that this is a good example of Big Data and Machine Learning. I agree! Just that I like to call it… Intelligent Systems in action powered by the Real-Time web!
Can you fulfill/developed these examples? Please, use as a base the short vision (see the picture above) of a Revenue Manager!
Ready for more? I strongly recommend you to read this article:
especially, the example provided by Jurgen Ortelee: “In his analysis for Pan Pacific hotels, convention customers paid similar room rates as corporate customers, on average, but because of the much higher propensity to rent meeting space and incur higher food/beverage charges, convention customers result in 60% higher profitability per room than corporate customers. As another example, the value of a wholesale customer, who is likely to pay among the lowest room rates, is valued more on a Total Revenue basis given his higher propensity to use hotel spa services.”
To me, it seems a good opportunity to apply our favorite tool: Segments accountancy, what else? Which will allow you to get better decisions. As I always said: Different segments, different margin… AND you must know it and act accordingly!!!
I like to finish this post with the video that I share in this tweet
Interesting mobile app Touristologists! But… Do you think we can improve it using Real-Time web technology and Business Model related to ancillary and upselling services?
Can you write down the technological scheme and describe how to use the Web 2.0 Business Model that we talked about here?
Can you highlight the features that will transform it into a web 3.0 mobile app?
Damm it! I began to write a post and I end up writing a Study Case. I can’t help it, I am a Touristologist builder! As I often say… “Michelangelo has his Sistine Chapel Ceiling; Leonardo has his Giaconda. I have my Touristologists!”