I am a female Touristologist!

When I began my path to become a Touristologist builder most of my students were women. Nowadays, they are still the majority but closer and closer to an even number.

My first child is a lovely daughter. When She was born I began to read books about women education in early years. It is supposed that I know a little bit about education in University’s years, but I was interested in education in the early years. Books were interesting BUT when I found this video about “ A tale of Two brain” I thought ,I wish I would’ve had this one from the beginning of my fatherhood. I not only find it interesting, but also funny!!!! What about you?

In a nutshell, the male brain is divided into boxes and the boxes don’t touch!!! In a female brain everything is connected…. It is like the Internet superhighway.

As you know, when I’m talking/studying/doing consultancy or creating the new killer enterprise for the tourism sector I always put as a prerequisite that departments inside an enterprise and enterprises inside a chain of value have to work as a single organization!

Everything connected! This is a female brain at work!!!

When I work as a consultant and find professionals working for hotels and they proudly claim:

“Why do I have to know about social media? We have a department for that!”

“Marketing on-line is SEO/SEM and social media to position my website, that’s all!”

If the owner of these kinds of sentences is a man, I thought to myself –Wasn’t it supposed that everybody has a female side inside? When the owner of these sentences is a woman… well .. I just wait until arrive home and give a big kiss to my wife!

I teach my Touristologists to have an open mentality and see Tourism with a holistic vision. It doesn’t matter if you are a man or a woman. Above all you are Touristologists!

I’m helping to create the game-changers of the tourism sector. I’m a Touristologists builder and could not be more proud of it!

Chain of value, chain of value… CHAIN OF VALUE!!!!

They other day, my Touristologists gave a presentation about Miss Travel. I, specifically, ask them to leave apart any ethical issues that, obviously it has, but I don’t want to discuss neither here nor in class.

As usual, I ask them to draw the chain of value and to discuss if this enterprise has or not the control over it. 

I also demand that they use the following matrices:

There is NOT a chain of value here Jordi! - One of the members of the group shouted to me - Miss Travel is just a virtual community or a SnS (Social Networking Site).

There is ALWAYS a chain of value - I Touristologistly AND patiently reply. A different issue is if they control or manage it.

I’m a Touristologists builder and that means that I have to see my students as what they can be (real Touristologist, the future of Touristology!)  I don’t see the lack of…. or little signs of bright in… I only see weakness to overcome and strong points to enhance!  In the same way, when We study, analyze any tourism enterprise or tourism destination, automatically, We see it (or its) chain of value and the possibility that they have to control or manage it OR the possibility that other members of the chain of value do it!

WeHostels can be a case in point. Yesterday, appeared in the news that Studentuniverse bought WeHostels. 

 It was the next logical step, if you don’t have the possibility to control the chain of value others will do it for you. As I said here “My prediction is that in less than two years this app will be sold to another member of the chain of value.”

Jordi, it is not possible that the members of the chain of value remain in equilibrium? It can be, but it is not the natural state. We are living in a capitalist society and that means that our enterprises are profit orientated. There is no better way to maximize your profits than to have the leadership of your chain of value!

Intelligent people NOT only create enterprises they also create, manage and control the chain of value. Think about, Zara, Apple, Sony, Nike, Mercadona …

I’m a Touristologist builder. My goal is to create the best minds in the best sector ever. In order to achieve that, I have to give you good frameworks. The ones that allow you to see what others are unable to see. For instance, see any enterprise with its related chain of value!

Of course, this chain of value has to have and international scope! We are talking about tourism, right? The world is our office! Forget about local tourism, leave it for old chaps who don’t have the guts, the contacts, the experience, the skills that you have. No excuses! You have what it takes to succeed in an international environment. Time to prove it!

I repeat again, nothing wrong with local tourism. I only say that the best warriors, the best minds… play in the big league of International Tourism!

So, we can analyze any enterprise and foresee its success or failure visualizing its chain of value. Do you think you can use this skill in Miss Travel?

Do you think that they can control the chain of value?

Do they have the loyalty of the customers? I mean, the best option that customers have is to buy the product here?

Do they have the loyalty of the suppliers?  I mean, the best option that they have is to sell their products here. Or maybe is it better trying to sell it directly?

Have other members of the chain of value any chance of gaining the trust of your customers? Watch out, your customers will become THEIR customers and they can buy you, create an alternative chain of value or just convert you into a commodity.

Answer these questions and you will, clearly, see if they control or not the chain of value.

Then you can position Miss Travel in these Matrices we talked above.

Then you will become better Touristologists.

Then you will earn a higher salary or create your own enterprise implementing this knowledge, one of the bedrocks of Touristology.

Then you will make me the proudest Touristology builder in the entire world!!!

Revenue Management for restaurants…Touristology’s point of view!

When Real-time Web and associated technologies (Nodejs, Single Page application, sockets…) appear on my radar it was love at first glance. I said to myself “That it is!” I love real-time connections and the possibilities that they represent in order to improve Touristology in general and revenue management in particular .

I love to try to explain everything in a single slide (I will try to explain Revenue Management for Restaurants in this post, see figure below!) so, the SPA or Single Page Application idea, one of the paradigms in Real-time Web, seems natural to me!

So, here we are, with a restaurant willing to increase the revenues (and profits, I Touristologistly add!!!) using the strategies and tactics of Revenue Management. Usually, when we talk about Restaurants we change the RevPar or GopPar used in hotels for RevPASH (Revenue Per Available Seat and Hour). The main reason to do that is the two biggest differences between hotels and restaurants.

1) Sharing: I mean the possibility and the desire of sharing a table in restaurants. Usually you don’t have/offer these possibilities in hotels (apart from hostels where it can be seen as normal.
2) Rotation: In a turn, I mean, breakfast, lunch, dinner… you offer more than one serving. That is not usually the case in hotels (nowadays appear some interesting exceptions that we will comment in a moment).

These two characteristics can physically materialize in a queue or line in your restaurant that you have to learn how to manage in order to increase both, your revenues/profits and the satisfaction level of your customers.

One interesting idea in order to successfully manage a queue is to stop having one. Hard Rock Coffee offers a creative way to do that. They offer a kind of mobile device to their customers that allow them to visit the city instead of waiting patiently. When their table is ready they will get a warning.

You also have to think how to make the line fun or at least not boring. You can have special places where your customers wait playing games or enjoying a juice, for instance. As, is the norm in Touristology you can provide these services or add in your chain of value organizations which provide them. 

Let’s clarify this once and for all… Your business is NOT selling rooms or F&B… Your business is to satisfy your customer, providing what they need, when they need it, in the way they need it!

Another idea to take into consideration is when it is convenient not to follow the First-come, first-served (FCFS) rule. For instance, when you have a free table and appear a group whose size is exactly the same. Or when appears regular customers which are members of your loyalty program and you wish to offer them the possibilities to jump the queue making them feel special and promoting to the rest of the customers what a good idea is to become a member of the Loyalty Program!

VIPs are also another reason to break the FCFS rule BUT… remember to be perceived as fair to everybody, especially your customers, must agree about who is a VIP. Maybe your friends and relatives don’t fit in this category. 

Jordi, this is MY restaurant and I do as I please! Maybe, just remember, successful enterprises in XXI century are NOT MY enterprise but OUR ones.

Ok, let’s go deeper with sharing characteristic shall, we?

Do you remember the video that we share here about Virgin Atlantic? Do you remember the video shared here about KML which allow the passenger to choose where to seat in order to be together with interesting or complementary people? Do you believe that we can offer something similar to our restaurant? Do you believe that we can make this fun using a little bit of Gamification? Do you think that we can both, increase profits and increase the level of customer satisfaction? I hope so, We are Touristologists!

What about rotation? All your customers appear at the same time? Maybe you can offer special prices for different schedules. Maybe you can customize the menus (more quantity, this flavor of the month ingredient only at first or last hour…)

Do you believe that we can reduce the time customers are at the table? Making our customers happier and providing more profits? What about using a few chain of value related ideas. For instance,

A) Creating a special and separate room where customer can enjoy the best coffee /tea in town. Or where an expert can read Tarot, get a massage… for free but only is they ask for the service before a scheduled time. For instance, maximum one hour after they order.

B) Making deals with members of the chain of value. For instance, a cinema where the customer can go with a discount after enjoying a trailer in the special room we talked about in point A.

So, in a nutshell, Revenue Management in restaurants is the same BUT different. Basically, because of sharing and rotation characteristics. Ready for more? Follow this link maybe you will enjoy solving this study case!

We say that hotels, usually, don’t have rotation in their services but we can see some exceptions, for instance, blink that we introduce here OR byhours (here we can see a video).

By the way, talking about Blink and Byhours… which one do you think have more opportunities of becoming successful?

I know, I know, blink was bought by Groupon…. ( As I mentioned here) BUT let’s do the analysis thinking before the acquisition. Can you use the matrix of Super 2, Super 3 and my own 1,2,3 ?

Come on Touristologists! We are the best minds working in the best sector ever… time to prove it!

Learn, learn, learn.... then... Learn More!!!

“50% as a lecturer 50% as a consultant” this is my motto. The way I have always tried to earn a living. Nowadays, it is harder and harder to find enterprises to do consultancy. They want customers/credit, not advice. So, I rely on new start ups. I exchange advice, experience, contacts and management skills for shares. 

When you practice consultancy, you know yours earnings in advance. In entrepreneurs’ battlefield you never know. If you are lucky, you put time and effort in 10 companies and just 1 or 2 become a reality. So, I try to judge wisely which one I focus on!

Some indicators that are a red flag to me are...

“I just want to serve local customers”; “I will offer the cheapest price ever” We have already talked about these species here.

Sometimes, I find developers that want to pass from having a boss to become a boss themselves.

 “I stopped learning new programming languages long time ago”

Wow!!! And do you call yourself a programmer? It is supposed that in your training you are developed the ability to code, no matter the language. Of course, everybody has his preferences and you excel in only one or two languages, but to stop learning?

I fell in love with Java after reading and coding (Do I have to say again that in Languages, Martial Arts, Yoga and Coding 1 hour of practice is worth 1000 of theory?) the “Java how to program” by Deitel. The romance is going on, because I think that Java is the best for portals. The great Liferay is a good example!

When web scraping appears in my radar everybody was writing examples in Python. So, I added it to my toolbox. Does it have other uses? Well, when it is necessary to create a web site, sometimes a portal is like using a cannon to kill a fly. Much better to use a web framework, maybe Django is the best in Internet town (yes, yes RoR is very good as well!!!) which thanks to Jpython you can combine with Java. Then Node.js for the Real-Time web... I like to nimbly dance from one language to another. At the end of the day, I’m a consilient thinker, remember?

I think that some people choose a bad period to stop learning, to just focus on low prices or to focus on local customers.

OK! It’s up to you! I just decide where to put my time and my effort! As Dwaram Venkataswamy Naidu, the famous violinists said “If you don’t practice for one day, you will notice your mistakes, if you don’t practice for two days the audience would notice your mistakes!!” That is true in Martial Arts, in Yoga, in Languages and… YES! In programming!