Posts Related to Growth Issues
Sustainability is Out and Transformation is In – Beware!
As predicted earlier, the buzzword “du jour” in tourism is fast becoming transformation. Its predecessor, sustainability, has through over and mis-use become meaningless and ineffective lacking the capacity to lift hearts, inspire hope and, ironically, sustain action....
Changing Tourism from the inside out – cause for optimism in 2017
Two important, but unheralded, events took place in 2016 that give me cause for optimism as we start a new year. First, the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) - the self-proclaimed Authority for Tourism – released an article and video acknowledging that tourism...
Destination Marketers are collaborators
Destination marketers are collaborators: DMOs must strive for a “net benefit” from tourism in their communities Note: this article was authored by David Archer,Editor at Destination Think! on their site published on July 15, 2016. I had the pleasure of meeting with...
Moving Beyond Overtourism will require more than a redefinition
What a difference a year, # overtourism and some negative publicity can make. For the past two years I have returned from the World Travel Market with my heart in my boots – see Walking the halls of WTM with hope and despair (2014) and 2015 – Responsible Tourism Day:...
Comparing Apollo 13 with Mass Tourism
If the international tourism “industry” were a spaceship called Apollo 13, it would, in retrospect, come as no surprise that we’re hearing reports of a problem. Over the past 12 months a relatively inaudible concern expressed by a few has grown into a small but...
The biggest but unrecognised challenge facing DMOs today
This post was originally published as a guest post on DestinationThink! here. After interviewing dozens of destination marketing leaders, Destination Think! identified fifty individual, albeit interrelated, challenges facing the industry. They then grouped these...
Do planet and profit need to be at odds?
DestinationThink! is getting ready for its Summit in New York in October (pdf) and one of the themes is titled Profit and Planet. Partly in preparation, the following discussion formed the third in a series of interviews conducted by David Archer of Destination Think!...
Has the growth of tourism become a wicked problem?
This post describes the characteristics of “wicked problems” and suggests that given forecasts of tourism’s continued growth, the term might apply. The designation is important because wicked problems cannot be solved in conventional ways. A new kind of thinking is required.
Why Tourism Needs More Meerkats and Fewer Ostriches
The capacity to thrive in periods of change develops when people behave like meerkats and look out for one another and the group. Given a potential unwillingness to identify “over tourism” as a threat to tourism, it would appear there are more ostriches at work and we need more meerkats.
Future Prosperity Depends on Managing Success Today
Almost for as long as tourism has existed, we've heard the expression " don't kill the goose that lays the golden egg" yet over the same time has carried on growing regardless. It looks like 2016 will be the year when it becomes obvious that the golden eggs are...