Looking beyond scale
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In his latest guest column for Travel Daily, Simon Nowroz, former managing director of Travelport Asia Pacific and founder of London-based innovation studio, The Amazing Mr Anderson, urges the industry to seek out new micro sectors…
The mid-year point is a popular time to evaluate operating plans and business performance.
Reviews fill diaries, while debate and discussions echo through boardrooms as organisational leaders measure what’s been achieved and what remains to be done. My innovation advisory firm has been involved in leading a number of these reviews for our clients.
For those in the travel and tourism sector, the process often starts with a macro view of the opportunity at hand:
– Global visitor exports, the measure of money spent by international tourists, rose by 3.9% at a global level to US$1.3trillion, and by over 10% within Southeast Asia in 2013;
– Travel and tourism’s total contribution to the global economy rose to 9.5% of global GDP (US$7 trillion), not only outpacing the wider economy, but also growing faster than other significant sectors such as financial and business services, transport and manufacturing;
– Nearly 266 million jobs were supported by travel and tourism in 2013, or one in 11 jobs worldwide;
– Travel and tourism investment in 2013 was US$284.7bn, or 3.8% of total global investment. It is predicted to rise by 6.3% in 2014, and rise by 6.4% pa over the next 10 years to US$562.8bn in 2024 (equating to 4.7% of total global investment);
– Within APAC specifically, leisure travel spending generated 76.2% of direct travel and tourism GDP in 2013 compared with 23.8% for business travel spending.
So, travel and tourism remains a large and growing sector. But that can also be a problem, because the sheer size of the industry often creates a mind-set that is only interested in scale. We are fast becoming pre-occupied with largeness and bulk, and we are ignoring interesting micro sectors. That’s a shame because micro sectors are generally more ecologically sustainable, more socially inclusive and more innovative.
Earlier this year I was introduced to adventurer and explore Alastair Humphreys. Having completed some impressive feats, including a four year, 46,000-mile bicycle ride around the world, the thirty-something is now focused on developing the concept of micro adventures.
Ignoring the established alternative of scale and mass-produced tourism, Alastair focuses on short, local individual journeys. He encourages us seek out the variety and diversity in our local landscapes by undertaking micro breaks that rely on imagination and a sense of expedition. Alastair is good company as new upstarts such as secretadventures.org join him in popularising micro adventures.
What I find pleasing about people like Alastair is he is being innovative outside the normal parameters of scale, and that makes him a visionary in the travel and tourism space.
“The first mile of a micro adventure is the hardest – summoning up the nerve to begin, to just make it happen” says Humphreys. But he continues, “The rest usually takes care of itself.” Perhaps it’s time for more of us to take that first step, and think beyond scale alone.
CLICK HERE to read more about The Amazing Mr Anderson.
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