Looking to 2050: Where is Tourism Headed
Birthe Menke and Ian Yeoman look forward to 2050 and discuss where tourism is headed and the mega drivers of change.
Birthe Menke and Ian Yeoman look forward to 2050 and discuss where tourism is headed and the mega drivers of change.
Whilst we can predict many things, we have to consider different scenarios. There is a cultural prescription for humans to value certainty, but we should also cultivate a new attitude that values uncertainty because the industry can only become resilient if we give up predetermined expectations of what will happen. This entails changing our approach to strategy development and embracing the unknown. Tourism is about going on a journey, experiencing new things and balancing the values of comfort and adventure. The industry can better incorporate an openness to different ideas and the need for evaluating different variables by including more perspectives and diversity during decision-making.
In this episode of our Leading Tourism's Transition podcast series, Birthe Menke and Ian Yeoman look forward to 2050 and discuss where tourism is headed. We explore the mega drivers behind trends and look at some of the disruptors to see how tourism futures are shaped by these developments. We consider if it's possible to have a degree of confidence in predicting what the future will look like and the process of conducting scenario planning to identify potential challenges ahead of time.
You can listen to the episode here 👇
Birthe Menke is a PhD fellow in sustainable tourism development and co-design at the University of Southern Denmark. Her PhD analyses how tourism professionals navigate the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to understand how they give meaning to the SDGs in a local context. During her research, it became clear that while people were making efforts to be more sustainable, their vision of what initiaitves might lead to was relatively unclear. Consequently, Birthe's research shifted from focusing on sustainability into analysing how futures thinking in tourism can help incorporate the visions of the SDGs into companies' sustainability initiatives.
Ian Yeoman is a Professor of Innovation - New Phenomena & Disruption at NHL Stenden in the Netherlands and an Adjunct Professor in Tourism Futures at Victoria University of Wellington. Ian specialises in understanding the future direction of the tourism industry and what is driving long-term change in society. He uses co-creation to design what the future will be, considering the degrees of certainty or impossibility for different scenarios.
Encouraging tourism professionals to use futures thinking involves inspiration and co-creation. On the inspiration side, new insights should be shared with organisational leaders. It's important to say what will happen and explain the reasons for such an outcome, along with the process of how these changes will occur and radically affect and transform organisational activities and operational processes.
Inspiration can be done through stories, facts or science-fiction. Innovation and storytelling are extremely important because if people can remember the insights, it enhances the meaning and helps to go beyond normative thinking. When talking about something new and different, these expected changes need to be communicated with tourism leaders. Sometimes, this involves talking about technological changes that are not happening in tourism and how these could be applied within the industry. For example, AI is the latest trend that the industry can learn to capitalise on. Such technological development has been discussed in the engineering and technology literature for the past decade, but only recently have the majority of people in other industries become aware of its capabilities and potential applications.
Moving beyond inspiration is taking these ideas of change and working with practitioners to create scenarios for a range of different futures. This process focuses on understanding what change means for businesses and destinations, the implications of the expected changes and how to manage the change. Workshops and discussions with industry leaders are the main tools to facilitate change in order to drive policies or strategies forward.
When moving beyond inspiration, there is a realisation that change will occur. For example, climate change as a science has been debated for 50 years. Over the past couple of years, there has been a strong realisation that climate change is happening and the implications of such a disruption event.
As an example, Croatia will be impacted by two big factors that will shape the future of tourism in the country, namely climate change and demography. Croatia's GDP is centred on tourism as its number one industry, followed by wine and manufacturing. Over the next two decades, the present tourism product of beach, coast and sun will be radically different because Croatia will have a four-degree rise in temperature according to IPPC scenario modelling. Meanwhile, according to demography forecasts, the country will lose a quarter of its population in the next 25 years due to external migration to other EU countries; from 4 million people to 3 million by 2050. These factors will pose significant challenges for the destination. However, as an industry, these facts need to be accepted and understood in terms of the effects of such shifts. This becomes the foundation of scenario planning.
Similarly, in consultancy work for New Zealand's Ministry of Innovation, Employment and Business about the future of tourism and the impacts of technology on how work will change, the concept of singularity was highlighted. The growing usage of technology will be irreversible and the world needs to adapt. People disregard some of the predictions about new technologies, such as robots, becoming mainstream. However, when giving examples of the advancements in technology and how this sector is developing and it creates 'wow moments'.
Talking through the different ongoing technical developments and their implications in terms of change management is not only inspiring, but can also be demonstrated in a practical sense, helping organisations learn which innovations are occurring and their potential applications. CEOs and strategic leaders know the world isn't constant and is always changing. If businesses can understand the changes and the implications for the industry before their competitors, then they can grapple with these challenges and maintain or improve the relevancy and value of their services and be better suited for working in a new operating environment. Making sense of the future, therefore, helps with strategic decision-making about becoming more adaptable as a business and remaining resilient in the face of new challenges and a changing world.
Tourism is a very competitive industry. Every country has its own guide book and even rural locations have their own tourism offices. Every place is involved in tourism and wants to attract visitors to their destination. What is important in the experience economy is innovation and change, with new ideas making a big difference. The only way that entrepreneurs can facilitate innovation is by taking a futures perspective. If you ask people to think of the impossible, then then they will get ideas to generate increased profits.
Medium-size companies and destinations generally have a strong realisation about strategy and policy and tend to take a longer-term perspective in plans. These organisations understand the need to follow global and local trends in terms of demography, technology and spatial planning to have an idea of the direction of change in the world. Tourism is an extremely innovative industry and businesses are always searching for new ideas. At a very micro-level, tourism businesses are looking for changes in consumer behaviour and how they can tap into new customer attitudes and desires.
When thinking about how the tourism industry considers futures thinking, businesses are always defined by the short-term pressures that surround them, such as showcasing strong performance and demonstrating competitiveness in the immediate future through campaigns or branding initiatives. There is also space in many organisations for mid-term thinking for strategies looking two to five years into the future that develop certain initiatives or tap into specific opportunities that are on the horizon. The further ahead that businesses look, it seems to get harder to justify creating space for futures thinking.
One of the most pressing issues facing businesses is the existential climate crisis, which is also interlinked with other changes happening across the world. Sustainability has become a priority in the day-to-day work of businesses because it is recognised as being a high priority on the political agenda. However, there is a need to create space to consider the other critical issues on the horizon that will affect the future of tourism.
Often, there doesn't seem to be time within operational activities to consider many alternative predictions. However, in order to be competitive and successful in the future, organisations have no choice but to entertain many ideas of alternative futures in order to be able to create the kinds of experiences that people are looking for.
Futures thinking should be clearly separated from operational aspects. Operational managers focus on the immediate business needs. However, futures thinking is about strategic thinking and preparation. Unit level managers lack the time and resources to engage with futures thinking since they're worried about cash flows and the current state of the business and lack the ability to implement strategic changes.
Futures thinking is part of the remit of managing directors and policymakers who are taking a long-term perspective about their organisation. People should only be involved in futures thinking where they are able to create change. This involves working with the right companies and associations that are interested in long-term change.
There has been a lot of discussion about how Generation Z have fundamentally different motivations for choosing and scheduling work as well as around possible tensions with other generations in more managerial positions. However, such differences between generations have always been visible throughout history. Younger people tend to be more radical and become more responsible and conservative as they get older.
In the context of the tourism industry, people's attitudes to life change over time. The activities they want to do, the products they consume and the way they engage as a tourist are very different when they are a teenager or a retired pensioner. From a futures perspective, it is extremely important to engage with different attitudes and value systems.
When constructing scenarios, multiple views of the world need to be considered. Diversity is key to the process. Scenarios need to consider different generations, genders, income groups, nationalities and other demographic indicators. Futures work is about different opinions and understanding differences between people. It's important to understand what will change over time. What is ethical today will be different in terms of how people perceive ethics in the future.
Organisations need to understand all the different viewpoints if they are to predict how the world will evolve and its implications for business. However, developing rich and diverse views of the future not only involves time in the process of creating different scenarios, but also in terms of interacting with enough voices to provide a true reflection of modern-day realities.
The role of Destination Management Organisations (DMOs) is about understanding change because destinations need to understand how demography and landscapes will change and what sustainability means in their local context. They need to be able to put these different considerations together to paint a picture of what the future of their destination will be.
Once the future has been defined, DMOs need to outline the actions they should take to plan for change, for example, in terms of capacity management and the types of tourists they expect to visit. Businesses then also evolve because they are looking up to the DMO to give them an overview of how the destination will develop and the significance of different trends. As an example, the restaurant industry has been shaped by the experience economy and the growth of food tourism because people have more wealth and are more interested in sustainability.
Tourists are hedonistic and want to be excited. It's essential to follow the trends and understand what they mean for business and the actions that need to be taken along the journey. Ultimately, it comes down to the leadership of DMOs in terms of building resilience in the tourism sector. DMOs should help the industry with long-term planning to identify and prepare for future shocks, such as pandemics.
The discourse in tourism has shifted towards putting sustainability at the centre of decisions. This includes finding space to involve locals in discussions about the future of destinations. On the one hand, tourism experts work on developing and exploring possible scenarios. On the other hand, destinations are also implementing frameworks to consider community input, in terms of their wishes and desires for how the place they live will look or change because of tourism.
It's not possible to predict an exact future. However, it is possible to give a range of scenarios because futures thinking and foresight are based on the concept of plurality. From these different scenarios, when thinking about the ideal future, every scenario will have a different value system. This leads to discussions about the different futures to identify which is perceived as the ideal future.
DMOs or businesses need to make a decision about which of the scenarios is preferable and the decisions they will take to reach that future. For example, when considering a scenario about disaster dystopia, there is a need to consider what actions will help avoid that future. Conversely, a scenario about utopia should lead to deciding which actions will accelerate that future.
There are a range of questions that can be asked to reach a consensus. This process also involves consultation with different stakeholders of varying sizes and levels of power to understand their views on the ideal future. Participation and engagement are key and there are different ways to use scenarios for creating destination strategies. For example, the consultation can be very immersive and involve talking and encouraging different people to openly share ideas. Alternatively, it's also possible to take a top-down approach.
Sustainability and climate change are key considerations for destinations because where there is dystopia, people always want hope. This comes in the form of the regenerative tourism trend. DMOs and governments have put sustainability at the centre of their decisions. Strategic leaders are conscious that COVID-19 decimated tourism. The industry stopped completely, which enabled a renewed focus on rethinking the way the industry works. This meant that all of the discussions over the last couple of years have been focused on how tourism would look in a better world.
There are slow-moving mega drivers of change in society, such as technology, climate change, mobility, humanity and globalisation. It's possible to predict and understand how these mega drivers will change over time. For example, demography is a well-rehearsed science and people can make predictions about population size in the future by monitoring birth and death rates. Similarly, climate change modelling has also become fairly accurate.
When predicting the future, it's important to understand what each mega driver means for tourism. Below each mega driver is a series of micro trends that helps to provide context about each mega driver from a tourism perspective. For example, wealth could influence luxury tourism. The older you get, the less materialistic you become. Females tend to be more interested in experiences and enrichment, while men like fast cars. Understanding the concept of demography by age group, income level or sexuality means that it becomes possible to look at visitor profiles for a destination and segment by these factors to understand what luxury tourism looks like.
Similarly, it's possible to get more in-depth insights about the importance of climate change. Different generations have varying perceptions of this phenomenon and differing value systems, while age and gender have an influence on the degree of activism espoused by consumers. Mega drivers can be broken down into detail to understand the impact on tourism at a local level in terms of purchasing behaviour.
These different mega drivers and micro trends can be monitored through data from official sources, such as UN agencies, the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, or reputable consumer research companies, such as Euromonitor and the Foresight Factory. When somebody wants to understand what the future of tourism will be, for example, how technology will change tourism, these trends can be brought together and discussed during a workshop. This will help decide the most important trends which will be used to create a number of scenarios.
These scenarios are based on different understandings. One scenario is very predictive and involves extrapolating the data into the future based on normative thinking. Another scenario would be about a radical science fiction transformation. A third scenario would focus on a utopian alternative world, looking at a rebound from a crisis. A final scenario will be something that may happen based on adding an element of diversity to the normative continuation.
These four alternative futures will tell a story in different ways. For example, the food festival Wellington on a Plate asked what the event will look like in the future. In this work, different variables were reviewed, including the value system of consumers and the types of foods they will and won't eat. This was then extrapolated into the types of events that people would go to within a festival and the philosophy of different scenarios. The four scenarios focused on different elements, such as the role of science in food festivals, the role of wellbeing, the role of the community, and the role of authenticity.
During foresight work, it's important to engage with people who can action change because of the linear model flowing from identifying trends, creating scenarios, planning actions and developing strategies. Scenarios should focus on the interlinkages between different trends and envisioning the future to help senior managers obtain a high degree of understanding about the future and the required changes to remain successful.
Foresight work is about implementing the outcomes and shouldn't just be used for writing reports. There are a few exceptions, such as government consultations that aim to paint a picture of the future to understand how it affects policies and the actions needed to prepare or prevent a specific future and help shape government strategy.
DMOs should take responsibility for futures thinking in their destination and understand trends at a grander scale to help businesses in a local context. Nevertheless, such a role depends on the size of the DMO and the resources available to it. At the country or big city level, futures thinking is very important because it's all about planning and foresight to create change.
Destination management needs an integrated approach to managing change. DMOs create a vision for how the destination should position and brand itself as a place as well as outline values and competitiveness. DMOs also have a supporting role to play in upgrading physical infrastructure and understanding local communities' willingness to support tourism and provide a friendly welcome to visitors. When planning for increased arrivals, destinations need to consider, for example, capacity, staffing levels and spatial planning.
Scenario planning provides a mechanism to make sense of the world and create predictions about possible events, such as the outbreak of pandemics. While some scenarios may have scary outcomes, at some point one of these events will occur. It's important to use scenario planning to understand how such a situation will affect the organisation and what can be done to prepare for it and the actions that will mitigate its impact.
Futures thinking is a way to bring different stakeholders together from different agencies to plan for the future and work together. Tourism is not just about the Ministry of Tourism and DMOs, it is also about transport connections, environmental protection and workforce planning.
Scenarios help to provide strategic leadership to shape the picture of the future so that people can understand what will happen and work more collaboratively. In 2008, Visit Scotland looked into the future of visitor centres and how mobile phones will change the way tourists seek information. Similarly, Visit Scotland wished to invest in developing food tourism products and conducted scenarios around the expected changes in food and the outcomes of not implementing change management. Climate change and sustainability were also seen as being long-term drivers of change. Through these projects, Visit Scotland obtained an understanding of the future and also generated external leverage because of their leadership position and the media outlets this created.
Scenario planning is about being exploratory and having fun. Sometimes organisations stay safe with things that can be predicted based on statistics, data and forecasting, while other times they will be more imaginative. However, when confronted with questions about the future, people tend to be reluctant to say radical ideas in public.
Understanding how things might be different is exciting because once you have the agency to bring change, it becomes possible to think about larger-scale policy, strategy and actions. Experiments with open ideation sessions show that people believe they are a fun tool that enables resources to be used differently. There are mechanisms to join people together who already have visions of the future and use this knowledge to contribute to everyday practice.
Encouraging organisations to use futures thinking involves providing inspiration through storytelling and sharing new insights as well as co-creation of scenarios. Futures thinking is separate from day-to-day operational management. Instead, futures thinking is about shaping long-term strategy and preparing for the future. This enables businesses to be more competitive and generate new ideas for maximising profitability and adapting to evolving consumer behaviour.
Technology is constantly developing and can improve operational processes and the visitor experience. The singularity effect means there will be continuous development in this field and change is always occurring. While organisations may feel they have a lack of time to understand the changing world, it is essential to ensure their longevity.
Scenario planning is a tool to make sense of the world and provide a range of possible futures and their implications for businesses. These scenarios should consider the interlinkages between the mega drivers of change and the micro trends they are comprised of. Involving diverse opinions in the process is key to ensure differing attitudes and value systems are contemplated and that local communities have a voice in the process.
During the scenario planning process, questions should be asked about the ideal future. This involves running workshops to consult all types of stakeholders and encourage them to engage and participate in the discussion. Ultimately, the end result of the linear process is the generation and implementation of strategic actions. Therefore, futures thinking and scenario planning are crucial aspects of the role of senior management.
DMOs should lead the futures thinking process within their destination to shape the vision for the destination and should also support businesses in aligning with the strategy. This requires an integrated approach destination management. DMOs should also help build resilience in preparation for disruptor events. This leadership position helps to generate leverage and build a strong reputation.
Whilst we can predict many things, we have to consider different scenarios. There is a cultural prescription for humans to value certainty, but we should also cultivate a new attitude that values uncertainty because the industry can only become resilient if we give up predetermined expectations of what will happen. This entails changing our approach to strategy development and embracing the unknown. Tourism is about going on a journey, experiencing new things and balancing the values of comfort and adventure. The industry can better incorporate an openness to different ideas and the need for evaluating different variables by including more perspectives and diversity during decision-making.
In this episode of our Leading Tourism's Transition podcast series, Birthe Menke and Ian Yeoman look forward to 2050 and discuss where tourism is headed. We explore the mega drivers behind trends and look at some of the disruptors to see how tourism futures are shaped by these developments. We consider if it's possible to have a degree of confidence in predicting what the future will look like and the process of conducting scenario planning to identify potential challenges ahead of time.
You can listen to the episode here 👇
Birthe Menke is a PhD fellow in sustainable tourism development and co-design at the University of Southern Denmark. Her PhD analyses how tourism professionals navigate the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to understand how they give meaning to the SDGs in a local context. During her research, it became clear that while people were making efforts to be more sustainable, their vision of what initiaitves might lead to was relatively unclear. Consequently, Birthe's research shifted from focusing on sustainability into analysing how futures thinking in tourism can help incorporate the visions of the SDGs into companies' sustainability initiatives.
Ian Yeoman is a Professor of Innovation - New Phenomena & Disruption at NHL Stenden in the Netherlands and an Adjunct Professor in Tourism Futures at Victoria University of Wellington. Ian specialises in understanding the future direction of the tourism industry and what is driving long-term change in society. He uses co-creation to design what the future will be, considering the degrees of certainty or impossibility for different scenarios.
Encouraging tourism professionals to use futures thinking involves inspiration and co-creation. On the inspiration side, new insights should be shared with organisational leaders. It's important to say what will happen and explain the reasons for such an outcome, along with the process of how these changes will occur and radically affect and transform organisational activities and operational processes.
Inspiration can be done through stories, facts or science-fiction. Innovation and storytelling are extremely important because if people can remember the insights, it enhances the meaning and helps to go beyond normative thinking. When talking about something new and different, these expected changes need to be communicated with tourism leaders. Sometimes, this involves talking about technological changes that are not happening in tourism and how these could be applied within the industry. For example, AI is the latest trend that the industry can learn to capitalise on. Such technological development has been discussed in the engineering and technology literature for the past decade, but only recently have the majority of people in other industries become aware of its capabilities and potential applications.
Moving beyond inspiration is taking these ideas of change and working with practitioners to create scenarios for a range of different futures. This process focuses on understanding what change means for businesses and destinations, the implications of the expected changes and how to manage the change. Workshops and discussions with industry leaders are the main tools to facilitate change in order to drive policies or strategies forward.
When moving beyond inspiration, there is a realisation that change will occur. For example, climate change as a science has been debated for 50 years. Over the past couple of years, there has been a strong realisation that climate change is happening and the implications of such a disruption event.
As an example, Croatia will be impacted by two big factors that will shape the future of tourism in the country, namely climate change and demography. Croatia's GDP is centred on tourism as its number one industry, followed by wine and manufacturing. Over the next two decades, the present tourism product of beach, coast and sun will be radically different because Croatia will have a four-degree rise in temperature according to IPPC scenario modelling. Meanwhile, according to demography forecasts, the country will lose a quarter of its population in the next 25 years due to external migration to other EU countries; from 4 million people to 3 million by 2050. These factors will pose significant challenges for the destination. However, as an industry, these facts need to be accepted and understood in terms of the effects of such shifts. This becomes the foundation of scenario planning.
Similarly, in consultancy work for New Zealand's Ministry of Innovation, Employment and Business about the future of tourism and the impacts of technology on how work will change, the concept of singularity was highlighted. The growing usage of technology will be irreversible and the world needs to adapt. People disregard some of the predictions about new technologies, such as robots, becoming mainstream. However, when giving examples of the advancements in technology and how this sector is developing and it creates 'wow moments'.
Talking through the different ongoing technical developments and their implications in terms of change management is not only inspiring, but can also be demonstrated in a practical sense, helping organisations learn which innovations are occurring and their potential applications. CEOs and strategic leaders know the world isn't constant and is always changing. If businesses can understand the changes and the implications for the industry before their competitors, then they can grapple with these challenges and maintain or improve the relevancy and value of their services and be better suited for working in a new operating environment. Making sense of the future, therefore, helps with strategic decision-making about becoming more adaptable as a business and remaining resilient in the face of new challenges and a changing world.
Tourism is a very competitive industry. Every country has its own guide book and even rural locations have their own tourism offices. Every place is involved in tourism and wants to attract visitors to their destination. What is important in the experience economy is innovation and change, with new ideas making a big difference. The only way that entrepreneurs can facilitate innovation is by taking a futures perspective. If you ask people to think of the impossible, then then they will get ideas to generate increased profits.
Medium-size companies and destinations generally have a strong realisation about strategy and policy and tend to take a longer-term perspective in plans. These organisations understand the need to follow global and local trends in terms of demography, technology and spatial planning to have an idea of the direction of change in the world. Tourism is an extremely innovative industry and businesses are always searching for new ideas. At a very micro-level, tourism businesses are looking for changes in consumer behaviour and how they can tap into new customer attitudes and desires.
When thinking about how the tourism industry considers futures thinking, businesses are always defined by the short-term pressures that surround them, such as showcasing strong performance and demonstrating competitiveness in the immediate future through campaigns or branding initiatives. There is also space in many organisations for mid-term thinking for strategies looking two to five years into the future that develop certain initiatives or tap into specific opportunities that are on the horizon. The further ahead that businesses look, it seems to get harder to justify creating space for futures thinking.
One of the most pressing issues facing businesses is the existential climate crisis, which is also interlinked with other changes happening across the world. Sustainability has become a priority in the day-to-day work of businesses because it is recognised as being a high priority on the political agenda. However, there is a need to create space to consider the other critical issues on the horizon that will affect the future of tourism.
Often, there doesn't seem to be time within operational activities to consider many alternative predictions. However, in order to be competitive and successful in the future, organisations have no choice but to entertain many ideas of alternative futures in order to be able to create the kinds of experiences that people are looking for.
Futures thinking should be clearly separated from operational aspects. Operational managers focus on the immediate business needs. However, futures thinking is about strategic thinking and preparation. Unit level managers lack the time and resources to engage with futures thinking since they're worried about cash flows and the current state of the business and lack the ability to implement strategic changes.
Futures thinking is part of the remit of managing directors and policymakers who are taking a long-term perspective about their organisation. People should only be involved in futures thinking where they are able to create change. This involves working with the right companies and associations that are interested in long-term change.
There has been a lot of discussion about how Generation Z have fundamentally different motivations for choosing and scheduling work as well as around possible tensions with other generations in more managerial positions. However, such differences between generations have always been visible throughout history. Younger people tend to be more radical and become more responsible and conservative as they get older.
In the context of the tourism industry, people's attitudes to life change over time. The activities they want to do, the products they consume and the way they engage as a tourist are very different when they are a teenager or a retired pensioner. From a futures perspective, it is extremely important to engage with different attitudes and value systems.
When constructing scenarios, multiple views of the world need to be considered. Diversity is key to the process. Scenarios need to consider different generations, genders, income groups, nationalities and other demographic indicators. Futures work is about different opinions and understanding differences between people. It's important to understand what will change over time. What is ethical today will be different in terms of how people perceive ethics in the future.
Organisations need to understand all the different viewpoints if they are to predict how the world will evolve and its implications for business. However, developing rich and diverse views of the future not only involves time in the process of creating different scenarios, but also in terms of interacting with enough voices to provide a true reflection of modern-day realities.
The role of Destination Management Organisations (DMOs) is about understanding change because destinations need to understand how demography and landscapes will change and what sustainability means in their local context. They need to be able to put these different considerations together to paint a picture of what the future of their destination will be.
Once the future has been defined, DMOs need to outline the actions they should take to plan for change, for example, in terms of capacity management and the types of tourists they expect to visit. Businesses then also evolve because they are looking up to the DMO to give them an overview of how the destination will develop and the significance of different trends. As an example, the restaurant industry has been shaped by the experience economy and the growth of food tourism because people have more wealth and are more interested in sustainability.
Tourists are hedonistic and want to be excited. It's essential to follow the trends and understand what they mean for business and the actions that need to be taken along the journey. Ultimately, it comes down to the leadership of DMOs in terms of building resilience in the tourism sector. DMOs should help the industry with long-term planning to identify and prepare for future shocks, such as pandemics.
The discourse in tourism has shifted towards putting sustainability at the centre of decisions. This includes finding space to involve locals in discussions about the future of destinations. On the one hand, tourism experts work on developing and exploring possible scenarios. On the other hand, destinations are also implementing frameworks to consider community input, in terms of their wishes and desires for how the place they live will look or change because of tourism.
It's not possible to predict an exact future. However, it is possible to give a range of scenarios because futures thinking and foresight are based on the concept of plurality. From these different scenarios, when thinking about the ideal future, every scenario will have a different value system. This leads to discussions about the different futures to identify which is perceived as the ideal future.
DMOs or businesses need to make a decision about which of the scenarios is preferable and the decisions they will take to reach that future. For example, when considering a scenario about disaster dystopia, there is a need to consider what actions will help avoid that future. Conversely, a scenario about utopia should lead to deciding which actions will accelerate that future.
There are a range of questions that can be asked to reach a consensus. This process also involves consultation with different stakeholders of varying sizes and levels of power to understand their views on the ideal future. Participation and engagement are key and there are different ways to use scenarios for creating destination strategies. For example, the consultation can be very immersive and involve talking and encouraging different people to openly share ideas. Alternatively, it's also possible to take a top-down approach.
Sustainability and climate change are key considerations for destinations because where there is dystopia, people always want hope. This comes in the form of the regenerative tourism trend. DMOs and governments have put sustainability at the centre of their decisions. Strategic leaders are conscious that COVID-19 decimated tourism. The industry stopped completely, which enabled a renewed focus on rethinking the way the industry works. This meant that all of the discussions over the last couple of years have been focused on how tourism would look in a better world.
There are slow-moving mega drivers of change in society, such as technology, climate change, mobility, humanity and globalisation. It's possible to predict and understand how these mega drivers will change over time. For example, demography is a well-rehearsed science and people can make predictions about population size in the future by monitoring birth and death rates. Similarly, climate change modelling has also become fairly accurate.
When predicting the future, it's important to understand what each mega driver means for tourism. Below each mega driver is a series of micro trends that helps to provide context about each mega driver from a tourism perspective. For example, wealth could influence luxury tourism. The older you get, the less materialistic you become. Females tend to be more interested in experiences and enrichment, while men like fast cars. Understanding the concept of demography by age group, income level or sexuality means that it becomes possible to look at visitor profiles for a destination and segment by these factors to understand what luxury tourism looks like.
Similarly, it's possible to get more in-depth insights about the importance of climate change. Different generations have varying perceptions of this phenomenon and differing value systems, while age and gender have an influence on the degree of activism espoused by consumers. Mega drivers can be broken down into detail to understand the impact on tourism at a local level in terms of purchasing behaviour.
These different mega drivers and micro trends can be monitored through data from official sources, such as UN agencies, the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, or reputable consumer research companies, such as Euromonitor and the Foresight Factory. When somebody wants to understand what the future of tourism will be, for example, how technology will change tourism, these trends can be brought together and discussed during a workshop. This will help decide the most important trends which will be used to create a number of scenarios.
These scenarios are based on different understandings. One scenario is very predictive and involves extrapolating the data into the future based on normative thinking. Another scenario would be about a radical science fiction transformation. A third scenario would focus on a utopian alternative world, looking at a rebound from a crisis. A final scenario will be something that may happen based on adding an element of diversity to the normative continuation.
These four alternative futures will tell a story in different ways. For example, the food festival Wellington on a Plate asked what the event will look like in the future. In this work, different variables were reviewed, including the value system of consumers and the types of foods they will and won't eat. This was then extrapolated into the types of events that people would go to within a festival and the philosophy of different scenarios. The four scenarios focused on different elements, such as the role of science in food festivals, the role of wellbeing, the role of the community, and the role of authenticity.
During foresight work, it's important to engage with people who can action change because of the linear model flowing from identifying trends, creating scenarios, planning actions and developing strategies. Scenarios should focus on the interlinkages between different trends and envisioning the future to help senior managers obtain a high degree of understanding about the future and the required changes to remain successful.
Foresight work is about implementing the outcomes and shouldn't just be used for writing reports. There are a few exceptions, such as government consultations that aim to paint a picture of the future to understand how it affects policies and the actions needed to prepare or prevent a specific future and help shape government strategy.
DMOs should take responsibility for futures thinking in their destination and understand trends at a grander scale to help businesses in a local context. Nevertheless, such a role depends on the size of the DMO and the resources available to it. At the country or big city level, futures thinking is very important because it's all about planning and foresight to create change.
Destination management needs an integrated approach to managing change. DMOs create a vision for how the destination should position and brand itself as a place as well as outline values and competitiveness. DMOs also have a supporting role to play in upgrading physical infrastructure and understanding local communities' willingness to support tourism and provide a friendly welcome to visitors. When planning for increased arrivals, destinations need to consider, for example, capacity, staffing levels and spatial planning.
Scenario planning provides a mechanism to make sense of the world and create predictions about possible events, such as the outbreak of pandemics. While some scenarios may have scary outcomes, at some point one of these events will occur. It's important to use scenario planning to understand how such a situation will affect the organisation and what can be done to prepare for it and the actions that will mitigate its impact.
Futures thinking is a way to bring different stakeholders together from different agencies to plan for the future and work together. Tourism is not just about the Ministry of Tourism and DMOs, it is also about transport connections, environmental protection and workforce planning.
Scenarios help to provide strategic leadership to shape the picture of the future so that people can understand what will happen and work more collaboratively. In 2008, Visit Scotland looked into the future of visitor centres and how mobile phones will change the way tourists seek information. Similarly, Visit Scotland wished to invest in developing food tourism products and conducted scenarios around the expected changes in food and the outcomes of not implementing change management. Climate change and sustainability were also seen as being long-term drivers of change. Through these projects, Visit Scotland obtained an understanding of the future and also generated external leverage because of their leadership position and the media outlets this created.
Scenario planning is about being exploratory and having fun. Sometimes organisations stay safe with things that can be predicted based on statistics, data and forecasting, while other times they will be more imaginative. However, when confronted with questions about the future, people tend to be reluctant to say radical ideas in public.
Understanding how things might be different is exciting because once you have the agency to bring change, it becomes possible to think about larger-scale policy, strategy and actions. Experiments with open ideation sessions show that people believe they are a fun tool that enables resources to be used differently. There are mechanisms to join people together who already have visions of the future and use this knowledge to contribute to everyday practice.
Encouraging organisations to use futures thinking involves providing inspiration through storytelling and sharing new insights as well as co-creation of scenarios. Futures thinking is separate from day-to-day operational management. Instead, futures thinking is about shaping long-term strategy and preparing for the future. This enables businesses to be more competitive and generate new ideas for maximising profitability and adapting to evolving consumer behaviour.
Technology is constantly developing and can improve operational processes and the visitor experience. The singularity effect means there will be continuous development in this field and change is always occurring. While organisations may feel they have a lack of time to understand the changing world, it is essential to ensure their longevity.
Scenario planning is a tool to make sense of the world and provide a range of possible futures and their implications for businesses. These scenarios should consider the interlinkages between the mega drivers of change and the micro trends they are comprised of. Involving diverse opinions in the process is key to ensure differing attitudes and value systems are contemplated and that local communities have a voice in the process.
During the scenario planning process, questions should be asked about the ideal future. This involves running workshops to consult all types of stakeholders and encourage them to engage and participate in the discussion. Ultimately, the end result of the linear process is the generation and implementation of strategic actions. Therefore, futures thinking and scenario planning are crucial aspects of the role of senior management.
DMOs should lead the futures thinking process within their destination to shape the vision for the destination and should also support businesses in aligning with the strategy. This requires an integrated approach destination management. DMOs should also help build resilience in preparation for disruptor events. This leadership position helps to generate leverage and build a strong reputation.
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