Edvin Jurin: Towards tourism in 2022 and - the codes of the tourist future

Creating scenarios for the future is becoming a necessity and thus a global business and sociological hit.

Author  Edvin Jurin

January 3, 2022

Creating scenarios for the future is becoming a necessity and thus a global business and sociological hit. Which I will often return to from time to time in this section from now on.

Especially since constantly new variants of Covid-19 like omicron, and I hope not too many of its new viral brothers in the future, leave their concrete mark. And constantly changing already - changed.

Especially when it comes to tourism.

The predictions of the Croatian Tourist Board that Croatian tourism in 2022 will reach 90% of the reference 2019 hold water for now. Omicron has essentially disrupted and is still significantly disrupting intercontinental air travel programs or guests. Not only passengers but also the crews of the planes that transport them get sick, as well as the important technical staff who prepare them for the flight, which results in a mass cancellation of flights. Proverbially now the most cautious IATA and Alexaudre de Juniac, its General Manager and CEO, announces the complete recovery of international air transport, ie. '' long haula'' not in 2023, as everyone would certainly like, but 2024.

For us, this means our already "guslama" sung comparative strategic and tactical advantage of Croatia as a car destination. Because, if IATA's assessments about the revival of air transport were a bit more optimistic, Hollywood would exclaim '' We are back!"and announced 2022 at the level of 2019. And then, as they say in Dalmatia, they would put a finger in the ear."

At least as far as the quantitative way of perceiving the tourist story is concerned. This is how the current level of assessments of the tourism business in 2022, in street jargon, is played on "zicer"!

And when you play "zicer", it is easy to get a goal from the "counter" or an auto-goal at home.

Tourist future codes

That's why we won't talk about it.

The task of every futuristic view, including tourism, is - code recognition of the future. Codes, left to us in the tourist universe to find our destination by remembering who we are. If we are bold, our concrete answers and thus the results in tourism practice become more far-reaching and powerful than we first expect.

We tell the pessimists that the strategic advantage of tourism is based on the fact that people view tourism today in the 21st century and the 3rd millennium as a right rather than a privilege.

And, yes, before that, we "miss" the constant need to emphasize the "monopolization" of the impact of tourism on Croatian GDP. Data show that in 2018, Spanish tourism accounted for € 178 billion of Spain’s GDP with 14,6%. Or even more picturesquely, 1 in € 7 came up in 2019 in Spain from tourism. In Spain known for its small and medium and of course large craft and industrial entrepreneurship! So whoever loves, let him love!

So where are the current codes of the world and then our direct tourist future directing us?

In three relevant and key areas of further tourism development, which of course is already in part:

  • first - multidimensional digitization,

  • second - green tourism, the

  • third - destination creative economy (creator economy).

Multidimensional digitization

Multidimensional digitization is, therefore, already there. It's not a ''news '', they would say on our coast. Fast contactless check-ups at airports and hotels are becoming standard, which of course connects and points to the era of contactless payments. A significant part of relational processes is completed by a series ad hoc informative - sales destination applications and various types digital concierge becomes '' must have''.

Covid-19 from the beginning of our story only accelerated some processes.

Furthermore, it is very likely that a significant part of the services in the rooms will soon be managed, from air conditioning, switching on and adjusting the lights to televisions and other devices, by voice ('' voice commanding ''), and fleets and part of the hotel and logistics equipment via the Internet (Internet of Things or IoT). It is logical to expect that this will cause tectonic disturbances in, say, rent-a-car and travel and other transport companies, which will shut down one and at the same time create new jobs, using remote-controlled vehicles. And not only by land but also in the future by electric air.

Yes, there are already companies in England today that have, for example, developed an air taxi, at this stage still with a pilot, an electric drive that is able to provide transfer services and directly between the floors of mega skyscrapers. Happy!

Most of the current travel agencies and tour operators will survive if they start transforming step by step into IT technology experience - service companies. In other words, systems that will manage their experiential and material resources for their realization in real time, ie 24/7 through command centers with numerous screens and - indicators. It is a significant headache for "human resources" so far, and soon '' talent policies '' departments and areas of work of such companies in the search and selection of specialists with a combination of IT and humanistic knowledge and skills. For now, multidimensional digitalization in tourism has some limitations. Humanly simple.

As he described it Willem Van Rossen, an experienced professional with many years of management experience in a number of hotels and resorts around the world and a lecturer at several business schools in Barcelona, ​​'' We as humans are still social animals. We want to spend our time and share our experiences with others through personal contact. " Translated, this indicates that '' robot run - hotels '' for now they don't come so quickly. The human factor in the provision of services is still at stake, because it is genetically inscribed in human DNA. Of course, this will not prevent the imminent pressure of such technologies in practice from Japan, South Korea and China. Hard to comprehend, far away…? So we watched in amazement when they drew for us about 15 years ago that all communication would end on - a cell phone? Also? It happened. Much faster than we expected.

It is up to tourism companies and destination systems to think about setting up already CFO (Chief Future Officer), which will immediately start working within multidisciplinary teams with specialists from all components of tourism at more scenarios and the concrete that arises from them plans inclusiveness hotels, camps and marinas and other receptive segments in the upcoming processes of the tourist future read: new tourist present.

Because that future is revealed and, like a veil, takes place step by step from back to front, transforming the visible into the partially visible. Whether we wanted to understand it or not. In fact, if we look metaphysically - it has already happened technologically. Like the aforementioned cell phone story. It's just that our perception still doesn't experience it.

Green tourism

Green or "green" becomes another tourist "must have". It started, for example, with the requirements for the use of room bedding with organic materials, continued with the rejection of the use of devastating microplastics for sea and water, and focus is now more and more na waste management.

Waste management of all kinds ''mic by mic '' becomes and will continue to be as relevant an issue as the design and delivery of attractive tourist experiences.

To be specific and direct. Peak loads of tourist consumption of waste generated in our small and large tourist destinations are not a problem from today but from yesterday and the day before yesterday. The lack of adequate containers and their overcrowding, as well as the sparse removal and then disposal, can often be a grotesque daily picture of our small and large tourist areas.. It is emerging destination so-called drive blindness when the eye of a local gets used to such scenes that he no longer reacts to them and just waves his hand. Especially in the "crazy seasonal period of the golden tourist fever" when in those three months, irrationally, unfortunately, it gives way to the rational - which becomes a new and serious problem.

Larger hotel resorts and tourist destinations will not be able to fulfill their role if they do not set out clearly and in detail elaborated destination waste management programs sa CWMO (Chief Waste Management Officer) and with broad and very effective powers or tools to penalize those who break the rules.

What will all the current and new hotel "silk and velvet" do for us if we are not able to solve the "shackles"?

A life example of possible answers is shown by "floating destinations on water", ie cruisers, which have officers for the eco-area (some educated in our faculties), in charge of strictly and exclusively solving this problem according to pre-established protocols. and in designated areas. Here are examples of the future that has already happened, and we do not want to see it until someone imposes it on us from the outside. Probably outside our national borders, of course. I will not talk about the gift-mar in rebuilding and eating away at nature this time, because I have mentioned it several times before.

New name of the game: destination creative economy

In today's eri techno feudalism, the term he launched Yanis Varoufakis, a professor of economics at the University of Athens and a writer, former Greek Minister of Finance, known for his unconventional methods and proposals, when new virtual feuds are created and ruled by people with a monopoly on new technologies embodied in various platforms, which suck, commode and capitalize the surplus value in everything, including tourism, in the lap of a few of the super rich, the key question is how to set the right and even framework for the destination creative economy?

You know what the term "creative economy" symbolizes and represents? This is, to put it simply, when you individually create content free of charge (content), build it and dynamize it, then share it, creating visibility, awareness and most importantly - super profitability and from it - super profitability for the big guys, who sit on the other side of the screen and laugh filling their own pockets. And then they share with you fictional stories of their own genius. At your expense, of course.

Destinations of the present and the future, if they want to survive and develop, need to take this part of the Big data process of data collection, targeted communication and segmented sales into their own hands at all levels - from national to county and city. Because this is where the extended value generator and motor lie.

Can't, isn't appropriate, a potential conflict of private and public interest?

Come on, please.

If so, why not, why did Australian state and regional bodies structure and successfully set up back in 2001? Australian Tourism Data Warehouse (ATDW), Australia’s unique digital platform for all digital tourism information about Australia with a database of more than 100 listed tourism entities and more than 60 new gastro-eno businesses? Or the city of Hamburg, which has a city business marketing group within its city structures Hamburg Marketing GmbH composed of three independent business units or companies - Hamburg Tourismus Gmbh (for tourism marketing), Hamburg Convention Bureau GmbH (for congress tourism) and Hamburg Invest GmbH (for marketing potential investors in the city itself). Hamburg Tourismus GmbH has also developed its online platform through which it promotes and sells more than two hundred selected local hotel facilities and countless programs.

This is, among other things, part of the codes of the future for our Ministry of Tourism and Sports in creating Croatian tourism scenarios and concrete plans for the future, especially the transformation of existing offices of tourist boards into DMOs (destination marketing organization).

If we do not read them in time and do not respond to them in an adequate way, normatively, organizationally and communicatively, ie on the market, we will find ourselves somewhere in the perceptual gap in the air between the specially performed song by the American actor and icon Lee Marvin. I was born under the Wandering Star '' (I was born under the Wandering Star) and hit Stevie Wonder '' I have just call you to say I love you '' (I just called to tell you I love you).

We are keeping our fingers crossed that this is not the case!

Author  Edvin Jurin

January 3, 2022