Can tourism destinations-as-communities be better & smarter by design?

What does it mean to col­lab­or­at­ively design tour­ism at the com­munity level? And to what end? If it is to strive towards a ‘good’, ‘bet­ter’, ‘smarter’ tour­ism, what does that look like? Retired uni­ver­sity pro­fess­or K Michael Hay­wood shares his vision. 

It’s a “Good Tour­ism” Insight.

[Thanks to Jim Butcher for invit­ing Prof Hay­wood to write a “GT” Insight.]

Aston­ish … Cap­tiv­ate … Dazzle … Awe … Thrill … Astound … Sur­prise … Amaze … Grat­i­fy … Mys­ti­fy … Enrich … Inspire … Fas­cin­ate … Beguile … Edu­cate … Enchant …

Expli­citly or impli­citly, and in their own inim­it­able ways, these are the prom­ises all des­tin­a­tions and vis­it­or-serving enter­prises attempt to hon­our. Yet, hon­estly, how well do they reveal the achieve­ment of our aspir­a­tions for ‘good tour­ism’ or ‘con­scious travel’? 

Has our col­lect­ive obses­sion with gain­ing atten­tion, and the untold expendit­ures on mar­ket­ing and brand­ing, cre­ated new aware­ness, or a need for changes in behaviour? 

Has our exclus­ive focus on sus­tain­ab­il­ity led us astray by ignor­ing its con­nectiv­ity and rela­tion­ship with an assembly of oth­er urgent inter­woven concerns? 

Are the crises and urgen­cies asso­ci­ated with pan­dem­ic recov­ery fore­stalling the atten­tion our lead­ers, man­agers, and policy-makers should be giv­ing to more press­ing, apo­ca­lyptic issues and futures, and more pur­pose­ful rationales for tourism?

Also see Larry Dwyer­’s “GT” Insight
“Tour­ism & hosts’ well-being: Mov­ing bey­ond GDP towards a bet­ter life”

While many people have debated these and sim­il­ar ques­tions for dec­ades, in some respects the pan­dem­ic has come to rep­res­ent a key tip­ping or inflec­tion point, sig­nalling the pos­sib­il­ity for an abrupt change to the status quo. 

We’re at a point when more people are ques­tion­ing how tour­ism should be con­cep­tu­al­ised: What is its pur­pose with­in our com­munit­ies-as-des­tin­a­tions? What is the mean­ing, cre­ation, and mani­fest­a­tion of tour­is­m’s ‘value’ and ‘growth’?

If there is indeed heart­felt intent to build back bet­ter in com­munity-inclus­ive ways, how should value and growth be determ­ined and measured?

For years we have been attent­ive to the sus­tain­ab­il­ity con­cerns of our com­munit­ies, coun­tries, and plan­et. But so pro­found and determ­in­ate are the con­ver­ging urgen­cies of cli­mate change, health, and justice — social, envir­on­ment­al, and eco­nom­ic — that a grow­ing num­ber of industry insiders are finally won­der­ing how best to respond. 

As com­munity stake­hold­ers con­tem­plate how tour­ism can lead regen­er­at­ive ini­ti­at­ives, how do industry stake­hold­ers take mean­ing­ful and col­lect­ive action?

Also see Lor­etta Bel­lato’s “GT” Insight
“Is ‘regen­er­at­ive tour­ism’ just a rebrand­ing of ‘sus­tain­able tourism’?”

We are all fully aware that the status quo and stall points con­tin­ue to per­sist. Most con­spicu­ous is our obses­sion with com­pet­it­ive­ness. Every­one wants to increase the num­ber of sea­son­al vis­it­ors and max­im­ise their expendit­ures so that com­munit­ies can gen­er­ate great­er tax rev­en­ues and more jobs, and busi­nesses can boost revenues. 

As an effect­ive spur to eco­nom­ic growth, tour­ism devel­op­ment has always held sway and been pur­sued with pan­ache, quite often without com­pre­hens­ive con­sid­er­a­tion as to its desirab­il­ity, viab­il­ity, sus­tain­ab­il­ity, or sub­stan­ti­al­ity. Most wor­ri­some is tour­ism devel­op­ment that is incon­sid­er­ate of the cor­res­pond­ing and com­ple­ment­ary need for social and cul­tur­al devel­op­ment and social and cul­tur­al innovation.

Wit­ness the cur­rent pri­or­ity indi­vidu­al enter­prises and industry asso­ci­ations feel com­pelled to focus on to over­come the obstacles asso­ci­ated with trans­ition­ing to a restart: Moment­ous con­cerns about get­ting tour­ism-related jobs back.

Also see Peter Richards’ “GT” Insight
“A com­munity’s dilemma: COVID’s ‘new nor­mal’ vs ‘back to normal’”

This is a com­plex attri­tion prob­lem that will require new insights as to how the travel, tour­ism, and hos­pit­al­ity sec­tors can regain their attract­ive­ness (some might say their soul). Giv­en shift­ing stake­hold­er demands and expect­a­tions, this will have to be mani­fest in many dif­fer­ent ways. 

Those of us with firsthand exper­i­ence can attest that this quest to regain the abil­ity to ‘aston­ish’, ‘dazzle’, ‘beguile’, etc., won’t be easy. The per­form­ativ­ity required between hosts and guests, places and people has always caused headaches. 

They will be espe­cially pain­ful for those belea­guered oper­at­ors on the front lines who grapple with the per­petu­al conun­drum: “How do you expect us to look ahead when we barely have a chance to look up?”

Community-based tourism, community-based design

It’s all well and good to pos­it the need for change and improve­ments as “post-cap­it­al­ist inter­ven­tions”, but if mean­ing­ful change is to take place we can­not expect it to be enacted from on high. It needs to be artic­u­lated, dis­cussed, demon­strated, and nego­ti­ated at loc­al levels, and at more appro­pri­ate levels of abstrac­tion.

Those who oper­ate, will­ingly or unwit­tingly, on the front lines — employ­ers, employ­ees, and res­id­ents of com­munit­ies — are the import­ant ‘change agents’. They need to under­stand and appre­ci­ate the need for mean­ing­ful change.

Also see Raoul V Bianch­i’s “GT” Insight
“Tour­ism, cap­it­al­ism, & the coronavir­us crisis: What is to be (un)done?”

Work­ing from the premise that we are deal­ing with com­munit­ies-as-des­tin­a­tions in search of break­through ideas and innov­a­tions, desirous also of choos­ing their own des­tinies, no-one expects these break­throughs to emerge by chance. Nor will they be formed in the minds of geniuses. 

Indeed, the chal­lenges faced by com­munit­ies are com­plex and exist with­in com­plex sys­tems. To be addressed and resolved loc­ally or region­ally, they have to be fully embraced and under­stood in rela­tion to one another. 

Whatever solu­tions are finally determ­ined, inev­it­ably they will be real­ised through peoples’ hon­est-to-good­ness aspir­a­tions, their col­lect­ive will, and their will­ing­ness to be bold and invent­ive through well-con­ceived design-think­ing processes.

Rather than explain and pon­ti­fic­ate as to what is meant by and through design, take a few minutes to listen as Tim Brown — par­tic­u­larly from about 12:55 in the embed­ded video — dis­cusses how design think­ing allows people and com­munit­ies to “think big”:

The approach he describes is human-centred. It pays par­tic­u­lar atten­tion to con­text and cul­ture. It requires learn­ing-by-mak­ing, or pro­to­typ­ing. It act­ively engages every­one in a com­munity. And it arrives at a new range of choices, altern­at­ives, ideas, and poten­tial solutions. 

On that last point, con­sider what Har­old Nel­son says about com­munity-based design:

Com­munit­ies that are intent on tak­ing respons­ib­il­ity to identi­fy, study, and resolve their own prob­lems can do so through obser­va­tion, test­ing, iter­a­tion, and learning.

Com­munity-driv­en approaches to tour­ism design and devel­op­ment are unlikely to hap­pen unless there is con­fid­ence and trust. That takes time.

Any expressed desire to co-oper­ate, col­lab­or­ate, and co-cre­ate with a com­munity must be revealed over time to be hon­est, self-evid­ent, and on-going, espe­cially if ini­ti­ated by an unknown out­sider or ‘author­ity’.

Com­munity par­ti­cipants must feel that they belong. They must feel that they are listened to, espe­cially when they impart ‘incon­veni­ent truths’. 

Also see Peter Richards’ “GT” Insight
“And the most import­ant col­leagues in a com­munity-based pro­ject are …”

Hark­en­ing back to the con­cepts of ‘growth’ and ‘value’, a well-informed com­munity will be quick to note the mis­dir­ec­tion lurk­ing in the com­monly-accep­ted meas­ures of these con­cepts. Annu­al sales or rev­en­ues, mar­ket share, asset prices, and oth­er met­rics expressed in terms of money belie more qual­it­at­ive notions of value, worth, advance­ment, stag­na­tion, or decline. 

Growth, for example, will nev­er be ‘healthy’ so long as tour­ism activ­ates and ener­gises inher­ent con­flicts among stake­hold­er groups, espe­cially if they sow dis­cord. After all, growth has con­sequences bey­ond the pro­duc­tion of wealth; con­sequences that extend both inward and out­ward, affect­ing lives, live­li­hoods, and oth­er forms of ‘well­th’.

In terms of gen­er­at­ing value, it is inter­est­ing to note Bain and Company’s char­ac­ter­isa­tion of value’s fun­da­ment­al ele­ments and their place­ment into a hierarchy:

Goods, ser­vices, places, and exper­i­ences that serve high­er-order emo­tion­al, social, and life-affirm­ing needs are more valu­able to a cus­tom­er that those that simply meet func­tion­al requirements. 

In tour­ism, value has tra­di­tion­ally been expressed in terms of num­bers that are import­ant to gov­ern­ments, sec­tors, and organ­isa­tions — aggreg­ate arrivals, occu­pancy rates, and expendit­ure, for example — rather than in ways that reflect the val­ues of oth­er stake­hold­ers, both human and nat­ur­al.

It should be obvi­ous, but is worth not­ing, that most decisions asso­ci­ated with tour­ism are made at the micro level, with­in the rules laid down by eco­nom­ic, leg­al, and polit­ic­al policy. Whatever growth, stag­na­tion, or dis­aster occurs, it is invari­ably a product of the insights of strategists, mar­keters, man­agers, and investors, groun­ded by the con­straints of social struc­ture and chance. 

Also see Chris Flyn­n’s “GT” Insight
“The cause of over­tour­ism & how tour­ism can avoid chok­ing on success”

Now we are wit­ness­ing our col­lect­ive pas­sage into a water­shed moment of his­tor­ic­al pro­por­tions. No longer can we simply muddle through, espe­cially when our choices come down to col­lect­ive decisions that need to be trans­lated into polit­ic­al action. 

Indeed, the issues we face rep­res­ent mor­al and eth­ic­al pri­or­it­ies, as well as clashes of com­pet­it­ive interests. 

Now, more than ever, the ques­tions we should ask of ourselves and oth­ers are: 

What is the right thing to do? 

What do we truly want?

‘Salus populi suprema lex esto’

As the Nobel laur­eate Edmund Phelps pro­posed, we need to aim for a (more pro­gress­ive) ver­sion of “mass flourishing”. 

From the per­spect­ive of travel & tour­ism, this means that we should aim to deliv­er vari­ous forms of mag­ni­fi­cence while end­ing all the forms of mediocrity and misery that char­ac­ter­ise so many of our tour­ism exper­i­ences today.

How?

To my mind, it requires approaches that are smarter by design.

We briefly looked at com­munity-based design, which is prefer­able in the travel & tour­ism con­text. What does it mean to be ‘smarter’?

If we are to craft our future so that it can be ambi­tiously trans­form­a­tion­al and tran­scend­ent in an age of con­tinu­ous con­nec­tion and change, ‘smarter’ has to address con­form­ity and our “con­nec­ted but alone” men­tal­it­ies.

It will prob­ably require the applic­a­tion of dif­fer­ent learn­ing tech­niques to re-build strong com­munit­ies from the bot­tom up, includ­ing des­tin­a­tion assess­ments and strategies for sus­tain­able com­munity plan­ning.

‘Smarter’ design will lead to the devel­op­ment of col­lab­or­at­ive advant­age through a more caring people-centred approach, encour­aging cre­ativ­ity, and devel­op­ing cap­ab­il­ity; being trans­par­ent and trust­worthy; unlock­ing and improv­ing com­munit­ies’ com­mon wealth and “well­th” through pur­pose-led innov­a­tion; and invest­ing our way into new eco­nom­ies that cre­ate more just value for all. 

‘Smarter’ has to be about socially-rel­ev­ant tour­ism that recog­nises the import­ance of col­lect­ive impact and influ­ence, build­ing strength-based cul­tures, and pro­tect­ing liv­ing cul­tures so as to deal with tourism’s intern­al­it­ies and extern­al­it­ies.

Also see Kristin Dun­ne’s “GT” Insight
“Plan­ning tour­ism with pur­pose & love in New Zealand’s Bay of Plenty”

Com­munit­ies are shaped by mar­ket (beha­vi­our­al) forces, of course. As such, com­munit­ies-as-des­tin­a­tions have to approach the mar­ket in a ‘smarter’ way, as — place-by-place, sea­son-by-sea­son — they remain com­pel­ling by vir­tue of their authen­ti­city: Their hos­pit­al­ity warm and inspir­ing, their sus­tain­ab­il­ity com­pre­hens­ive, their attrac­tions and activ­it­ies innov­at­ive, their agen­das cre­at­ive and col­lab­or­at­ive, and the value they cre­ate cap­tured more fully and shared more equitably.

A smart trans­form­a­tion will require strategies and social con­tracts with­in com­munit­ies that are more pre­cise than those artic­u­lated by the Busi­ness Roundtable.

In a way ‘smarter’ is about being respons­ible by tak­ing respons­ib­il­ity, demand­ing a re-think of plan­ning pro­cesses, and shar­ing power if one has it. As such, being ‘smarter’ requires that every­one devel­op the habits and cap­ab­il­it­ies to become archi­tects of human value via a search for great­ness.

As an indi­vidu­al, one should strive to become invalu­able with­in one’s com­munity: Foster com­munity resi­li­ence; demand adapt­a­tion, eco­nom­ic diver­si­fic­a­tion, and social cit­izen­ship (not only eco­nom­ic oppor­tun­ity); and be instru­ment­al in advan­cing social pro­gress, well-being, and cul­tur­al evol­u­tion.

‘Smarter’ is said to be tech­no­logy-driv­en. But while the “5G cit­ies of tomor­row” and the digit­al eco­nomy may change travel & tour­ism and their busi­ness mod­els as we now know them, ‘smarter’ des­tin­a­tions can­not pro­gress without gov­ern­ment sup­port, the involve­ment of intel­li­gent people, and the dynam­ic cap­ab­il­it­ies of organ­isa­tions or their lead­ers ask­ing good ques­tions, par­ti­cip­at­ing in ser­i­ous play, and will­ing to take small risks to enhance their luck.

All should be con­cerned about the over­all devel­op­ment of human, social, cul­tur­al, and nat­ur­al cap­it­al. And we should ensure that it is deployed with­in inclus­ive and net­worked infra­struc­tures that enable the life­styles desired by many; life­styles accen­tu­ated by shar­ing not scarcity, such as Ams­ter­dam Shar­ing City, as well as by tech­no­lo­gies designed to be people-cent­ric and people-driv­en.

Also see Tim O’Donoghue’s “GT” Insight
“Two demo­crat­isa­tion chal­lenges to con­sider as we plan for recovery”

‘Smarter’ requires that we inspire people to be aspir­a­tion­al towards ends that are both appro­pri­ate and real­is­able. What’s at stake is not just find­ing stra­tegic lead­ers, or devel­op­ing them, but being bet­ter at recog­nising the role of travel & tour­ism in all people’s lives, such as: Determ­in­ing when edu­ca­tion and train­ing is appro­pri­ate at dif­fer­ent stages; call­ing upon peoples’ entre­pren­eur­i­al poten­tial at oth­er stages; and attract­ing and devel­op­ing the best can­did­ates at any stage because travel & tour­is­m’s work exper­i­ences are more mean­ing­ful and pro­duct­ive than they are now.

‘Smarter’ is when all vis­it­or-serving organ­isa­tions and com­munit­ies-as-des­tin­a­tions real­ise that sus­tained oper­a­tion­al suc­cess for one is influ­enced by, and hinges upon, the suc­cess of all. Value is best cre­ated, cap­tured, and shared when there are high-qual­ity rela­tion­ships with­in com­munit­ies and through­out industry clusters. 

As in oth­er indus­tries, such as agri­cul­ture, this will neces­sit­ate busi­ness mod­els, strategies, policies, and nar­rat­ives that encour­age civic grace and respons­ib­il­ity, inclus­iv­ity, and rel­ev­ance for all stake­hold­ers. These are par­tic­u­larly needed to address the issues, uncer­tain­ties, and (some extreme) risks involving cul­tur­al her­it­age, stew­ard­ship, social justice, and envir­on­ment­al, social and cor­por­ate gov­ernance.

‘Smarter’ is demon­strated when com­munit­ies-as-des­tin­a­tions become known for the qual­ity of their civil soci­et­ies; their nimble­ness, ingenu­ity, and gen­er­os­ity; their abil­ity to con­nect design to com­munit­ies; and their cul­ture of co-cre­at­ing, shar­ing, and integ­rat­ing value, know­ledge, eth­ics, intel­lec­tu­al cap­it­al, and innovation. 

For improv­ing region­al and loc­al prosper­ity, and the well-being and qual­ity-of-life of people, ‘smarter’ should be about cit­izens, stake­hold­er gov­ernance, lead­er­ship, the man­age­ment of travel & tour­ism clusters, and how well change is communicated.

‘Smarter’ is revealed when people actu­ally believe you when you say “lean on me”; and, when every­one demon­strates the kind­ness inher­ent in human­kind.

If we are to “treat people with kind­ness”, then salus pop­uli suprema lex esto; the wel­fare of the people has to be the supreme law.

Tourism can only be ‘good’ by design

The abil­ity to gen­er­ate out­comes that aston­ish, cap­tiv­ate, dazzle, awe, etc., will be achieved when, col­lect­ively, we make con­cer­ted efforts to embrace all aspects of what one may con­sider to be ‘good tourism’.

This may take a while since being and becom­ing ‘good’ across mul­tiple dimen­sions requires becom­ing ‘smarter’. And ‘smarter’ has to be designed. 

It has to be designed because it’s about explor­ing dif­fer­ent pos­sib­il­it­ies; recog­nising and deal­ing with rela­tion­ships and their con­straints; focus­ing on fun­da­ment­al human needs; allow­ing for serendip­ity, impro­visa­tion, unpre­dict­ab­il­ity, and the capri­cious whims of fate; and it requires people with the capa­city and dis­pos­i­tion for col­lab­or­a­tion across disciplines.

Few com­munit­ies-as-des­tin­a­tions have fash­ioned approaches and developed and enacted strategies to achieve the com­pos­ite of attrib­utes and beha­viours that I would think ‘good tour­ism’ represents. 

Smarter by design seeks inten­tion­al, trans­form­a­tion­al change in an unpre­dict­able world in which a community’s res­ult­ant actions have the best chance to lead to desir­able and appro­pri­ate outcomes. 

The col­lab­or­at­ive design pro­cess, which is not fully explained in this post, integ­rates reas­on with obser­va­tion, reflec­tion, ima­gin­a­tion, and action. It is a con­sequence of neces­sity and chance. 

Being com­munity-driv­en means that it will nev­er be easy. 

But it will always be highly rewarding.

What do you think? Share a short anec­dote or com­ment below. Or write a deep­er “GT” Insight. The “Good Tour­ism” Blog wel­comes diversity of opin­ion and per­spect­ive about travel & tour­ism because travel & tour­ism is everyone’s business.

Fea­tured image (top of post): Can des­tin­a­tions-as-com­munit­ies be bet­ter & smarter by design? Image by Gerd Alt­mann (CC0) via Pixabay.

About the author

K Michael Hay­wood is Pro­fess­or Emer­it­us, School of Hos­pit­al­ity, Food and Tour­ism at the Uni­ver­sity of Guelph in Ontario, Canada. Find him on Linked­In.