Towards ‘magnificence’: The aspirational trajectory of value-creating journeys

‘Mag­ni­fi­cent’, the adject­ive, should prop­erly be applied to human actions and vir­tues rather than tan­gible things, derived as it is from the Lat­in ‘mag­num facere’, which means to do some­thing great. 

Why is ‘Mag­ni­fi­cence’ K Michael Hay­wood’s “North Star”? And how does he think tour­ism should nav­ig­ate towards it?

It’s a “Good Tour­ism” Insight. (You too can write a “GT” Insight.)

Cre­at­ing ‘Com­munity Shared Value’ demands that DMOs rethink tour­ism cluster ini­ti­at­ives, gov­ernance and policies.

But, in these times, as we won­der how to begin again, wherein lie the com­mit­ments to cre­ate authen­t­ic break­throughs and achieve com­plete transformations? 

If we are to restore the integ­rity of our com­munit­ies-as-des­tin­a­tions, it’s essen­tial that we pro­gress bey­ond tourism’s mere functionalities. 

But how do we cham­pi­on the val­ues that embrace those that are emo­tion­al, socially impact­ful, and life affirming? 

In the interest of the com­mon good, and, in hope for aspir­a­tion­al futures, how do we ensure that our tra­ject­ory does not devi­ate from being on the Up & Up? 

For me it begins by hav­ing a North Star, “Mag­ni­fi­cence”: 

Magnificence

I view mag­ni­fi­cence as a civic vir­tue that con­jures up the extraordinary. 

It guides us in all we set out to do and achieve for oth­ers; and it emboldens us to elim­in­ate misery and vil­i­fy mediocrity, thereby allow­ing us to com­pose our own odes to joy.

If not, there “ain’t no sun­shine” when it’s gone, par­tic­u­larly if we per­mit envir­on­ment­al calam­it­ies to remain unre­solved; inap­pro­pri­ate tour­ism devel­op­ment to con­tin­ue unabated; or injustices and inequit­ies to persist. 

It’s down­right dis­heart­en­ing when vis­it­ors dis­ap­pear, employ­ees feel exploited, cit­izens are upset, and com­munit­ies com­prom­ised or aban­doned. In such cir­cum­stances, des­tin­a­tion life cycles are bound to collapse.

Mag­ni­fi­cence can be achieved. Most threats can be cir­cum­ven­ted or removed. Recov­ery and resur­rec­tion are always pos­sible. After all, when we set out to win the long game, the human spe­cies is cap­able of mus­ter­ing bound­less energy and resilience. 

Jobs-to-be-done

The suc­cess of indi­vidu­al enter­prises and com­munit­ies-as-des­tin­a­tions has been premised on sat­is­fy­ing vis­it­ors to earn their loy­alty. This requires being attent­ive to human needs at any giv­en moment in time. 

But, do we really make the effort to fully com­pre­hend their needs? To be hon­est, It seems not, unless we are fully aware of our cus­tom­ers’ “jobs-to-be-done”.

As Clayton Christensen argues, needs are bet­ter inter­preted when we under­stand the pro­gress our cus­tom­ers want to make, the hope they want to accomplish. 

Of course, it’s essen­tial that we remain attent­ive to pre­vail­ing cir­cum­stances, appre­ci­at­ive of what people do not want to give up, and cog­niz­ant of choice that too often is held back by that which is deemed con­veni­ent.

To cre­ate com­munity shared value, how­ever, the “jobs-to-be-done” man­date has to be exten­ded. The needs of mul­tiple stake­hold­ers — cit­izens, employ­ees, and oth­ers through­out value chains — have to be con­sidered, as every­one seeks to cre­ate and cap­ture value for them­selves and the com­munity to which they are affiliated. 

This requires a hol­ist­ic approach that takes into account the sig­ni­fic­ance and mag­nitude of the inter­ac­tion effects among all par­ti­cipants, and the vari­ous out­comes every­one hopes to achieve. 

As such, amend­ments to how the typ­ic­al jobs-to-be-done can­vas is for­mu­lated, designed, and imple­men­ted have to be made. 

Also see K Michael Hay­wood’s oth­er “GT” Insights:
“Tourism’s chal­lenge: How do we cre­ate ‘com­munity shared value’?”
“Win­ning from with­in: How can travel & tour­ism stem the brain drain?”
“Smart clusters: How des­tin­a­tions can organ­ise for a bet­ter future”
“Can tour­ism des­tin­a­tions-as-com­munit­ies be smarter by design?”

Mag­ni­fi­cence becomes achiev­able when we chal­lenge “the way things are”, pur­sue pref­er­en­tial out­comes, real­ise them, and make them reciprocal. 

Nobody truly wins unless every­one wins. 

Such a whole-of-com­munity approach to “jobs-to-be-done” rep­res­ents an intens­i­fic­a­tion of com­plex­ity, neces­sit­at­ing deep micro and macro ana­lys­is in order to learn what is meant by “pro­gress” and “accom­plish­ment” with­in the community-at-large. 

As the pre­ced­ing graph­ic reveals, ini­tial attempts to cre­ate value start by apply­ing “jobs-to-be-done” require­ments and mak­ing sure every­one is aware of the “Law of Least Aston­ish­ment” that demands avoid­ance of unpleas­ant surprises. 

By con­trast, the lean start-up move­ment focuses on launch­ing min­im­um viable products (MVPs). MVPs require a pro­gress­ive pro­cess of exper­i­ment­a­tion and con­stant learn­ing about what cus­tom­ers and cit­izens need and how they will use and react to new products. They assume every­one will be patient and forgiving.

With the intent to pro­gress, step-by-step, from mediocrity to mag­ni­fi­cence, one might won­der wheth­er such a lean approach is applic­able to vis­it­or-related offerings. 

A des­tin­a­tion’s vis­it­ors and stake­hold­ers, with dif­fer­ent value con­fig­ur­a­tions, may be unim­pressed by any glitch or in-the-moment deficiencies.

And oper­at­ors or ser­vice pro­viders who may be unable to dis­cern dis­sat­is­fac­tion or may feel unin­clined to imple­ment ser­vice recovery.

Don’t miss oth­er “Good Tour­ism” posts tagged with
“Com­munity-based tourism”

As a com­pound­ing factor, dom­in­ant “com­pla­cency” beha­vi­ors can serve to lim­it the abil­ity to super­sede “mediocrity”.

Why? Short-term think­ing, strict man­age­ment-by-object­ives, ingrained habits, and quest for effi­cien­cies often cur­tail desires to cre­ate improved func­tion­al­ity, let alone offer emo­tion­al, social impact, or life-affirm­ing value. 

These and oth­er lim­it­a­tions sub­or­din­ate the well-being of some stake­hold­ers to out­comes import­ant to others. 

In fact, tour­ism activ­it­ies are known to undo the com­fort of con­tinu­ity import­ant to many stake­hold­ers, pla­cing a damper on achiev­ing mag­ni­fi­cence, unless mit­ig­at­ing forces come into play, or atti­tudes and beha­vi­ors change. 

In order to cir­cum­vent an inev­it­able slide into obli­vi­on, an up and up tra­ject­ory towards mag­ni­fi­cence requires a “begin again” men­tal­ity that, when sup­por­ted and fun­ded (e.g. Brit­ish Columbia’s Pivot Pro­gram), can evolve, skill­fully and graciously.

Giv­en the con­flu­ence of urgen­cies we face today, vir­tu­ally everything has to be re-framed in more human-cent­ric or value-laden ways. 

These require applic­a­tion of design think­ing pro­cesses that take into account all the rel­ev­ant needs of people, the val­ues they hold dear, and the “jobs-to-be-done” so the pro­gress they want to make can be well-artic­u­lated and set into motion.

Responding to the inevitability of value migration

Over time, it’s nat­ur­al for what has value to shift or become unstable. 

Dur­ing these pan­dem­ic times con­sumer pref­er­ences and beha­vi­ors are under­go­ing tre­mend­ous change, cre­at­ing unpre­ced­en­ted woe in exec­ut­ive suites. Every­one is won­der­ing how to re-pos­i­tion and revise their value pro­pos­i­tions. 

Then there are busi­nesses that remain cava­lier about going the extra mile for vis­it­ors, or remain inat­tent­ive to the need to be com­pel­ling and sus­tain­able, even to com­ple­ment the cul­tur­al integ­rity of their communities. 

Such ineptitude can have cas­cad­ing effects through­out a com­munity, so it helps when inter­ven­tion and assist­ance is made available.

It’s often assumed that rela­tion­ships with­in tour­ism clusters are strong, but exper­i­ence reveals that dif­fer­ent stake­hold­ers can either be cata­lysts or retard­ants in regard to the cre­ation of value. 

Out­comes depend so much on the atti­tudes stake­hold­ers reveal toward each oth­er; on the stra­tegic nature of the fit between the rela­tion­ships and the policy envir­on­ment; but, more so, on the need to devel­op and man­age for trust. 

Don’t miss oth­er “Good Tour­ism” posts tagged with
“Inclus­ive tourism”

As such, a press­ing ques­tion today is wheth­er val­ues and cul­ture are at the heart of think­ing about pub­lic policy?

If not, then, we as an entire industry have an oblig­a­tion to mount the evid­ence to sup­port the val­ues we hold dear and reveal how indis­pens­able they are.

In order to mit­ig­ate any deple­tion of value or good­will, indi­vidu­al organ­isa­tions and com­munit­ies-as-des­tin­a­tions have to be con­stantly vigilant. 

It is one thing to stay on top of trends, but quite anoth­er to appre­ci­ate the subtle shifts in “jobs-to-be-done” man­dates, and resolve the pain points people experience. 

Who, how­ever, is mak­ing the effort to under­take the neces­sary assess­ments and interventions? 

Vis­it­or-serving enter­prises desire happy and healthy cus­tom­ers, but how many actu­ally track their achieve­ment, util­ising, for example, net pro­moter scores?

Is the same being done for employ­ees and cit­izens; the front- and back-of-house pro­viders of hos­pit­able services? 

Ignore the power to do right for the people and the com­munity-at-large and you sig­nal dis­dain for the con­tri­bu­tion of oth­ers, and fore­stall pro­gres­sion towards magnificence. 

Achieving net positive integrated value

It has been said that Net Pos­it­ive out­comes rep­res­ent the epi­tome of suc­cess today. 

For­mu­lated from a set of guid­ing prin­ciples and meas­ure­ments based on “a strong eco­nomy, an abund­ant nat­ur­al envir­on­ment and a happy soci­ety”, they reflect a community’s com­mit­ments (or mani­fes­tos, e.g. con­scious tour­ism) to make sure tour­ism activ­it­ies cre­ate value for all stake­hold­ers with­in communities.

As a reflec­tion of com­munity align­ment with those prin­ciples, “mag­ni­fi­cence” res­ults from demon­strably super­i­or and suc­cess­ful loc­al value-cre­at­ing initiatives. 

When based on out­come-driv­en innov­a­tion (ODI) pro­cesses import­ant to all stake­hold­ers, their “jobs-to-be-done” are far more likely to be get accomplished. 

Con­sider the intro­duc­tion of social innov­a­tion break­throughs in tour­ism, and the atten­tion to the design of people-centered places, par­tic­u­larly a community’s pub­lic squares, its streets or markets. 

When the life-affirm­ing value of sus­tain­ab­il­ity is taken ser­i­ously, com­munity and cor­por­ate social respons­ib­il­ity (CSR) ini­ti­at­ives are more likely to be incor­por­ated into organ­isa­tion­al busi­ness mod­els and actions. 

How­ever, the use of ODI for tour­ism-related devel­op­ment is still in its infancy. 

For example, per­use this doc­u­ment from Canada’s North­w­est Ter­rit­or­ies.

Value cre­ation may be implied, but ima­gine if “mag­ni­fi­cence” and/or “net pos­it­ive integ­rated value” were giv­en prom­in­ence. Wouldn’t mul­tiple forms of com­munity shared value break­throughs be more likely to occur? 

What is called for is an industry-wide com­mit­ment to re-ima­gine, which when com­bined with the power of pro­gress and the “cour­age to lead” could cre­ate region­al advant­age through col­lect­ive learn­ing and ter­rit­ori­al dif­fer­en­ti­ation (e.g. Vis­it Eng­land). 

Don’t miss oth­er “Good Tour­ism” posts tagged with
“Policy and governance”

Such efforts sig­nal the need to encour­age growth mind­sets and the inher­ent “power of yet” that cap­it­al­ise on the motiv­at­ors that drive innov­a­tion.

Sup­por­ted through on-going con­ver­sa­tions, col­lab­or­at­ive and triaged oppor­tun­it­ies, they would allow organ­isa­tions and com­munit­ies to achieve mas­tery and close achieve­ment gaps (con­sider the Urb­an Innov­a­tion Centre, and their Cata­pult Future Cit­ies initiative).

If com­munit­ies-as-des­tin­a­tions are to truly com­mit to tak­ing col­lect­ive respons­ib­il­ity for bring­ing all the val­ues import­ant to stake­hold­ers to life, it’s essen­tial to identi­fy the stra­tegic and struc­tur­al require­ments of com­munity shared value. 

To do so, improve­ments to intern­al net­work­ing, com­mu­nic­a­tion, and col­lab­or­at­ive activ­it­ies are required. 

Atten­tion should be giv­en to the devel­op­ment of Des­tin­a­tion (Tour­ism) Innov­a­tion Hubs and start-up incub­at­ors (e.g. Montreal’s MT Lab). 

The suc­cess of such hubs depends on how well they escape engrained pro­cess men­tal­it­ies that can obstruct innov­a­tion, and how well they hone in on the inten­tion­al learn­ing required to identi­fy break­through innov­a­tions that meet all per­son­al, com­munity, organ­isa­tion­al, cul­tur­al, and nature-based requirements.

The time couldn’t be more oppor­tune for mag­ni­fi­cence to be our north star. 

Com­munity shared value is with­in grasp.

Start by assem­bling a diverse cross-sec­tion of people in your tour­ism cluster tasked with identi­fy­ing the func­tion­al, emo­tion­al, social impact, and life-affirm­ing innov­a­tions that would help achieve net pos­it­ive integ­rated value.

Fea­tured image (top of post): Towards ‘mag­ni­fi­cence’: The aspir­a­tion­al tra­ject­ory of value-cre­at­ing jour­neys. Image by Jill Wel­ling­ton (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. Prof Hay­wood has recently writ­ten an e‑book “Aston­ish, Smarter Tour­ism by Design”. Find Michael on Linked­In.