Tourism’s thriveability requires performative change: The changemakers

If we were to boost tour­ism des­tin­a­tions’ capa­city to thrive, who are the likely change­makers? And what actions might they take? K Michael Hay­wood offers answers in this “Good Tour­ism” Insight.

[You too can write a “GT” Insight.]

In the first part of this art­icle, “Tour­is­m’s thrive­ab­il­ity requires per­form­at­ive change: The found­a­tions”, I laid out some basic require­ments for com­munit­ies-as-des­tin­a­tions to thrive. 

How­ever, there is a need for change­makers — tour­ism lead­ers, des­tin­a­tion man­age­ment and mar­ket­ing organ­isa­tions (DMOs), and edu­cat­ors — to con­tex­tu­al­ise the details, start doing, and be held accountable.

Thrive­ab­il­ity requires the orches­tra­tion of trans­form­at­ive change.

Tourism leaders

Post-COV­ID, the push for reviv­ing travel and tour­ism rep­res­ents a flurry of activ­ity as every­one struggles to reach and exceed pre-pan­dem­ic volumes. How­ever, the tra­ject­ory and trans­ition toward thrive­ab­il­ity, from mediocrity to mag­ni­fi­cence, demands changes in how busi­ness is done and the type of value created. 

Read oth­er “GT” posts tagged with
“Travel & tour­ism industry policy and gov­ernance”

Lead­ers from all walks of life now have to re-think their respons­ib­il­it­ies to com­munit­ies-as-des­tin­a­tions, even to their own enter­prises. To do so they must:

• Acknow­ledge, visu­al­ise, and act as if their organ­isa­tions, enter­prises, and com­munit­ies are liv­ing sys­tems affect­ing liv­ing systems;
• Adopt “long­path” mind­sets in pur­suit of egal­it­ari­an futures;
• Pri­or­it­ise more life-affirm­ing value cre­ation in pur­suit of mag­ni­fi­cence and mean­ing­ful­ness that requires gen­er­at­ing net-pos­it­ive value; 
• Legit­im­ise tourism’s social licence and the con­trac­tu­al oblig­a­tions of organ­isa­tions by hon­our­ing all cov­en­antal rela­tion­ships with stake­hold­ers, thereby ensur­ing healthy eco­nom­ies;
• Devel­op health­i­er work and com­munity environments;
• Revise out­moded human resource (tal­ent) man­age­ment prac­tices and jet­tis­on the notion of hir­ing “the handy, cheap and will­ing”;
• Align work­ers with pur­pose and cre­ate the oppor­tun­it­ies that will allow people to pur­sue and real­ise their own sense of pur­pose; and
• Com­mit to diversity, equity, and inclusion.

The lead­er­ship chal­lenges and imper­at­ives of our time are immense. People have to be brought togeth­er. For­ward pro­gress has to be ener­gised. Tour­ism and com­munit­ies-as-des­tin­a­tions must be reimagined.

Destination management and marketing organisations

Thrive­ab­il­ity might nev­er have been an ini­tial intent, but Des­tin­a­tions International’s pro­mo­tion of Com­munity Shared Value could be con­ceived as a pre­requis­ite for DMOs becom­ing recog­nised as the guard­i­ans of their communities-as-destinations.

Read “GT” posts tagged with
“Travel & tour­ism and des­tin­a­tion management”

It augurs well, so long as DMOs adopt an evol­u­tion­ary change of man­date from mar­ket­ing to man­age­ment. But, if DMOs ever hope to become van­guard organ­isa­tions in charge of cre­at­ing pub­lic value from tour­ism, they will have to defer to the pri­or­it­ies of their communities-as-destinations. 

Suc­cess in advan­cing con­ver­gence among stake­hold­ers whose interests, live­li­hoods, and well-being are tied to or affected by tour­ism, will be depend­ent on how well DMOs:

• Pro­mote and prac­tise col­lab­or­at­ive lead­er­ship, espe­cially with the pub­lic sec­tor and civil society;
• Under­stand what the thrive­ab­il­ity of com­munit­ies-as-des­tin­a­tions entails;
• Con­sol­id­ate the goals of com­munit­ies, gov­ern­ments, busi­nesses, love, and life;
• Rethink strategy as the means to over­come the obstacles that stand in the way of what com­munit­ies-as-des­tin­a­tions want to achieve, thereby avoid­ing the social con­ta­gion of bad strategy;
• Eval­u­ate tour­ism, its per­form­ance and impacts, in all com­munit­ies or regions (as pro­posed by The World Centre for Excel­lence for Des­tin­a­tions);
• Seek prosper­ity that provides life-affirm­ing value over the sort of eco­nom­ic growth that con­tra­dicts such value (rep­res­en­ted by calls for tourism’s de-growth);
• Work dili­gently to ensure the best con­di­tions for entre­pren­eur­i­al suc­cess;
• Devel­op pur­pose-driv­en mar­ket­ing and brand­ing pro­grams;
• Replace sys­tem­ic bar­ri­ers and bur­eau­cracy with humano­cracy;
• Alloc­ate essen­tial resources to ensure the health and thrive­ab­il­ity of com­munit­ies-as-des­tin­a­tions that extends bey­ond the require­ments for mar­ket­ing; and
• Cre­ate score­cards to mon­it­or and meas­ure the degree to which all ele­ments of value are being achieved with­in both the private and pub­lic sectors.

The idea: To broaden and deep­en the man­dates for DMOs to coin­cide with the desired pur­pose of com­munit­ies-as-des­tin­a­tions. To accel­er­ate the imple­ment­a­tion of their com­munity-minded man­dates and, thereby, avoid the so-called redund­ancy of DMOs. 

Tourism educators

As lead­ers and par­ti­cipants in our com­munit­ies-as-des­tin­a­tions, we are all act­ive in cre­at­ing and shar­ing know­ledge, determ­ined in our desire to do good, to do better. 

Read “GT” posts tagged with
“Travel & tour­ism edu­ca­tion and training”

In this regard, we are grate­ful for those who provide wit­ness to tourism’s impacts and the sever­ity of its excesses. 

How­ever, in our quest for thrive­ab­il­ity, everyone’s respons­ib­il­it­ies for teach­ing and research­ing, com­mu­nic­at­ing and con­sult­ing, must be taken to new heights. This is doable if we are will­ing to: 

• Eval­u­ate and cla­ri­fy the concept of ‘Com­munity Shared Value’, address and over­come any short­com­ings, and help set the stage to ensure its implementation; 
• Join, if not help start, Des­tin­a­tions-in-Action Net­works and com­munity shared value coalitions;
• Reach out to, and inform, all stake­hold­ers about our research on and desire for per­form­at­ive change; 
• Pro­mote the need for des­tin­a­tion innov­a­tion hubs and involve educators;
• Form and work with loc­al or nation­al ‘Tour­ism Human Resource Coun­cils’; 
• Loc­al­ise the Tour­ism Edu­ca­tion Futures Ini­ti­at­ive (TEFI) and work with industry part­ners to bring pro­gress­ive edu­ca­tion­al oppor­tun­it­ies to young­er gen­er­a­tions and those in employment;
• Under­take detailed eval­u­ations of exist­ing hos­pit­al­ity and tour­ism edu­ca­tion pro­grams with key stakeholders;
• Cre­ate more rad­ic­al stu­dent learn­ing-by-doing through exper­i­en­tial projects;
• Integ­rate human­ist­ic prin­ciples into tour­ism education;
• Cre­ate des­tin­a­tion man­age­ment pro­grams based on con­cepts such as whole brain think­ing, design think­ing, and peer learn­ing (Coach­ing Ourselves); and
• Devel­op social, cul­tur­al, envir­on­ment­al, eco­nom­ic, busi­ness, and cre­at­ive intel­li­gences among stu­dents and des­tin­a­tion stakeholders.

Everyone?

Ima­gine everyone: 

• Work­ing with­in future-for­ward frame­works for travel & tour­ism, based on the self-organ­ising prop­er­ties typ­ic­al of human eco­lo­gic­al systems;
• Cre­at­ing futures based on cata­lys­ing their immense gifts for ima­gin­ing; and
• Exert­ing their will for the con­tinu­ance of life. 

You?

What are you, your organ­isa­tions, and your insti­tu­tions going to do NOW to ensure diver­gent stake­hold­ers con­verge into an emer­gent whole; form dynam­ic rela­tion­ships; and under­take a trans­form­a­tion of tour­ism so that it whole-heartedly con­trib­utes to achiev­ing what our com­munit­ies-as-des­tin­a­tions desire? 

Also see oth­er “GT” Insights writ­ten by K Michael Haywood

As your change­mak­ing momentum builds and your efforts at per­form­at­ive change provide evid­ence of bet­ter out­comes for your organ­isa­tion, des­tin­a­tion, and its stake­hold­ers, I would encour­age you to show­case and share your exper­i­ences and achieve­ments on The “Good Tour­ism” Blog.

The world will be grateful.

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

Fea­tured image (top of post): Tourism’s thrive­ab­il­ity requires per­form­at­ive change: The change­makers, Base image by Paul Diac­onu (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.