What ‘good tourism’ needs: Listening, learning, leading

K Michael Hay­wood won­ders what the sub­ject­ive notion of ‘good tour­ism’ is, or could be, and how it might be achieved. 

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

The ‘good’ in ‘good tour­ism’ rep­res­ents the search for that which is desir­able and deserving of esteem and respect. It sug­gests that tour­ism activ­it­ies be appro­pri­ate with­in future-ready soci­et­al, loc­a­tion­al, cul­tur­al, and oper­a­tion­al contexts.

In this sense, tour­ism should con­trib­ute to peoples’ well-being, includ­ing that of vis­it­or-serving organ­isa­tions and com­munit­ies-as-des­tin­a­tions; every­one desirous of cre­at­ing and cap­tur­ing net-pos­it­ive shared value that thwarts unto­ward envir­on­ment­al, social, cul­tur­al, and eco­nom­ic impacts, and elim­in­ates unne­ces­sary waste.

As a sig­ni­fi­er of being mor­ally admir­able, how­ever, the notion of what con­sti­tutes ‘good’ can perplex. 

As a tool of social con­form­ance that encour­ages thought­ful judg­ments, decisions, beha­viours, and eval­u­ations, one has to ask: 

Who gets to determ­ine what con­sti­tutes social norms (‘good’), and devi­ation from them (‘bad’), espe­cially when uni­ver­sal­ity, even with­in a ‘com­munity’, is questionable?

As an indic­at­or of per­form­ance, ‘good’ can be paradoxical. 

Don’t miss oth­er “Good Tour­ism” con­tent tagged with
’Travel & tour­ism industry policy and governance’

‘Good enough’ never is

From a quant­it­at­ive point of view, ‘good tour­ism’ ref­er­ences the rewards that come from boost­ing volume, value, and profits; the high­er, the better. 

From qual­it­at­ive per­spect­ives also, ‘good enough’ nev­er is. In that con­text, ‘good tour­ism’ may identi­fy the bene­fits of a reduc­tion in con­sump­tion (even degrowth) in the con­text of ‘good’ social-eco­lo­gic­al trans­form­a­tion. 

What arises are chal­len­ging quer­ies related to all types of growth: Advance­ment, prosper­ity, suc­cess, and the pur­suit of a myri­ad of derived busi­ness value-cre­ation oppor­tun­it­ies from bur­geon­ing demand and life­style choices. 

As a con­sequence, we need to revis­it the essence of ‘good growth’ and ‘enough growth’ (even degrowth) in regards to what, why, for whom, when, and how. 

We’re all involved in and ded­ic­ated to the pur­suit of sur­viv­ab­il­ity and thrive­ab­il­ity, yet we’re quick to judge what oth­ers con­sider to be right or wrong. 

Mediocrity has to be eradicated

To mas­ter the present, whatever our cir­cum­stances, mediocrity has to be eradicated. 

How? By escap­ing the trough of inef­fi­ciency, improv­ing qual­ity, com­mit­ting to sus­tain­ab­il­ity, doing bet­ter, and innov­at­ing in order to reverse the decline phase of organ­isa­tion­al or des­tin­a­tion life cycles. 

Busi­nesses, espe­cially, are bound by ever-present com­plex (cyc­lic­al, sea­son­al, capa­city) dual­it­ies to per­form and trans­form, and to do both without jeop­ard­ising longevity.

But what con­sti­tutes mediocrity? Whose expect­a­tions, sense of justice, or rules apply? And what set of facts, assump­tions, con­texts, and cir­cum­stances under­ly them? 

The stor­ies we tell ourselves are always incom­plete; “good or bad it’s hard to say”. Yet the pro­spects for exist­en­tial crises or losses can’t be ignored.

No won­der, then, that opin­ions and beliefs about tour­ism are becom­ing increas­ingly polar­ised and entrenched. Strongly-formed impres­sions per­severe, par­tic­u­larly when oppos­ing sides fail to under­stand the vari­ety of oper­a­tion­al con­texts or necessities. 

The out­come: People and organ­isa­tions con­tent to exploit the frac­tures that divide us, res­ult­ing in an ever-evolving ‘tri­al-by-ordeal’. 

Rapprochement should be possible

While reas­on­ing becomes enig­mat­ic — when “myside biases” and/or “illu­sions of explan­at­ory depth” pre­vail — doesn’t every­one believe they’re on the side of ‘good tour­ism’ in their own minds? 

If so, there must be some degree of com­mon ground or agree­ment as to what’s con­sidered ‘good tour­ism’ in all its mani­fest­a­tions.

Rap­proche­ment should be possible. 

If only an Abra­ham­ic path­way to agree­ment could be introduced. 

If only roadmaps, as in UNESCO’s attempt to cre­ate mutu­al under­stand­ing among dif­fer­ent cul­tures, could be achieved. 

All des­tin­a­tions strive to flour­ish. But it requires all stake­hold­ers to recog­nise their mutu­al inter­de­pend­ence; an inter­de­pend­ency that requires cooper­a­tion, col­lab­or­a­tion, and a will­ing­ness to com­mit to ‘deep pur­pose’ and a shared vision.

For good­ness sake, trust must be re-built. As such, we have no choice but to design integ­rated approaches to resolve misunderstandings. 

In doing so, it behoves us to appre­ci­ate dif­fer­ent forms of loss and gain, believe in win-win out­comes, and embrace our human­ity and desire to sur­vive and thrive together.

To grow through change — with respect for integ­rity, hon­esty, and human dig­nity — the ini­tial step requires that we seek first to under­stand, then to be under­stood; a pro­cess that will require intense listen­ing, stra­tegic learn­ing, and vis­ion­ary leading. 

Don’t miss oth­er “Good Tour­ism” con­tent tagged with
’Travel & tour­ism and des­tin­a­tion management’

Intense listening for ‘good tourism’

Through­out our lives we’ve been admon­ished to listen. Yet we have a tend­ency to tune out oppos­ing points of view, espe­cially when we don’t appre­ci­ate ‘the oth­er’ or their frames of ref­er­ence. When this occurs, we turn inward to our own thoughts. 

Con­ver­sa­tions cease along with our desire to listen. With the noise in our lives intensi­fy­ing, we grow impa­tient and fil­ter out what we dis­agree with. 

But then when we do try to listen we’re often put down when our responses aren’t wanted; our silence required. This has become quite pre­val­ent in our fam­ily, social, and pro­fes­sion­al lives. No won­der many of us feel ignored and belittled. It has to cease. 

As a coun­ter­point, Steph­en Covey reveals how every­one can find their voice. 

How can we hone our listen­ing skills and those of oth­ers, and set up safe places for all stake­hold­ers to explain their views and share how they feel?

Real power comes from open­ing our minds to listen­ing. 

As Wil­li­am Ury, the renowned nego­ti­at­or con­tends: Listen­ing is the only way we’ll ever find agree­ment on what is good or worthy.

It’s a chal­len­ging task, as Simon Sinek reveals in this inter­view with Deeyah Khan about her doc­u­ment­ary, White Right: Meet­ing the Enemy. 

Hon­ing our listen­ing skills and approaches to true under­stand­ing takes skill and effort. 

Strategic learning for ‘good tourism’ 

Learn­ing can­not occur without listen­ing. And without learn­ing — or by adopt­ing the wrong kind — people, organ­isa­tions, and indus­tries won’t sur­vive in tomorrow’s world. 

Pro­gress requires that we invest in lifelong edu­ca­tion­al tools and oppor­tun­it­ies in order to improve our judge­ment. It can be accom­plished by advan­cing the art and prac­tice of learn­ing organ­isa­tions, and by coach­ing ourselves to listen, think, respond, per­suade, and pur­sue vicari­ous learn­ing experiences. 

For learn­ing to be at the heart of our abil­ity to adapt to a rap­idly chan­ging world, it has to be about striv­ing for mag­ni­fi­cence through trans­form­a­tion and tran­scend­ence. Our com­pet­en­cies and skills should nev­er be merely mediocre and transactional. 

Peter Senge’s explor­a­tion of stra­tegic learn­ing high­lights the import­ance of being aspir­a­tion­al in search for deep­er aware­ness and know­ledge. He high­lights the need for com­mit­ment, guid­ing philo­soph­ic­al frame­works, and learn­ing infrastructures. 

Effect­ively done, stra­tegic learn­ing acts as a stim­u­lant that demon­strates to people that they are cap­able of achiev­ing far more that they think they can achieve; “get­ting bet­ter by know­ing how to get bet­ter”.

Read more “Good Tour­ism” Insights by K Michael Haywood

Visionary leading for ‘good tourism’ 

There is no escap­ing the nar­rat­ives, emo­tion­al con­ta­gion, and shift­ing expect­a­tions among stake­hold­er com­munit­ies. This age of out­rage, cli­mate crises, and assault on glob­al­isa­tion and cap­it­al­ism is becom­ing the new normal. 

In response, Karthik Ramanna notes that we have to have a col­lect­ive oblig­a­tion to respond sens­it­ively and work togeth­er, based on a shared purpose. 

Many NGOs are already mobil­ising their power to bring about improve­ment. Some major cor­por­a­tions and SMEs are fol­low­ing suit, refin­ing and relat­ing their pur­pose to spe­cif­ic causes. How­ever, these under­tak­ings tend to be piece­meal and cautious. 

If they are to be per­ceived as hon­our­able, goals and out­comes have to be set. But no one can afford to set expect­a­tions that can­not be met. 

As a con­sequence, organ­isa­tions and stake­hold­er com­munit­ies are recog­nising the bene­fits of net­works to foster a sense of col­lect­ive force and iden­tity (e.g. Future of Tour­ism Coali­tion).

Ref­er­ence here is to open net­works that oper­ate with a sense of pur­pose, prin­ciples, and philo­sophies regard­ing rapprochement: 

• Net­works that recog­nise the import­ance of mutu­al depend­ence and col­lab­or­a­tion, a col­lect­ive sense of account­ab­il­ity, and con­sen­su­al control; 
  • Con­trol that rests in the man­age­ment of rela­tion­ships by expertly nudging situ­ations in appro­pri­ate dir­ec­tions through medi­ated negotiation. 
• Net­works designed to tackle com­plex­ity and ambi­gu­ity, broaden com­pet­en­cies and reframe contexts.

For­tu­nately, net­work lead­ers can get an early start by accu­mu­lat­ing new knowledge. 

The real value mul­ti­pli­er, how­ever, comes from the net­work effect as the num­ber of par­ti­cipants in the net­work expands. 

The ‘how’, not the ‘what’

All in all, ‘good tour­ism’ has to have a des­tiny: A deep pur­pose that every­one holds to while acknow­ledging cur­rent real­it­ies and remain­ing optim­ist­ic about pro­gress; where cre­at­ive ten­sion is about the ‘how’, not the ‘what’.

A shared pur­pose with oppos­ing sides, how­ever, may seem brittle, but ‘good tour­ism’ will always be a battle to main­tain gains and ease strains. 

Through dis­cip­lined ded­ic­a­tion to achiev­ing break­throughs, good tour­ism organ­isa­tions and com­munit­ies-as-des­tin­a­tions can become great …

But only if they listen, learn, and lead.

Fea­tured image (top of post): What’s ‘good tour­ism’? Image by FLY:D (CC0) via Unsplash.

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.