Michele Sambaldi on technology, overtourism, sustainability, & connectivity

Michele Sam­baldi stresses the need to keep one’s prom­ises in order to suc­ceed in hos­pit­al­ity and tourism.

He also notes the con­tra­dic­tions inher­ent in dis­cus­sions around over­tour­ism, sus­tain­ab­il­ity, infra­struc­ture, and development. 

Mr Sam­baldi par­ti­cip­ated in a Tourism’s Hori­zon Inter­view. For this “Good Tour­ism” Insight, the inter­view­er Saverio Francesco Ber­to­lu­cci sum­mar­ises the high­lights. [The full tran­scripts of the Tourism’s Hori­zon Inter­views are avail­able on Substack.]

Who is Michele Sambaldi?

Michele Sam­baldi is syn­onym­ous with effi­cient loc­al devel­op­ment, lux­ury hos­pit­al­ity man­age­ment, and atten­tion to detail. The Italian’s 20+-year career in the industry makes him one of the most inter­est­ing and enter­tain­ing fig­ures to inter­view in the glob­al hos­pit­al­ity scene. 

Hav­ing recently rein­ven­ted him­self as a hos­pit­al­ity con­sult­ant, Mr Sambaldi’s pro­fes­sion­al back­ground in busi­ness and lux­ury man­age­ment included stints at Bul­gari Hotels and Resorts and Pel­licano Hotels; part of “The Lead­ing Hotels of the World”.

Mr Sam­baldi is inter­ested in all facets of the hos­pit­al­ity industry, includ­ing invest­ment and devel­op­ment; where it begins to scale at the loc­al level. He serves on the advis­ory board of the ITHIC, the Itali­an Hos­pit­al­ity Invest­ment Con­fer­ence. And for two years he was a dir­ect­or of Ischia is More, an ini­ti­at­ive by entre­pren­eurs and loc­al author­it­ies to enhance the qual­ity of life on the island of Ischia, Italy. 

The social aspect of hos­pit­al­ity is surely the key pil­lar for Michele, who has always been open to par­ti­cip­at­ing in dis­cus­sions and pan­els with many tal­ents across dif­fer­ent uni­ver­sit­ies and con­fer­ences. Indeed, he did not hes­it­ate a moment in say­ing yes to the Tour­is­m’s Hori­zon Interviews!

‘BRAND’ matters in the high-tech present

Com­par­ing the past with the present, Mr Sam­baldi iden­ti­fies tech­no­logy and sus­tain­ab­il­ity as the two key mile­stones for tour­ism development. 

Tech­no­logy has allowed brands to gain cli­ents, add human cap­it­al, and grant a high­er qual­ity of labour. At the same time, the vir­tu­al world has offered cus­tom­ers the pos­sib­il­ity to design and act­ively par­ti­cip­ate in their hol­i­day plan­ning, and then share every moment in real time. 

For Mr Sam­baldi, this tech revolu­tion neces­sit­ates a stronger focus on “BRAND”, which he him­self emphas­ises in cap­it­al let­ters. The image and value of one’s brand has nev­er been more at risk as bad reviews have nev­er been able to spread so fast. 

The tech­no­lo­gies that facil­it­ate the fast dis­sem­in­a­tion of cus­tom­ers’ shared exper­i­ences, both good and bad, puts over­whelm­ing pres­sure on entre­pren­eurs to har­ness it; to emphas­ise the good and to swiftly and vis­ibly resolve the bad. 

Mr Sam­baldi stresses that tech­no­logy is in every aspect of the cus­tom­er jour­ney map. We can­not talk about tour­ism without talk­ing about tech­no­logy. In this regard, main­tain­ing the prom­ise of what has been offered is fundamental. 

Mr Sam­baldi’s sug­ges­tion to every entre­pren­eur is to keep and motiv­ate the right employ­ees to deliv­er on your brand promise.

Don’t miss oth­er “GT” con­tent tagged with “Mar­ket­ing”

Overtourism vs the common good

The grow­ing num­bers of tour­ists world­wide wor­ries Mr Sam­baldi. He is sure that the 1.5 bil­lion tour­ists who now travel every year is a level close to saturation! 

Mr Sam­baldi calls for strong co-cre­at­ive approaches towards the bene comune (com­mon good) in order to tackle mass tour­ism chal­lenges. He explains how the pan­dem­ic allowed people to con­sider loc­al tour­ism, and how Ischia cit­izens, for example, found a way to come togeth­er to recon­sider the island’s tour­ism strategies. 

When pressed about the top­ic of over­tour­ism, he says the term is not one he favours; that it is inap­pro­pri­ate with respect to “sea­son­al diversification”. 

He explains that the term ‘sea­son­al diver­si­fic­a­tion’ has a bet­ter focus since some regions have his­tor­ic­ally relied on a tour­ism high sea­son in the same way an agri­cul­tur­al region may rely on an annu­al har­vest. These places may delib­er­ately set out to achieve for a lim­ited sea­son what out­siders might call overtourism. 

Over­all, Mr Sam­baldi claims that aca­demia and nation­al insti­tu­tions have to care­fully con­sider such data in order to pro­pose altern­at­ive and innov­at­ive meth­ods which will push the industry towards a sus­tain­able objective.

‘Sustainability’ is an overused term

Mr Sam­baldi does not deny the rising import­ance of sus­tain­able reforms in the hos­pit­al­ity and travel industry, how­ever he thinks ‘sus­tain­ab­il­ity’ is an “over­used”, if not “abused” term. 

Accord­ing to Mr Sam­baldi, atten­tion to sus­tain­ab­il­ity will increase as young tal­ents emerge from tour­ism schools where des­tin­a­tion man­age­ment is dis­cussed with a human­ist­ic touch. How­ever, he cau­tions that envir­on­ment­al sus­tain­ab­il­ity in the real world is hard to achieve, par­tic­u­larly in large-scale pro­jects or over vast regions. 

Of the three main pil­lars of sus­tain­ab­il­ity — eco­nom­ic, social, and envir­on­ment­al — his atten­tion to the social becomes evid­ent when he talks about the need for great­er “entre­pren­eur­i­al and mana­geri­al under­stand­ing that a por­tion of time, profits, and resources should bene­fit the loc­al community”. 

This is per­haps recog­ni­tion that with great­er social (and eco­nom­ic) secur­ity comes more time to worry about and attend to nature and the environment.

Envir­on­ment­al sus­tain­ab­il­ity is dir­ectly con­nec­ted with a cul­ture of pla­cing lim­its on beha­viour. Mr Sam­baldi stresses that it is the elite — the people most likely to afford lux­ury exper­i­ences (and most likely to be posi­tioned to set lim­its) — who should be most affected by the enforce­ment of bound­ar­ies on what tour­ists can do. 

Lux­ury that is glitz and grandeur is evid­ently anti­thet­ic­al to sus­tain­able and respons­ible beha­viours. Is all tour­ism an unsus­tain­able luxury?

Read more “Good Tour­ism” Insight Interviews

The great connector

Trans­port­a­tion infra­struc­ture is a great con­nect­or to and between the “less­er-known” parts of the world, Mr Sam­baldi says. 

How­ever, he acknow­ledges that this real­ity clashes with his more romantic view of rur­al­ity and peri­pher­al­ity: “[B]eing inac­cess­ible or less access­ible may pro­tect cer­tain bal­ances and per­haps serve as one of the defences against overtourism”. 

Thus the travel & tour­ism industry’s infra­struc­ture rep­res­ents both the ful­fil­ment of a need and the incur­ment of a cost.

Reflect­ing on his exper­i­ences and con­sum­ing news of the world’s geo­pol­it­ic­al strife have reminded Mr Sam­baldi of the volat­il­ity of life; how quickly soci­et­ies and entire nations can be upended. 

It is worth remem­ber­ing that the travel & tour­ism industry offers more than a cas­u­al escape from the hum­drum of our every­day lives. It is a great con­nect­or of people. 

In the con­text of war, our infra­struc­ture offers path­ways to safety. And it can con­nect those who would sit down, break bread, and forge last­ing peace.

What do you think? 

Share your own thoughts in a 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.

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About the author

Saverio Francesco Ber­to­lu­cci stud­ied inter­na­tion­al tour­ism & leis­ure at Uni­versità di Bologna, Italy and sus­tain­able tour­ism devel­op­ment at Aal­borg Uni­ver­sity, Den­mark.

Cur­rently work­ing as a com­mer­cial assist­ant with VDB Lux­ury Prop­er­ties in Bar­celona, Spain, the quad­ri­lin­gual Itali­an is inter­ested in des­tin­a­tion man­age­ment, the exper­i­ence eco­nomy, and cus­tom­er care, and has a pas­sion for social sus­tain­ab­il­ity, remote tour­ism, and co-creation.

About the Tourism’s Horizon Interviews

“Good Tour­ism” Insight Part­ner Tourism’s Hori­zon: Travel for the Mil­lions, in col­lab­or­a­tion with “GT”, has sought the can­did views of well-known and respec­ted experts on tourism’s past, present, and future. 

The Tourism’s Hori­zon Inter­views involves Jim Butcher, Vil­helmi­ina Vain­ikka, Peter Smith, Saverio Francesco Ber­to­lu­cci, Dav­id Jar­ratt, and Sudip­ta Sarkar as inter­view­ers. The “Good Tour­ism” Blog will pub­lish their high­lights and com­ment­ary as “GT” Insights. 

Read the full tran­scripts of each inter­view on Tourism’s Horizon’s substack.

Featured image (top of post)

Michele Sam­baldi took part in the Tourism’s Hori­zon Inter­views and spoke about, among oth­er things, tech­no­logy, over­tour­ism, sus­tain­ab­il­ity, and con­nectiv­ity with Saverio Francesco Bertolucci. 

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