THE GLOBAL TRAVEL INDUSTRY'S FABULOUS 60 YEAR JOURNEY
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Look forward to a better travel industry full of real opportunities

3/31/2020

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COVID 19 is a point of massive change and extraordinary opportunity for tourism

The last big economic crisis in 2008/9 ruined all the hard-won successes of sustainable tourism. The accountants, the venture capitalists, the marginal costers, the web-based spin merchants, Wall Street saw to that. To see how that worked read my book.

In terms of numbers, after 2008 they soared. In terms of benefits for those that needed and were entitled to them - destination communities, this mass tourism just added insult to injury


So now we have another, bigger crisis on our hands.

Already airlines can't pay for their planes that they bought on the expectation of massive passenger and load factor growth.

And the big producers are just on the point of paying for customers to take their oil because storage is running out.

And the biggest of them all TUI has had to get a €2 billion loan from KfW - the German development bank.

But on the bright side - the Planet is having a holiday from all the excesses we have laid on it. The economy and human activity has slowed as we painfully learn to work together.

And… prime assets are cheap.

All this and we are only a few months into a problem that will last for years
But there is a light at the end of the tunnel - an industry that is truly sustainable - by this I mean economically sustainable, culturally sustainable, socially sustainable and environmentally sustainable.

That means dramatically less air and cruise tourists, fewer tourists in iconic destinations, less imported food in all destinations, proper carrying capacity restrictions.

Plus above all, tourists who respect and feel gratitude for the fact that they can travel.
And this could lead to higher, more sustainable profits, better service, far better benefits for destinations. In all a really healthy global tourism industry with real opportunities for millions of real people.

I've been in the travel industry too long to believe that any industry initiative could possibly make this happen.

So what will?

Simply market pressure. As soon as people REALLY get the message that a healthy world, and a healthy tourism economy is good for them as individuals - their attitude will change. And tourism will obey the market - as ever.

The fact is that COVID 19 is a game changer. Surely, we realise that this is also a massive warning to every one of us individually?

And you may think that the travel and tourism industry has stopped. But it hasn't. The real powers in tourism are rising, working, recognising the opportunity and flexing their muscles.

The World Bank (remember the people that created our geography of global tourism from Mexico to Bali?) is laying the path with its tourism clients around the world for a sustainable 2021 and clever destination managers all over the globe have seen the writing on the wall and got the message: SERIOUSLY PREPARE FOR SUSTAINABLE TOURISM.

Of course, there is a COVID 19 price to pay. There will certainly be airline failures and industry consolidation. There will certainly be hundreds of thousands of travel and tourism industry bankruptcies. There will be lots and lots of cheap assets - particularly properties and companies big and small who extended themselves far too far when the fabulous river of cash dried up.

Is this new era of 'Responsible Capitalism' forged by COVID 19 going to bring in an era of responsible sustainable tourism? Probably not. But certainly, the opportunity exists and there will be no choice if the fickle marketplace gets the message!

Valere Tjolle
Valere is the author of 'You Lucky People' the story of travel - the world's most delightful and devastating industry. Find out more about it HERE


1 Comment
angelo carraro
3/31/2020 10:16:10 am

so, as I originally asked, who is making money out of covid19?
answers, very soon!

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    Valere Tjolle is the travel and tourism insider. An entrepreneur, consultant, developer and journalist, he has been in at the beginning of almost every tourism development for the last sixty years. There is no one better placed to expose the seedy side of tourism nor its enormous opportunities to unite people across the globe.

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Tourism in the 2020s – will it delight or devastate the human race?
New book starts at the beginning and predicts the next 60 years of tourism.

 
 
In 1960 did we believe that an international travel industry would increase from just 25 million passengers a year to 1.5 billion?
 
Did we believe that the economic opportunities promoted by dictator Franco’s government would sweep the world, promoted by the World Bank?
 
Did we believe that travel would become both a friend and a foe to many destinations and that it would help to threaten our Earth’s ecosystems, cultures, economies, society as a whole?
 
If we didn’t believe all that then, what do we believe now?
 
You Lucky People sets out the past, the present and a future for tourism - all very irreverently!
 
Could global tourism be totally subject to Chinese demands, could it become entirely virtual, could it be so hampered by world disturbances, diseases, violence in destinations and other curses that it could change its nature dramatically. Could it actually be stopped because of its environmental and social damage?
 
Or ... could it be managed harmoniously and effectively by local destinations and marketed by really responsible business entrepreneurs so that its great benefits could be available to many more millions?
 
The author, Valère Tjolle, has been in the travel industry for almost all of these last 60 years. His story is that of real experience in the industry all over the world, and in-depth understandings and involvements with all the innovations and transformations over that period.
 
It was his annual Sustainable Tourism Report that pointed to the growth potential of the ‘Sharing Economy’ and tipped every other major development; his Greenwash Report that rated companies and activities according to their actual sustainability performance; his Global Top 100 Sustainable Destinations that picked out the real destination winners
 
From the ‘Mom and Pop’ businesses of the 50s through the devil-may-care entrepreneurs of the last decades of the 20th century to the massively powerful tech businesses of today - the real story of the travel industry is pithily portrayed with humour and realism.
 
‘You Lucky People’ is not an academic history of the industry - it is a warts-and-all story of a deep insider’s experience at the heart of the industry.
 
Come for the ride! See it here:

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