THE GLOBAL TRAVEL INDUSTRY'S FABULOUS 60 YEAR JOURNEY
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Welcome to the Experience Economy - travel agents' hope for the future

5/4/2020

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Independent Travel agents and other micro travel businesses - your Covid -19 big opportunity

Despite - in fact because of - the demise of the fast-falling industry giants,this is your COVID-19 big opportunity.
 
First you may ask why is this opportunity available to small businesses? It's simple! If you rent or own hotels, resorts, planes or other tourism-related 'assets', if you have a big payroll or you have an algorithm or a MO - you're stuffed for a while. Quite a long while as it turns out.
 
Maybe for a couple of years big travel businesses will have to keep their noses to the grindstone, otherwise they'll lose the lot. Remember that the mass travel industry is built on the mathematics of big numbers. Hotel beds or plane seats are the most perishable items in the world - worse than fruit and veg!
 
So, all of a sudden, travel-related micro-businesses have the upper hand - they have no big asset that they need to serve or die! Who are these travel micro-businesses who have an open goal? Travel agents. Tourist guides. Small accommodation providers. Small local DMCs. In fact almost any travel-related micro business is now looking at the opportunity of a lifetime.
 
And what is the opportunity? The Experience Economy in which already globally over 450,000 micro businesses are turning over some $200 billion.
 
And it is set to grow exponentially because: There is a massive global marketplace of people who want something different, authentic, un-crowded, safe, and experiential! And hand held.
 
And...
 
There are low - or no - barriers to entry and, if you get it just right, you can write your own margins.  The opportunity is as small or as big as you want it. You can use your own passion and drive to fulfil your own needs.
 
Once upon a time, travel was about going there, doing stuff and coming back. The key was… Where was 'there'? The pulling power of the destination dragged the passengers in.
 
Now, 60 years later, the old-style business has become top-heavy, stale, ordered and homogenised; margins are as thin as ever. This makes for low wages, brutal prices, unhappy destination communities and disappointed tourists.
 
There are so many people going to so few iconic places, they have become totally sad and unsustainable.
 
And now due to Covid - 19 it's all on hold.
 
Your opportunity is preparing for 2021. While all the big boys and girls are trying to hold on to what they had you can create something NEW, by joining the Experience Economy.
 
At the moment there are something like half a million micro-experience organisers around the world and their total sales nudge some £160 billion ($200 billion) annually. That means the average micro-experience organiser is already turning over £320,000 ($400,000) per year.
 
And the field will grow rapidly. What do all these little businesses do? Simply said they share their passion with others. So, if you want a break from dull routine and you have a passion, NOW is the time to share it for profit!
 
Mostly it's about passion. Whether you're passionate about eating , cookery, about wine or beer, if you're passionate about a sport, riding or gliding or go-carting, sailing or swimming, about shopping or needlework or making mosaics, knitting or walking or you're passionately knowledgeable about a place... or absolutely anything in which visitors are interested too.
 
It could even be just helping to create and fulfil your travel agent client passions. Whatever your niche passion, now is the time for action. Why now? Because, for certain this year will see a rock bottom for the old travel industry and from there the only way is up for the new wave of small, agile, entrepreneurial experience economy innovators.
 
You will start at the bottom of the curve and the graph and your opportunity goes up from there. You don't need big assets. You simply need to coordinate and manage your own plan.
 
Remember the success of Airbnb? Tripadvisor? They had nothing but an idea at their beginning and soon they will be part of the past.
 
The future belongs to the growing sustainable band of micro-businesses in the Experience Economy and you could be a part of that future if you follow your dream.
 
And in this situation, when economies of scale are failing unusually, governments and banks will be on your side. This is the opportunity for you to use the power of your experiences, your knowledge and your passion, rather than just the boring old destinations, to pull in your business.
 
So start now. Choose your passion and combine it with your business plan. You are half way there already.
 
You'll need to be a coordinator, choosing the settings for your experiences and creating local partnerships, making new friends.
 
In operating this way your activity will be sustainable too.
 
Valere Tjolle
Valere

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

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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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