Welcome
 With
much of the world experiencing economic uncertainty, we talk to industry experts
from the World Tourism Organization and the World Travel and Tourism
Council about what this will mean for the tourism industry and what
support they will be offering over the coming months. Also, risk
analyst Dr Peter Tarlow offers some insight into how we can best
prepare for uncertain times ahead.
All this, and the latest research and reports, e-business and
international news, plus upcoming events for the travel and tourism
professional.
Roger Carter
Managing Editor
Key
Article
Tourism and
the Financial Crisis:
How are World Leaders Responding?
As the global economy enters previously unchartered territories,
experts around the world are asking the same question. What will this
mean for the travel and tourism industry?
 International
tourism registered solid
growth in the first half of 2008 – at around 5% between
January and April, compared to the same period of 2007 – but
a slowdown began with the summer holidays in the northern hemisphere
and the World Tourism Organization's World
Tourism Barometer is now
reporting a perceptible loss of confidence regarding the short-term
outlook.
Addressing last month's Executive Council, UNWTO Secretary-General
Francesco Frangialli said: 'Experience teaches us that tourism is
resilient, but there is no denying that there is a certain stage of
deterioration of the situation beyond which tourism too will begin to
suffer.'
As the first signs of an economic downturn emerged early in 2008, UNWTO
commissioned a study of the impacts of economic scenarios on the
industry. A first issue of this report – Global
Imbalances and Structural Change in World Tourism
– was presented at the UNWTO Ministers' Summit held as part
of the World Travel Market in London earlier this month. The study
covered such issues as:
- The economic
shocks and crisis of the current year
- Analysing of the
impacts on world tourism
- Identifying key
factors of change.
 In
addition, UNWTO plans to support its
members over the coming months by providing a series of economic
analysis and response mechanisms through the creation of a Resilience
Committee. A series of response groups focusing on the regional impacts
and action by the sector has been planned and will look at both
immediate and longer term responses.
President and CEO of the World Travel and Tourism Council ( WTTC),
Jean-Claude Baumgarten, has also called on governments around the world
to work in partnership with the private sector for the long-term
sustainability of the industry.
'The last few months have been increasingly challenging,' Baumgarten
told delegates attending the World Travel Market's Global Economic
Forum, 'not just for travel and tourism but for all sectors of the
global economy.
'What started as a credit crunch in the USA has developed into a major
financial and economic crisis that has spread rapidly to all four
corners of the globe,' he added. 'And we clearly haven't seen the end
of it yet.
'Although there are many uncertainties as to how long the current
crisis will continue, and how deep its impact will be on disposable
incomes and business and consumer confidence in different markets, past
experience has shown that travel and tourism always rebounds from
cyclical downturns - sometimes even stronger than before.
 Baumgarten
continued: 'Although severe,
this crisis cannot be compared with past crises due to events such as
9/11, SARS, or even the Gulf war. Today, people still want to travel
and, once the recovery starts, there is likely to be huge pent-up
demand. It will take some time to re-establish the balance between
supply and demand and it's going to be a very different world out there
when we do see the end of the current crisis. But we know it will come
and that the long-term future of travel and tourism will be assured.'
A full assessment of the world's tourism results (first 8-9 months of
2008) and a 2009 forecast is now available via the UNWTO World
Tourism Barometer.
Research
and Reports - What's New?
The first comprehensive e-marketing handbook for tourism destinations
has just been published by the European Travel Commission ( ETC)
and the World Tourism Organization ( UNWTO).
 The new
300 page Handbook
on e-Marketing for Tourism Destinations
is a practical 'how to' manual for tourism destination staff at
national, regional and city level, designed to help hone e-marketing
skills and manage new projects. The book was produced by TEAM Tourism
Consulting with contributions
from over 50 experts from around the world. It is on sale from the ETC
website.
*
* *
What is Travel 2.0 and who uses it? How widely used are Travel 2.0
sites and how important are they for online travellers? These questions
and more are addressed with findings and insights from an August 2008
survey of US online adults conducted by Prophis
eResearch. The report - 2008
Travel 2.0 US Report - is
aimed at helping the travel industry understand why and how travel 2.0
matters. It can be bought online
at a cost of USD 495.
*
* *
The 2008
WTM Global Trends report was
launched earlier this month at the height of the biggest financial
turmoil the travel industry has faced for some time. The report, by
global intelligence firm Euromonitor
International, focuses on seven
regions, highlighting key trends in each, including:
- Asia: Europeans
settle for a good second life
- Latin America:
Going long haul
- Middle East:
Expatriate travel
- Europe: Travel
networking.
*
* *
Significant investment has poured into the travel industry in India
across the value chain. PhoCusWright's Indian
Online Travel Overview examines
the essential components of India's economic, cultural and demographic
landscape to understand the critical aspects of travel and online
travel, the dynamics that make this market so unique, and the essential
strategies required for success. Developed over a series of surveys,
focus groups, industry interviews and extensive primary and secondary
research, the report can be bought online at a cost of 1,295 USD.
*
* *
 Tourism's
response to climate change is one of the topics covered in the
latest edition of Research
Highlights, the newsletter of
the European Travel Commission's Market Intelligence Group.
*
* *
A new benchmark study of the USD 6 billion youth travel accommodation
sector has been undertaken by STAY (Safe Travel Accommodation for
Youth) WYSE Association, a sector association of the World Youth
Student and Educational ( WYSE)
Travel Confederation. The report reviews the business operations of the
Youth Travel Accommodation (YTA) sector and offers industry standards
and metrics for youth hostel operators.
*
* *
The World
/ European Travel Monitor
is an annual survey monitoring the outbound travel volume and
travel behaviour in all Western and Eastern European countries
as well as in important American and Asian markets. It is the largest
continuous travel market study in the world, based on more than 500,000
representative interviews in 50 markets, providing information on
international travel volume, travel spending, travel / product
segments, destination performance, target group profiles and other
important touristic aspects.
*
* *
The eighth edition of PhoCusWright's US
Online Travel Overview was
published earlier this month. The report provides an in-depth look at
the US online travel market, including its size, the market share of
online travel agencies, comparison of individual travel supplier
segments and market forecasts to 2010. The report can be bought online
at a cost of USD 1,995.
*
* *
Travel sites are failing to cater to international users according to
recent research by Oban
Multilingual into international
travel search behaviour. Oban researchers interviewed holidaymakers
from more than 40 countries and found that nearly all had to search the
internet in English as travel sites did not usually provide a
multilingual option.
*
* *
Despite the rapidly increasing use of mobile phones throughout the US,
higher-end applications remain vastly under-used, according to results
of an Accenture
survey released last month. The survey
found that 88 percent of consumers said they never use their mobile
phones to watch videos, or send e-mail (84 percent), or play games (79
percent).
*
* *
The Tourism Society, the UK membership organisation for tourism
professionals, has published a Dictionary for the Tourism Industry.
The dictionary includes an overview of industry terminology,
explanations of industry specific terms, useful travel related facts on
over 130 countries, practical words and idioms for guides and tour
managers and airline and airport codings. The dictionary costs GBP
14.95 and is available via the publisher.
Interviews
VisitScotland
Chairman, Peter Lederer, recently recorded an interview with TravelMole.tv
to talk about sustainability in Scotland. The interview with Valere
Tjolle includes discussions on the tourism marketplace as a whole,
Scotland as a green destination, and VisitScotland's ambitions for 50
percent growth. The interview is available via YouTube.
Some topical subjects were discussed during this month's World Travel
Market when TravelMole.tv carried out the following interviews:
Graham McKenzie interviews Rosheen
Singh, Marketing Director of
South African Tourism. They discuss the 2010 FIFA World Cup,
maintaining their grading system, and their new UK award.
Maha
Khatib, Minister of Tourism and
Antiquities in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, shares her views on
safety issues, the product Jordan has to offer, and the UK customer
during the economic downturn.
Destination
Brand Watch
Tourism
Australia Launches Luhrmann's Transformation Tourism Campaign
 Tourism
Australia and the
internationally renowned film-maker Baz Luhrmann have created a new
destination campaign aimed at making Australia the 'must visit'
destination for travellers around the world.
Tourism Australia Managing Director, Geoff Buckley, said the unique
opportunity created by the production of Luhrmann's film Australia was
one the organisation could not let pass. 'We knew that this huge film
would create a wave of publicity that would put the country in the
spotlight around the globe,' he said. 'And we found that the film's
story had a remarkable resonance for what we do marketing the country
as a travel destination. The challenge was always going to be how to
ride the power of the film, but with a standalone and self-reliant
tourism campaign.'
Nick Baker, Executive General Manager Marketing for Tourism Australia,
said the campaign was unlike any other tourism campaign. 'It's
cinematic in style, is based on a story with a beginning, middle and
end, is sophisticated and highly emotive,' he said. 'It is not the
traditional slide-show of pretty pictures of places and people.'
 The
success of the campaign will be
measured through Tourism Australia's brand tracking research, through
responses to the call to action of www.australia.com and through more
specific responses to those instances where the campaign runs
co-operatively with a direct product offering.
Further information and links to the two campaign films can be viewed
via the Tourism
Australia website.
Dates
for Your Diary
Some key
events for tourism destination professionals taking place over the next
few weeks:
 The
EyeForTravel Travel
Distribution Iberian Peninsula 2008
event is one of Spain and Portugal's most popular events for travel
distribution, marketing, technology and pricing executives. This year's
conference and exhibition takes place in Barcelona, Spain, from the 2nd
to 3rd December.
*
* *
Another EyeForTravel event, Revenue
Management and Pricing in Travel Conference Europe 2008,
takes place in Germany from December 2nd to 3rd.
*
* *
EIBTM
2008 is a global meetings and
incentive exhibition held in Barcelona, Spain. This year's dates are
2nd to 4th December.
*
* *
The next Search
Engine Strategies Conference and Expo
will be held in Chicago, USA, from the 8th - 12th December. The event
will include expert advice from the industry's top search experts
including representatives of search engines. Future conferences will be
held in London, UK, in February and New York, USA, in March.
*
* *
The First
International Tourism Online Marketing Conference
will be held in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, from the 15th - 19th December.
Organised by IFITT,
the International Federation for IT and Travel and Tourism, the event's
main objective is to create awareness, educate and update the travel
industry on e-travel, e-marketing and e-commerce strategies.
*
* *
 ENTER
2009 will bring together
international experts in all aspects of information and communication
technologies in travel and tourism. The conference will take place in
Amsterdam, The Netherlands, from the 28th - 30th January and offers a
unique forum for academics, researchers, industry consultants and
government representatives.
*
* *
An Adventure
and Eco-tourism Travel Mart will
take place in New Delhi, India, from the 5th - 6th December.
*
* *
 AIME 2009
is a key event for anyone involved in organising meetings, incentives,
conferences, special events or exhibitions.
The 17th Asia-Pacific Incentives and Meetings Expo will take place in
Melbourne, Australia, from the 17th - 18th February and offers a busy
education programme including a popular Business Events Forum which,
next year, will focus on corporate social responsibility, and a Master
Class programme aimed at making easy work of planning an event.
*
* *
FITUR
is one of the world's major travel trade shows and a key meeting point
for the international tourism industry, particularly in the Iberian
peninsula and Latin America. This year's event will be held from the
28th January - 1st February in Madrid.
*
* *
Don't miss the International Tourism Exchange ITB
Berlin which this year will be
held between the 11th and 15th March. The event is the world's largest
tourism trade fair and last year attracted over 11,000 exhibitors
representing every sector of the tourism industry.
An add-on event to ITB Berlin will be a series of conferences
- the ITB Future Day portrays the future in the fields of economy,
society and travel patterns; the ITB Hospitality Day challenges in the
hotel industry will be discussed; and the ITB Aviation Day will address
key issues in the global aviation industry. New this year is the ITB
Corporate Social Responsibility Day, which shows how to successfully
apply CSR to the travel industry.
Conference
News
The
PATA Tourism Strategy Forum 2008
The inaugural PATA Tourism Strategy event, held in China earlier this
month, focused on Applying
Tourism Research - Moving from Research to Strategy.
Five workshops were held, covering the application and implementation
of research in strategic business planning. Here are links to the
presentations given at these workshops.
 Workshop
1 (PDF 2.6 mb)
Macro Trends
Likely to Impact Travel and Tourism
A workshop led by Dr Ian Yeoman, Associate Professor of Tourism
Management at the Victoria
University
of Wellington.
Workshop
2 (PDF 500 kb)
Using Research
in Marketing Planning and Execution
A workshop led by David Thexton, Partner, Insignia
Research.
Workshop
3 (PDF 2.8 mb)
Using
Technology as an Enabler for Innovative Research
A workshop led by Alexander Rayner, eTourism Advisor, World Tourism
Organization.
Workshop 4
(PDF 500 kb)
Using Research
to Formulate Business Strategy
A workshop led by William Hsu, Vice President, News Advertising Sales,
Asia Pacific, CNN
International.
Workshop
5 (PDF 1.5 mb)
Making the
Business Case: How Research Can Strengthen Partnerships Between Tourism
Boards, Airlines, Airports, Hotels and Operators
A workshop led by John Koldowski, Director - Strategic Intelligence
Centre, PATA.
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International
News
Destinations:
Measuring excellence
CED,
the World Centre of Excellence for Destinations, has developed a new
tool - the System for Measuring Excellence in Destinations ( SMED).
The SMED allows partner destinations to build upon their strengths,
identify the key issues that need to be addressed and achieve an
important competitive edge. Destinations using the SMED receive
recommendations for strategic interventions and continuous improvement.
Sustainable
Tourism:
Global criteria developed
Last month's IUCN's World Conservation
Congress has taken steps to
define the way forward in solving the world's environmental crisis by
developing global standards to help travel suppliers meet increasing
consumer demand for products and services that will have positive
effects on communities and the environment.
The Global Partnership for Sustainable Tourism Criteria ( GSTC
Partnership) is a coalition of
32 organisations working together to foster increased understanding of
sustainable tourism practices and the adoption of universal sustainable
tourism principles.
The criteria will be the minimum standard that any tourism business
should aspire to reach in order to protect and sustain the world's
natural and cultural resources while ensuring tourism meets its
potential as a tool for poverty alleviation.
Australia:
Tourist Board of the Year
Tourism
Australia has been named the
Tourist Board of the Year at the annual TTG
Travel Awards. Other finalists
were the Barbados Tourism Authority, Canadian Tourism Commission, Dubai
Tourism and Commerce Marketing, Jamaica Tourist Board and South African
Tourism.
Nominees were rated by the agents who work with them in the first round
to deliver the five finalists followed by a judging panel which
analysed each finalist's performance against set criteria.
e-Business
News
Technology:
Top themes and predictions
Earlier this year, PhoCusWright
predicted the top 10 trends and themes in travel technology for 2008.
The accuracy of these predictions was assessed at this month's Travel
Innovation Summit.
The predictions included the suggestion that global internet usage
would be marked by diversity and that mobile would become the next
travel content delivery platform. Other potential trends included the
continuing evolution of user interfaces and the idea that software as a
service (SaaS) would provide many new opportunities. A summary of
PhoCusWright's findings
can be viewed online.
UNWTO Portal:
Offers climate change solutions
The World Tourism Organization ( UNWTO)
has launched a new portal aimed at helping the industry to register and
share good practice relating to climate change.
ClimateSolutions.travel
aims to become the central gateway for tourism stakeholders to access
information on available solutions to help the industry respond to
climate change and, in a collaborative effort, to achieve climate
neutral tourism.
Participants will be able to share and learn about available climate
solutions and access climate intelligence resources such as a documents
library, RSS feeds, useful web links and a climate solutions wiki. This
portal has been developed with the support of UNWTO partner Microsoft.
Canada:
New explorer tool launched
Travel professionals in Canada's nine key markets can now take
advantage of a new online tool that will encourage them to 'keep
exploring' Canada.
Canada Explorer has been created to improve trade awareness and is
aimed at agents who want to deepen their knowledge beyond the basics.
'It's important to note that the Canada Explorer is not a simple 'one
size fits all' solution for informing travel agents about Canada -
rather, that a fair degree of customisation is in place that allows
agents to access important market information from the unique
prospective of their home country. There's even a wall of travel agent
testimonials and comments on the experience of selling Canada in each
country,' said Andrew Clark, vice president of CTC
sales.
Marketing
Plans:
New tool from VisitBritain
VisitBritain, the national tourism office, has developed a marketing
planner tool to help the
industry create personalised marketing proposals targeting
overseas or domestic visitors. Hundreds of
opportunities are available, including meet the trade and
media workshops, niche campaigns, plus the chance to work in
partnership with well known non-tourism brands. The
system allows the selection of the best opportunities based on business
objectives and budget.
Australia:
Online marketing kit
The Australian
Tourism Data Warehouse has
released an online education kit to help tourism operators navigate
their way into the world of online marketing and booking systems. The
online education kit, Tourism e-kit, offers a comprehensive,
step-by-step education process for Australian tourism suppliers.
The kit comprises a suite of online tutorials providing easy to access
information on basic online marketing concepts, such as website design,
to more complex issues including an introduction to online booking. The
programme can be accessed via the ATDW
corporate website.
Online
Marketing:
DMAI's campaign success
The Destination Marketing Association International ( DMAI)
Go Travel Like a Local campaign
has been hailed a success. In a 5 week integrated media plan, the
industry consumer awareness campaign delivered 5.7 million online
impressions to top US markets.
The online promotion deployed search, e-mails, online ads and lead
generation tactics to successfully drive qualified consumer traffic and
conversions to DMAI and DMO campaign sponsors' websites.
'The online branding campaign was very successful, exceeding the goals
set for reaching important online travel consumers in key markets,'
said Michael Gehrisch, president and CEO of DMAI.
Online Travel:
Agent sites still growing
Online travel agent sites grew 7 percent to 45 million visitors earlier
this year, according to recent research by comScore Media Metrix.
The growth was led by Expedia
with 25.4 million visitors (up 8 percent), Travelocity
with 12 million visitors (up 10 percent), and Orbitz.com
with more than 9 million visitors.
Online travel network and review site, TripAdvisor, has increased its
number of user reviews and opinions by five million since April, a rise
of 14 million over the last two years.
Marketing and
Technology:
New directory launched
A new global directory of companies providing marketing and technology
solutions to the travel industry was launched last month. The online
version of the EyeforTravel
Marketing and Technology Directory, which is searchable by region and
topic, is divided into three main geographical categories; Europe,
Middle East & Africa; Asia and The Americas. Each region is
then split into sub-categories including reservation technologies,
search marketing solutions, revenue management systems and CRM
solutions.
Google Earth:
iPhone technology
Google Earth,
software that allows the viewing of merged satellite imagery, maps and
3D buildings, is now available on the Apple iPhone.
The Google Earth mobile application displays the same imagery and
offers the same navigational capabilities as the desktop version but
also features layers with geo-located Wikipedia articles and Panoramio
photos, as well as map labels and borders. Available in 18 languages,
Google Earth can be downloaded free from Apple's App Store
(accessible through iTunes) and will be compatible with first and
second generation models of both iPhone and iPod touch operating on
EDGE, 3G, and other WiFi networks.
Climate Change:
Measuring carbon footprints
Environmental advisory group, EC3,
has launched an online programme aimed at providing tourism operators
with a user-friendly, affordable tool to measure their carbon footprint
and environmental performance.
Costing AUSD 850 per annum, Green
Globe Lite will target small to
medium-size businesses (SMEs) which make up a large percentage of the
tourism industry.
The programme's operational health check involves a quantitative
assessment of the business's performance in the areas of energy
consumption; CO2 emissions; water consumption and waste production. It
also provides guidelines for developing and implementing a
sustainability policy and is backed by the STCRC
(Sustainable Tourism Cooperative Research Centre), the world's leading
tourism research body.
Travelocity:
Powers Jamaican tourism
Travelocity
has been chosen to provide the shopping and booking engine for the
Jamaica Tourist Board's new Visitjamaica.com
website.
Travelocity, which currently powers the shopping engines for more than
100 destination marketing organisations, will provide a variety of
travel products ranging from flights, hotels, car rentals, vacation
packages and visitor activities.
Greeted with an upbeat tempo version of One Love, visitors to the site
will be invited to use a slider function to guide them through
Jamaica's 'ritzy' to 'Roadside' offerings through a flash experience,
moving images and videos. Visitors will be invited to 'flip' each image
to learn more and to save favourites in a personalized trip planner.
'The new VisitJamaica.com is an improved means to communicate with and
educate travellers about the diversity and culture of Jamaica,' said
Basil Smith, director of tourism for Jamaica.
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