Management Studies at Stenden university
Leeuwarden, The Netherlands 2-5 November, 2011 In cooperation with the Tourism Alumni Network, the European Tourism Futures Institute organises:
International Conference: Tourism Futures Preliminary Announcement Scenario Planning: Best Practices Methodology and Techniques Trend watching Threats and Opportunities of New Technologies The Link between Future and Strategy Tomorrow’s Tourist Ageing, Population Decline and Tourism Global Shift of Economic and Political Power: Emerging and Submerging Countries.
How is your business prepared for the future? The ETFI can support your organisation to be prepared for the future. The tourism and leisure industry is driven by fast moving developments. We help you keep track of these developments. The vulnerability of the sector is increasing; you are part of it. Are you prepared? The ETFI relies on a multidisciplinary and international team of scientific experts and professionals. We constantly monitor current trends and developments to visualize your multiple and plausible future scenarios together with you and your customers. We are the European top institute pursuing to expand our network across Europe to have international organisations benefit from our expertise. This will allow your organisation to make well-informed strategic decisions.
Call for Papers: Conference topics as suggested above, but not limited to these titles. For detailed guidelines and programme information, please check our website at www.etfi.eu.
Contact details: European Tourism Futures Institute Visiting address Postal address Telephone E-Mail Internet
Rengerslaan 8, 8917 DD Leeuwarden, The Netherlands P.O. Box 1298, 8900 CG Leeuwarden, The Netherlands +31 (0) 58 244 1992 info@etfi.eu www.etfi.eu
exploring opportunities
The European Tourism Futures Institute is part-financed by the European Union, European Regional Development Fund and the Northern Netherlands Provinces (SNN).
NEWS
2011, 10th anniversary of Tourism
European Tourism Futures Institute exploring opportunities
Imagine 2020’s tourist... Kasper is optimistic with regards to the development of alternative sources of energy. Research predicts that solar energy will become less expensive than fossil energy. Not only will lower production costs of solar panels contribute to the availability of energy in Africa and thus to the development of this continent; this trend will also create the possibility for tourist facilities to change from energy consumers into energy producers. Who could have predicted in the early 1990s the way our industry would evolve in the next two decades? Unlimited access to information, global communication and connectivity through devices that constantly become more compact and manageable: these are phenomena which unmistakably have had an impact how we interact with our customers. Johan Kasper, researcher at the European Tourism Futures Institute, recently explored several technological trends, which, should they occur, will drastically change our industry. His article focuses on energy and transportation, information technology, nanotechnology, biotechnology and robotica.
Another development suggests that virtuality will become more and more real. Virtual experiences come closer to the real thing and allow us to go places and see things, which we could not experience otherwise. Our experiences can even become more intense. A challenge for our industry is whether virtual tourism replaces or competes with our physical destinations, or can be integrated in order to enhance the tourist experience. Kasper also highlights the far-reaching consequences of nanotechnology. If we are able to disassemble all materials up
Imagine yourself in five years. You have planned a day of shopping with your best friend to find the perfect outfit for your business trip. You are on your way to the ‘Kurfürstendamm’ and suddenly you get a phone call from your friend. She is ill and cannot make it. You walk into the department store by yourself. After quickly scanning the women’s section you have selected a couple of potential outfits. Next to the regular fitting room a big computer wall is located. You jump right in front of it and get a complete body scan. You select the chosen outfits, colour and size on the touch screen and select the option ‘send’. The virtual fitting room sends your pic’s straight to your friends e-mail and Facebook account. Suddenly a message appears on the screen: ‘I like the first one but maybe you should consider it in brown. It fits better with your skin and hair colour. And what about a size 38?’ Shortly after a full size picture of yourself appears on the screen with the same outfits in brown. Your friend already selected the colour and changed the size…
Imagine yourself in 10 years. You are on holidays in the French Alps and excited about your planned trip to the world’s largest indoor snow world. Suddenly you feel ill. Within seconds your multifunctional digital watch gives you the directions to the closest pharmacy. When entering the pharmacy a complete body scan diagnosis is automatically preformed. A digital voice asks you to take a seat in one of the small treatment rooms. A pharmacist comes in and injects the nanobots as advised by the body scan diagnosis. While leaving the pharmacy you hold your watch against a small scanner and the costs are directly deducted from your account. Within a few minutes you feel much better and can continue your skiing trip.
to molecular and atomic level, this will mean that everything can be recycled. Nanotech-paint turns entire walls into solar panels. Injected into our blood, nanobots will constitute an ‘auto-repair kit’ for the human body, and therefore bring us a step closer to immortality. Just think what this would mean for you: what will the industry offer to the 100+ years tourist? The study of Johan Kasper is part of the project Our Common Future 2.0, Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands.
Marketing Leeuwarden
ETFI: Scenario Planning, Place Identity and City Branding
The world is changing rapidly, the cornerstone of these changes is driven by wealth, technology and resources. Those key changes include: Wealth and Demography In 1950, 25 m people took an international holiday representing 1:1000 of the world’s populations. 100 years later it is forecasted that 4.3 bn will take an international holiday representing 1: 2 of the world’s population. What a contrasting change. Over the next 40 years GDP growth will shift from the developed world to the developing world, with MBRIC countries contributing 50% of world GDP in 2050 comparedto 20% today. In the western world ageing populations will stifle outbound tourism growth, with countries such as Germany, Japan and Italy seeing reform to pensions and lucrative holiday provision. The emerging middle classes of China and India are already shaping their own consumer identity, not so much to do with an interest in eco tourism but something more fluid in which they can taste new experiences and seek novelty.
tourists can visualize the world around them with augmented reality. Today, gestural interfaces, hologram TV, optical computing and ubiquitous computing are the buzz words which will shape distribution channels. In science and medicine, futurists are forecasting that we will live until we are 120 and that robots will overtake humans’ brain capacity in 2050. All of this change is good for tourism, as the more complex the change is, the more the science community has to meet to understand that change. Sex tourism and human trafficking is one of the bad images of tourism, it is pro-positioned that by 2050 femibots will be used in brothels making HIV and human trafficking irrelevant. Amsterdam’s ‘Redlight’ experience will be totally different. In 2050, no one will actually go to a football match as the sporting experience will be far superior on a holographic TV.
Technology
Resources
Imagine a world in 2050, where a hotel receptionist can read your mind. Where
Imagine a world where food, water and oil are scarce? Food, sun and lifestyle images are the cornerstone of tourism in California, but in 2050 it will be so hot that shortages of water will change the agricultural and viticulture systems rendering the State unfit to be a tourism destination. In 2050, 100m will live in Seoul; how will the country feed its people? Will real food only be for the rich whereas the poor rely on mass produced synthetic food? As the world gets to grips with climate change, sustainable hotels will become more mainstream with self cleaning rooms, claytronics and sustainable building materials. But what about a world without oil? Will we stop travelling or will substitutes prevail?
According to Charles Duell of the US Patent Office, everything that can be invented has been invented. That’s the end of innovation and technological change then!
It was Lord Kelvin in 1895 that said, heavier than air flying machines are impossible. Looks like we wouldn’t be flying to ITB Berlin this year then!
Dr. Ian Yeoman is the world’s only professional crystal ball gazer or futurologist specializing in travel and tourism. Ian learned his trade as the scenario planner for Visit Scotland, where he established the process of futures thinking within the organisation using a variety of techniques including economic modelling, trends analysis and scenario construction. In July 2008, Ian was appointed at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. At Stenden university, we are extremely proud that Dr. Yeoman has joined the ETFI team. Current research: The future of tourism in New Zealand in 2050 (see www.tourism2050.com) and in Europe for the European Tourism Futures Institute at Stenden University. Recent books: Tomorrow’s Tourists: Scenarios and Trends (www.tomorrowstourist.com); Tourism and Demography (Goodfellows 2010); Revenue Management (Palgrave 2010); 2050: Tomorrows Tourism (in preparation Channelview, November 2011).
Time magazine wrote in 1966 that “remote shopping, while entirely feasible, will flop because women like to get out of the house, like to handle merchandise, like to be able to change their minds”. I presume Amazon, Expedia and everything else online wouldn’t work, will it!
For our home base Leeuwarden, in the North of the Netherlands, we analyse questions such as: How will external mega drivers (Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Ecological, Legal) affect the city’s future? Which opportunities are created by the city’s cultural heritage and natural assets? How can cultural monuments, historic figures and the city’s landscape contribute to its identity if different development paths are chosen? How can the core themes of the city
Tomorrow’s vacation resort:
Looking ahead with ETFI Scenario planning is a methodology that helps businesses and organisations take more informed strategic decisions. An inventory of the most important and uncertain environmental factors or strategic dilemmas, allows us to develop future scenarios in a creative way. Businesses are challenged to break with their dominant thinking and see futures from different perspectives. Scenarios are not predictions but plausible, realistic and surprising qualitative pictures of the future that can be used as input for strategic debate concerning a new vision, new business concept or new strategy. Scenarios support the decisions dealing with fuzzy challenges for which there are no clearly delimited solutions. Scenario development requires an open minded organisation. The horizon for scenario planning is adapted to the natural cycle of an organisation or its decision making process, often about 10-15 years.
As an example we look at a vacation resort which needs to renew its concept in view of future developments. The park management has asked the European Tourism Futures Institute (ETFI) to design plausible scenarios to inform the strategic decision making process. In a dialogue with the park management, potential guests and other stakeholders two main dilemmas are identified:
be developed on the basis of external environmental influences and target scenarios? How would that affect the future branding of the city?
The focus of the product and the target group. Will a stay at the park be centered around the body or the mind and will the park aim to attract families or group visits? Each of the scenarios has major consequences for the concept, the design of the park, the facilities that have to be developed and its marketing strategy. The scenarios support the development of a specific and consistent business concept. In case of a larger company the management could choose to develop several parks implementing all four scenarios. Body
Leisure resort Families are attracted to the park for its opportunities of active recreation, like carting, tennis, pitch & putt, subtropical swimming, playing, animation teams, and other sports and games. The families like to stay in bungalows that are large enough for two incomplete families with children, including the grand parents.
families
Product orientation
The future of tourism
The European Tourism Futures Institute assists local governments in preparing strategic decisions by outlining their future scenarios. Changing demographics, environmental issues and the evolution of technology will have an enormous impact on how residents, visitors and investors see and use the city; just think of e-commerce and how it will have changed the shopping function of our cities in 2030.
Marketing Leeuwarden
Dr. Ian Yeoman, What will the future bring in 2050 – Implications for Marketing and Distribution. Keynote Presentation at the ITB Berlin, 11 March 2011, 11:00, Auditorium London (Hall 7.1b)
Outdoor activities centre Groups’ motivation to visit the park is to strengthen the ties among its members. The park and its environment offers facilities in which outdoor sports and survival activities can be performed to fully exploit group processes and group dynamics. The park has strong ties with the regional surroundings. The groups stay in multifunctional group accommodations.
groups
Target group
Eco-wellness park The families’ main interest is to come closer to each other and to withdraw from the hustle and bustle of daily life in a natural environment that contrasts with their urban living environment. The families prefer to stay in ecological cottages that are fully integrated in nature. Their main activities are focused on nature, culture, education and wellness.
Contemplation lodge The main aim of the groups is to retreat and to share common cultural and mental interests. They want to participate in thematic courses, workshops and activities connected to philosophy, meditation and food culture. The park provides group accommodations with course and workshop rooms, social meeting places and meditation rooms.
MIND