What if Cyprus had a Plan also in the Tourism Sector ?

The question raised here is if in Cyprus we have any kind of plan. It is clear that the answer is NO. This is very easy to confirm just by asking people of any political colour, of any economical power; all of them will tell you that we have actually never have had a plan. Cyprus’ economy is small, conservative, monopolist and overprotective. For those reasons we have been rebuked many times by the European Union.

Some days ago we have experienced a wave of gratefulness towards Mr. Antonis Paschalides, Minister of Industry, Commerce and Tourism, for the renewal of the “measures to boost tourism”. This extraordinary gratefulness came from all the professional associations; from hoteliers (two associations), the travel agents – tour operators, the restaurateurs and all the others who are involved in tourism. After the announcement of Mr. Paschalides that the measures would be on for one more year,  most of the grateful hospitality leaders and followers  took the flight to the World Travel Market in London (WTM 2009) in order to “fight” with Turkey, Greece, Dubai, Tunisia, Egypt, Malta, Seychelles …

They went there armed with “short-range weapons”, with “weapons loaded ammunition with a short expiry date”, winter 2010. Nobody had in his briefcase Quality as a  proposal, nobody was able to offer something new to the end user-tourist, nobody was able to talk of change,  change in “navigation”, nobody was able to touch the deeper problem in tourism in a courageous manner.

The lack of Leadership in Tourism in Cyprus is very obvious, I mean lack of business leadership, political one we have plenty, we could give some away. We lack of leaders who can dream of a sustainable tourism industry, of a healthy tourism destination, of a destination that wants to achieve high customer satisfaction. The customer Satisfaction Survey contacted by the University of Cyprus and the Cyprus Tourism Organisation points out among others that the  substandard infrastructure (e.g. pedestrian and cycling facilities, parking spaces, public restrooms) was the tourist product component that dissatisfied tourists the most. No signs of improvement were recorded in recent years. Drastic corrective measures such as the construction of pedestrian and cycling facilities, especially in tourist areas, should be given priority.

“All the great walks start with the fist step”, (Lao Tse China 6th century B.C). In the tourist industry in Cyprus nobody makes this first step, nobody wants to be exposed in the “cold” of Innovation; nobody wants to be exposed to the “radioactivity” of the Financial Risk.  The Cypriot State is proud for having two new modern airports without spending a cent. Obviously the state did not calculate that those airports would probably be  the most expensive in Southern Europe (LCA – ATH 121 Euros airport taxes). Of course, Cyprus being the navel of the planet, the thirty something airlines that complained about the high fees and taxes, will never feel like “real” airlines if they do not touch ground in Cyprus.

It is very clear that we need a plan but we have no architect. This is the reason I propose the creation of a Tourism Cluster, a Cluster formed by professionals without business cards, without personal ambitions, without seeking votes, by people that are only interested in leaving a better future for their children, by people who live and let live in tourism, by people who want to bring change, who will reinvent a new touristicoeconomic  model that will take us out of this whole we are now deep in.

In my opinion a Cluster like this can only be successful if we take into account and develop what other destinations did, if we are able to take into account and plan having in mind the needs of tomorrows end user, if we are able to listen and act fast and efficiently. A Cluster that will take serious steps towards sustainability, accessibility and humanisation of the destination will defiantly be a model to follow.  The beginning of this Cluster could be the 2nd E-Tourism Forum (www.etourism-forum.com) in February 2010 when 10 or more top level speakers will be talking to us about how we can apply Experience, Innovation and  Design in a new  Leadership era so as  to gain Customer Trust.

Gain customers online using old methods

Are you a hotelier? Do you own a small and friendly resort or city hotel anywhere in the world? Are you tired of unpaid tour operator invoices?  I am sure you will be very happy to increase your return business. Your best customers are filed in those old file boxes, all those registration cards are a gold mine. 

You just have to use your imagination and the Social Media sphere and results will come soon. Start from taking those registration cards out f he boxes and put them by order of arrival date. Choose the ones you think have more possibilities  to be online and search their name on google… the rest you will figure it out yourself, and if you do not, contact me and we will find the path together. 

Leadership in Cyprus Tourism

Every industry needs to have a leader to follow. In tourism for the past 100 years we have had examples of people who took the leadership and given guidelines for the rest to follow. Conrad Hilton (Hilton Hotels) , Thomas Cook , Aristotele Onasis (Olympic Airways)  and others have shown the way to today?s tourism multinational companies.

Nowadays leading in tourism does not mean only taking financial risks and having a long term business vision as the people previously mentioned did. Leading in tourism it means coming up with ideas that need collaboration to be realized, product and service innovation and mostly being able to create a social movement that will follow. Tourism is the only social industry. People travel to certain places because other people travelled there or because other people did not travel there yet.

Cyprus is a place where lots of people have travelled, so leading in the Cypriot Tourism scenery means reinventing the product, delivering new services and making sure the service is delivered in an excellent way. Leading in Cyprus Tourism means reaching people who want to rediscover a place, means reaching people who demand value for money and reaching people who like to be pampered.

Excuses like the ones of the Minister of Tourism Mr. Antonis Paschalides who declared that Cyprus is loosing on the British Tourism Pie because the British Pound is weak against the Euro, are "cheap" and the prove the leadership Chaos we have.

Expedia by Choice

It seems that Expedia understood that a hotel chain is sovereign.  The negotiations between Expedia and Choice produced an agreement the leaves Expedia without last room availability. This means that Choice Hotel members have now the choice to work with the 80 portals of Expedia under conditons that they can manage and support.

I hope that this agreement can be respected and transported to other hotels, smaller players that still feel the “boot of Expedias”.

Social Media Trends in Toursim

Inspired on the article of David Armano published by on the blog of Harvard Business Publishing I would like to try to reflect  David’s thoughts and reflexions on the tourism sector.

It is very true that in 2009 we saw exponential growth of social media. According to Nielsen Online, Twitter alone grew 1,382% year-over-year in February, registering a total of just more than 7 million unique visitors in the US for the month. Meanwhile, Facebook continued to outpace MySpace. So what could social media look like in 2010? In 2010, social media will get even more popular, more mobile, and more exclusive — at least, that's my guess. What are the near-term trends we could see as soon as next year? In no particular order:

1. Social media begins to look less social
Niche networks are an opportunity for tourism.  For example the newly created Twitter lists and Facebook News Feed hyperactivity are the perfect scene for destinations and tourism related products to provoke more attention and offer  more options to the traveler who seeks for more value. Travelers can change their mind if the feeds they receive are suggesting innovation, service, quality and value for money. The high level of customer interference in those environments may look less social but defiantly this phenomena give us more targeted ways of reaching the end user effectively and more engaging.

2. Corporations look to scale
Hyatt has been one of the first corporations in the tourism industry to assist customers online by creating http://twitter.com/HyattConcierge. This initiative is a clear example of top level and personalized customer care at low personnel cost. This kind of initiatives could hide certain risks in terms of the so called “Social Media Time Wasting” policy corporations may have. On the other hand side, a well structured use of the social media by adequately trained and customer oriented personnel, will defiantly increase in the next few years the levels of service. At the same time the competiveness criteria of tourism destinations - corporations will change and from being the price as criteria we will have the Quality of Service, and the Value for Money.

3. Social business becomes serious play
David mentions Foursquare as an example of social media becoming local and mobile. Foursquare is a US network, so what happens with the rest of the world? I would suggest you  take a tour in Ning. There are thousands of communities created who treat local tourist products and services. Communities of Companies, Destinations, CVBs, DMCs, special tourism Products and many more. As an example I bring an interesting site that aims to bring excursion funs together with independent tour guides in Cyprus www.escapes-n-breaks.ning.com . The carrots David mentions in the world of tourism can be translated into tourism prizes that would defiantly increase tourist interest to old and new destinations.

4. Your company will have a social media policy
After discussing for one month with  40 top level marketers in how social media policy is important to their tourism enterprises we realize, at least here in Cyprus, how slowly but surely tourism companies adapt dynamic social programs. Still with some reservation on how social media can help them increase sales, but those reservations will disappear when they will receive the first inquiry, in social media the first inquiry may take some time to come but it is usually a firm “sale”  and a guaranteed satisfied customer (of course if we deliver at least the expected). And yes David is very right when he says  “If the company you work for doesn't already have a social media policy in place with specific rules of engagement across multiple networks, it just might in the next year.”

5. Mobile becomes a social media lifeline
In a meeting with a hotel owner I was really surprised to see that he was very furious about the fact that the Guest Relations Officer was “playing” on Facebook. So he personally asked the hotel director to “cut” all “Facebooks”. Like this, 70% of corporations and companies are banning social media. What this banning achieves is a huge explosion in smartphone sales and we are already experiencing Guest Relation Offices playing with their blackberry in the staff cafeteria, having Nimbuzz breaks at the same time of cigarette breaks and best about this is that the hotel gets benefited.

6. Sharing no longer means e-mail
Email ? who emails today to share a link, a presentation, etc ? Hotels and travel agents are the last of “Mohicans”. The of tools we have today to share our products and services are creating a revolution www.Ping.fm  , www.hootsuite.com  or www.sendible.com are simply the tip of the iceberg. I am wondering how many will still come. With one click you share your entire hotel inventory or via iphone applications you simply put your hotel in the telephone of every iphone user.

Thank you David for the inspiration.

In times of Crisis Technological Innovation, top level Consultancy Services and Training are the key to stay profitable.

The internet has been converted into the best friend of the companies and other organisations trying to mitigate the side effects of the financial crisis.  An increase is observed on the issues of online Marketing especially in the field of tourism.

The interest of large Cypriot tourist companies to ensure valid information and to study the new trends which are daily presented in the internet is highly increased.  From our experience we see companies like Amathus Hotels, Stademos Hotels, Four Seasons Hotel, Holiday Inn Hotel in Limassol, The Intercontinental Hotel in Paphos, St. George Hotel in Paphos and smaller companies like Pefkos Hotel in Limassol and travel agencies like A.L. Mantovani Travel ,  Sunhouse Travel , Travelorama ,  Azuro Travel and many more to have strong concerns as to the management of their online reputation.

Other organizations like  Louis Tourism Organasation, preferred to incorporate in their daily routine Open Source internet tools which they aspire to change into productive internet management tools.  Louis preferred the popular Joomla Content Management System in order to build its internet tools which will be interfaced with its traditional internal management systems.  The free open source tools as well as  the popular social media tools even though are free they need training, strategic planning and most of all change of culture within the Organizations.  For this reason, consultancy services as well as a humanly understandable training programmes from well established and specialized companies are necessary.

The capability of open source and “freenium” tools to adapt to the needs of small and large companies is judged on how they are used and not on how much are those used.  Hence, large organizations like Louis Tourism Organisation decided to use consultancy services which will assist them to incorporate in their daily processes a new work culture which will include the management of their online reputation, their online clientele and finally to develop an “Online Management” which will defiantly be proved  as very productive, measurable and profitable.

In the era when financial management was in “fashion”, organizations like PriceWaterhouse Coopers, KPMG and many more have placed their foundations in the market (in Cyprus and abroad) so as the entrepreneurs use new tools to better control their companies for more profitability.Now on the era of the new technologies the Cypriot companies should consult specialized companies on how to invest on human internet capabilities and how to use new tools to continue being profitable.

If large enterprises like Louis decided this change of culture, imagine how easy this will be for Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs)  to take advantage of the chance of “free” internet.  In Cyprus, in terms of consultancy,  training and especially the practical aspect of applied strategic internet, specialized professionals are available.  A sample of networking with highly qualified professionals from abroad, we had the chance to experience during the First E-Tourism Forum (www.etourism-forum.com) which took place in Limassol last February with the most recognized and well known professionals of the sector.  The Forum will be happening again in February 2010 and this time it will become a regional congress to attract tourism professionals from the Mediterranean countries.