If you’ve read our 2018 Travel Trends Report, you’re probably familiar with a phenomenon that’s impacting modern-day tourism (and if you haven’t you can grab a free copy above). A simultaneous blessing and curse, it’s affecting destinations all over the globe.

Every year, Europe's travel industry giants gather together for 4 days to share trade secrets on the main stage, and to swap insider gossip over beers and coffee. In my head, it's like the Avengers of the travel industry meeting up to discuss what the $7.6 trillion industry will look like in terms of travel experiences, nights spent in hotels and hostels, train rides, plane rides, cruises and more. The discussions and meetings and partnerships struck here will impact how Europe and the rest of the world travel and consume travel services.

For you and me, it'll determine what we see on our Instagram and Facebook feeds for the next 12 months.

So what are some interesting discussions, workshops and exhibits you absolutely cannot miss if you're in town?

We’re well into 2018 now. And as a tour and activity operator, you’ve probably taken stock of what you want to achieve over the next several months.

Another way we like to engage with the readers of our blog (a.k.a. you) is via our live webinarswhere we answer your questions. We often get questions about marketing your trips or attractions, which are great. However, this question we got from a museum employee was particularly interesting because of the political and social backdrop that this museum is rooted in.

Hi Nicole,

I work in a museum that has a reputation for appealing only to the “old white guy” as a huge part of our museum is on the American Civil War. As times are evolving and a new generation is employed here, we want to rebuild bridges that were burned long ago and move past the “old white guy” perception. How do we move with the times and rebuild those bridges that were destroyed? I would love to market to the LGBTQ community as well as African Americans. What trends are you seeing that can help me attract them? How can we also appeal to a younger crowd (mid 20s)? What can I do for outreach?

Museum Staff

Here's our second edition of our Tourism Success Q&A. I'm excited for this becoming a regular feature on our blog and newsletter. Make sure you don't miss out on great tips and advice by signing up for our newsletter!

 

Hi Nicole,

I live and teach in Bend, Oregon, where we have a very big shoulder season. With 9 months of a shoulder season, I have challenged my students (I work in Oregon State University) to look at other areas in a similar situation. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

Maeve

If you're like me, you're booking more and more of your day-to-day life online, from restaurants to doctors appointments. This is even more pronounced when we travel. For most of us, flights and hotels were the first aspects of travel we started booking online, whether directly through the provider website or via third-parties like Booking.com.

It has been these types of online actions that have got consumers used to being able to book online – and they find it frustrating when they can't do it. The truth is that tours and activities have taken longer to follow the rest of the travel industry. But now they're catching up. And that's important, because consumers are looking for tour and activity providers with direct online booking functionality.

According to eMarketer, “there are two important milestones to watch for in the coming years. By 2019, digital travel sales will surpass $200 billion for the first time in history, and by 2020, mobile travel sales will surpass $100 billion.”

It will come as no surprise then that travellers are getting used to researching, planning and booking flights, car rentals, accommodation and other travel related purchases on mobile.

In 2017 in the US, 140.3 million adults researched a trip online and 101.4 million did so via their smartphones, growing by 13.1% in 2016. eMarketer also predicted that 57.5 million adults will use their smartphones to book a trip, up 14.1% from 2016.

Zapier allows you to connect your apps and automate your workflows. Each connection you create is called a Zap. It is commonly used to automate repetitive tasks without having to learn a single line of code.

Apps include Facebook, Gmail, MailChimp, and even TrekkSoft; while a workflow is a series of actions that happen in a specific order. A workflow therefore begins with a trigger action.

Say you want to create an invoice for each booking, you can easily set that up with Zapier. Here, your Zap is the connection between your booking software and your accounting software, your trigger is a new booking received via TrekkSoft's booking system, and the workflow is the task of creating an invoice.

For those of you who don't yet subscribe to our newsletter, here's a sneak peek into our new advice column that will be delivered to your inbox every fortnight.

Hey there Nicole,

I am a small business and a tour operator in Jamaica, providing transport for visitors to my country.

I notice that in my country, larger companies that provide similar services as I do get lots of bookings, even more than they are able to manage. They would then sub-contract bookings to people like myself in order to satisfy their clients and they will take as much as 50% for doing so little. Is this a common practice in other countries? Also, is there any solution for me to cut out the middleman?

Hope I was clear,

Lamur.

For so many years, sustainability meant conservation of trees and the sea and the coral reefs - which are all important issues and deserve attention. However, it left out the local communities from the conversation which led to protests which then led to “overtourism” finally taking center stage.