People, not companies, disrupters, technology or behemoths, make travel go round.
What makes the world go round? For many, love makes the world go round. For the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC), travel makes the world go round, a point it is at pains to get governments of the world to understand. I’d go with The Stylistics – People Make the World Go Round – a song it debuted in 1972. Better yet, I’d change that to People Make Travel Go Round, the theme and constant refrain of this issue.
In a year where the travel industry was whirling faster than ever, it’s easy to lose sight of the people who made it go round. The last thing we want is for people to feel they have been spun in a washer that ran at 1,000 revolutions per minute. People have feelings, unlike a pair of old jeans in the dryer, and their feelings matter more than ever.
Which is why central to our theme in this year-end edition is the issue of personalisation: How do we win over people, i.e. clients, so that they remain loyal to us? How do we take care of our own people, i.e. our staff, so that we don’t lose them to our competitors or worse to another industry?
How else if not by personalisation? This has become even more critical at each passing year, thanks to new disrupters such as Airbnb, lots more disruption to business (everything from the economy, currency, climate, to terrorism, health disasters, etc), consolidation of businesses, you name it. The more these occur, the greater the need for personalisation in order for companies to survive. Just think of Marriott International’s acquisition of Starwood Hotels & Resorts, which will result in a behemoth with 1.1 million rooms, 5,500 hotels and 30 – yes, 30 – brands. As we go to print, the SPGs (Starwood Preferred Guests) are pouring their hearts out to the mainstream press over concerns of losing the recognition they’ve enjoyed, with many reportedly feeling that Starwood does a better job at lavishing attention on them than Marriott. Owners are concerned it will take longer – perhaps even impossible – to reach the leadership and that they’ll just be a number in the portfolio of 5,500 hotels. Staff are worried what this might mean for their livelihoods – for only the most positive of people will think consolidation is not about cost savings.
It just goes to show that people could get lost in all this.
Thus, for your year-end reading, we thought we could inspire you to reflect on people and the power of personalisation. Hear from industry CEOs what it really means to be ‘bespoke’, or look at how Asian outbound agencies have upped their service levels this year and the rewards they received in return, to name two sections. In keeping with the people theme, we’ve also tried to put a ‘face’ to a person – the millennial who has views on how to make the industry better; the women of the industry whom we all know have harder choices to make than men as they juggle both family and career commitments; the achiever who has finally risen to the top of his or her profession in the industry, even us, the whole editorial team at TTG Asia – get to know us better, especially our newcomers!
People, not companies, disruptors, technology or behemoths, make travel go round.
Let’s celebrate, people.
On that note, happy holidays and a peaceful and prosperous 2016 from us happy people at TTG.
