Reviewing Your Visitor/Travel Business Strategic Plan
July 2002
Most people in the world of travel and tourism are too busy in the month of July to think about their strategic planing. Yet this is the month to begin evaluation of these plans and to judge if your entity’s employees, your colleagues and you understand them.
Business plans ought to be more than a mere recipe book for the purpose of getting started or staying in business. A good plan should be a living document that changes with the times and is always growing and undergoing modification. One of the major errors or a strategic business plan in tourism is in-group thinking. For example, are you using local names that a visitor will not understand, are you over estimating the importance of local attractions or have you come to believe your own hype? These mistakes are dangerous to a tourism-oriented business and can lead not only to a sense of malaise but also business failure. Another common mistake is to chose employees who do not fit into the goals of your business. If you need to “manage” your employees, then you may want to question if these people are the best choice for your business.
Here are several things to consider when revisiting your business plan.
- Have you done your basic research? Are you sure you know who are your existing customers, who has been your competition, what is realistic pricing and where your best chance of new market penetration may be? Often tourism entities forget to question their basic assumptions, thus old models control new realities leading to business failures. For example, the tourism industry’s assumption that the public is afraid of security professionals and does not desire to see people in uniform has lead to a myriad of mistakes and costs tourism business millions of dollars.
- Consider the ways that you deal with customer dissatisfaction. For example, are you employees empowered to offer upgrades, do you ask visitors in which areas you can improve, do you test our new ideas, and do you hear customer requests? The hospitality industry is based on the notion that its professionals desire to serve others. Make it easy for people to be good to your customers.
- Have you prioritized the type of person who is best for your travel business? Are you looking for creativity or for a replica of yourself? Does your management style permit people to disagree or do you prefer a more placid employee? Rank qualities such as intelligence, creativity, experience, enthusiasm, innovative, and experience. Each of these qualities has both an upside and a downside? For example, intelligent employees are great on the spot decision makers but less good at following orders.
- Are you able to place an employee in the job that best fits his/her personality? Someone may be a great employee in one position and a poor employee in another position. Check for personality conflicts, types of inspiration needed if the job is detailed or vision oriented, and if that particular job requires an introverted or extroverted personality.
- Ask for input from employees and from your customers and reward both. Nothing seems to bother people more than when you pick their brains for new ideas and fail to reward the creator. Honor people with small gifts, certificates or letters in their file.
- Think about if you want to grow your business or really are quite content to leave it the way it is now. Everyone says that they want more business, but often what we mean to say is that we want more money for less work. Are you really prepared to work harder? Will success spoil the fun of what you now do?
- If you do decide to grow your business make a listing of the various ways that this can be done. Consider the advantages and disadvantages of becoming a franchise or entering into new markets? Often we surrender a certain amount of autonomy for the sake of greater profitability. Are you better off diversifying your product or specializing in one product? Can you hire additional personnel who are flexible and caring? Before setting this vision, make a realistic listing of the advantages and disadvantages of each technique. Be sure to measure your financial and human resource assets and determine what is realistic and what is merely wishful thinking.
- If your business is seasonal, try to develop two plans, one for the in-season and one for the out-season. What creative ways can you earn money in the off-season? Are you better off improving your business or diversifying your earning power during the low or no-seasons. In a like manner remember that the business cycle has seasons just like the year. During down or constricting years consider: developing a new advertising and marketing plan, business renewal programs, diversification of product, and maintaining a positive attitude. Remember no good or bad period lasts forever. Just like squirrels, during the good periods put something away for the difficult times.
