What Businesses can learn from Tourism (and vice versa)

In preparation for work with a couple of clients in the past fortnight I’ve had to throw myself into substantially more ‘tourist’ style activities than I have for quite some time in an attempt to answer the following question: ‘How do we get more people to come here?’ Yes there’s a lot of fun to be had allowing yourself to experience the delights of the snow, or a concert or a day trip or even a restaurant (with some more work coming up in the next week) – things not normally on my list of actions given the usual workstyle of research and facilitation. And there’s some general clues that I’m happy to share with everyone

Businesses will benefit from seeing their business as a tourist destination that people will want to come back and visit, rather than as an organisation that just ‘flogs product’ or provides services.

Tourism operators will benefit from working on the lasting memories post visit, and less on the ‘sugar hits’ that many push to the marketplace now.

And both businesses and tourist operators need to appreciate the shifting nature of consumer intentions – there has been a VERY significant change in the way in which potential customers are making their decisions and it has almost NOTHING to do with finances! The emergence of connection to an event and to a business has shifted away from the brand approach (although it is still a valid model for many customers) and toward a self shaped experience. Simply put, more customers want to work with the business to determine the end product offering.

My views might change once I’ve completed the reseach in the middle of the next week, and I’d be surprised if, based on what I’ve seen so far, that happens!

Marcus Barber invited to attend World Water Week in Stockholm 2007

May 11, 2007

Futurist Marcus Barber has been invited to present at the Stockholm International Water Institute’s prestigious World Water Week conference to be held in Stockholm later this year. His abstract submission ‘Life versus Lifestyle: the emerging clash between consumer demands and water availability’ forms part of the key workshop item of ‘Managing Future Consumer Demands’ which…

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May Brainnovation Session now open

Apr 26, 2007

The May Brainnovation session is open for bookings. If you’d like to be invited to attend this highly focused, creative and thought provoking session please contact us. We’ll send you an invite and as these sessions are strictly limited to no more than 15 people, it’s ‘first in – best dressed’ for acceptances! You’ll be…

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Authenticity & the Craft of Brewing Beer

Mar 29, 2007

Every now and again you discover something well ahead of the general public that is worthy of further investigation. That is the key advantage of being a futurist – you get to spend a lot of your time just looking for signals of change. In this case it is the soon to be opened Barleycorn…

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Strategy and Game Shows

Feb 27, 2007

Marcus Barber joined Brigette Duclos on the Channel 10 program ‘9am with David & Kim’ to discuss strategy and the game show ‘Con-Test’ How do game shows reflect our approach to strategy and what does it mean for the business decisons we make? This will be the subject of an upcoming ‘Ideas Piece’ to appear…

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Advanced Organisational Strategy (AOS) Events

Jan 24, 2007

Your Advanced Organisational Strategy events coincide with a specific need for your business and lead to excellent outcomes. These events are customed tailored to help you solve an organisational challenge or to answer a key exploratory question for you. The AOS focuses on two main objectives – to create a specific ‘How to’ for solving…

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Innovation & Counter Intuitiveness

Jan 23, 2007

The idea behind Innovation is to create something new, that has yet to be conceived. A lot of the times that requires Counterintuitive thinking and that can be a very difficult challenge because it needs to break the habits in our thinking styles. For me the essence of being a futurist is the essence of…

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