4th World Tourism Forum in Lucerne covers the crust of the subjects
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| Love brands! Saatchi CEO Kevin Roberts inspired with funny images and intelligent statements - not only addressing to marketing managers. |
Lucerne (May 1, 2015). There were no industry-moving messages at the 4th "World Tourism Forum Lucerne" (WTFL), but there were an increased number of tourism participants with catchy names in exchange. Nevertheless, the original claim of the forum to become an event comparable to the Forum WEF/World Economic Forum in Davos is still quite far away: Host countries such as Azerbaijan filled the event ticket box, the Queen Mother of Bhutan beneficially enriched the programme and individual speakers such as Jeremy Rifkin were provocative. However, the true tourism leader is still absent – particularly from the hotel industry. Maybe this will change next year: After 2009, 2011, 2013 and 2015, the Lucerne Forum will enter China in 2016. The event should be taking place annually in the future.
Now, the WTFL must finally prove itself. At least this was the opinion behind the scenes that several participants had expressed toward hospitalityInside.com. According to a unanimous opinion, the idea from Martin Barth, a Professor at the University of Applied Sciences Lucerne, was and is good. During the 4th event, 450 participants from 46 countries were officially welcomed in the morning, but after the lunch, the bulk of the Swiss guests from politics, diplomacy and economics had returned to their offices so that the convention core was distilled to approximately 200 people.
At least the Swiss Bundesrat (federal council of Switzerland), Johann N. Schneider-Ammann, had paid his respects to the WTFL just the same as Taleb Rifai, the Secretary-General of the UNWTO. Then as the sole Keynote Speaker, The Queen Mother of Bhutan, Sangay Choden Wangchuck, entered into the true content.
She explained how the small country in the east Himalayas (comparable to the size of Switzerland) opened to tourism gently – and consciously limits it today. In 1974, 287 tourists came to Bhutan for the first time, today this is 130,000 and the industry has created 20,000 jobs for the population. This creates satisfaction and perhaps this is why Bhutan came up with the idea of inventing the now globally known "Gross National Happiness Index". The decision by the royal family to protect the nature has been ground-breaking to many others: 70 percent of the surface area in Bhutan is covered by forestry and 60 percent should remain this way forever. This has been established in perpetuity in the national treaty.
Along with this, a primary focus of the WTFL – sustainable development – was sketched out in a charming and competent manner; the two remaining primary focuses were on talent and innovation. And of course, it was also about the future of the tourism in general.
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| Limited tourism as a success story: The Queen Mother of Bhutan impressed the audience with the country's concept. |
The balancing act between the sharing economy and infrastructure
The organisers granted a great deal of room to the Social Theorist, Book Author, EU Adviser and President of the Foundation for Economic Trends, Jeremy Rifkin. The American was enthusiastic about the new digital revolution in which the Internet of Things brings speech to machines, turns capitalistic-minded people into willing-to-share, good people and thanks to data sharing, produces economic goods for nearly zero costs. The Sharing Economy is still a young, unformed little plant, but is already recognisable as a new economic system! It creates an absolutely new value-added chain.
A critical reflection on the subject was not expected from the freshly-printed author on the same subject, but unfortunately, there was also no discussion about it at the plenary meeting – and not even in the next talk round.
In this discussion, it was about the "Challenges of Tomorrow" in which three of the five panellists announced had to be substituted. The CEO from Yotel, Hubert Viriot and U Hatay Aung, Union Minister for Hotels and Tourism, Myanmar, sat alongside Rifkin and the CEO of Dubai International Airport. Originally, the Tourism Minister of Tunisia, the CEO of Thomas Cook and representatives from China had been announced. Within the available composition, the contrasts between the believer in Sharing Economy who is a social theorist and the tourism minister of a developing country crashed into each other. How should a country that still describes itself as having a little-developed infrastructure internalise and implement the mega technology trends of the world? It certainly still has other priorities. Rifkin recognised this, after all: Indeed, it is harder to build roads than to implement mobile technology …
Hotelier Viriot, with his very specific hotel concepts oriented toward design and technology, had little applicability in this round so that, unfortunately this round also missed out on emitting core messages to the western, developed world.
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| Jeremey Rifkin: Totally persuaded of the Sharing Economy. / photos (2): map |
In the Super VUCA World
Even more refreshing then was the contribution from Kevin Roberts, CEO of the Saatchi & Saatchi advertising agency. He read the riot act to the conservative tourism professionals in a sarcastic and entertaining manner. "We live in a Super VUCA," he said in the beginning. The capital letters stand for Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous. Then he turned these adjectives into the positives in the context of "Super VUCA World": Vibrant, Unreal, Crazy and Astounding. He asked the CEOs of today to no longer define ROI as Return on Investment, but rather Return on Involvement. And his message to the brand managers is: "Become a love mark! Be irresistible!"
The man with the smoky voice invoked vigorous pictorial messages: Today, every hotel chain has a "mission" prepared – Martin Luther had a dream! "It is not about storytelling, but rather about storysharing," Roberts also emphasised and with this, locked into the content of a focus point from Jeremy Rifkin. "Make fans out of customers!" Although also these statements are already familiar to many professionals, this speaker was fascinating with his (word) illustrations.
In this respect, the WTFL offered highly interesting speakers and/or subjects. What it lacked on the first conference day, however, were presenters who should have questioned the industry subjects more deeply.
Interested readers can find the videos of the speeches and talk rounds under this link. More on the remaining subjects and on the conventions in one of the coming issues. / map
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