Breathing in – and breathing out
We’re uncommonly fortunate in STS that our region’s award-winning chapter of the Travel and Tourism Research Association locates its meetings concurrently with our own. If you’re handy with the schedule and the elevators you can breath in some of the data and observations from our professional research brethren (and sistern) and also attend to the feast of “what to do about this” that our STS speakers serve up. Nashville, in March, was an especially opportune time to take advantage of this.
Upstairs, downstairs
During the SETTRA conference, the founder of Oxford Economics group’s Tourism Economics, Adam Sacks, gave a calm but energetic and inquisitive view of what is likely to happen in this recovery. He presented the pros and cons of the optimistic “V-shaped” recovery. And he analyzed the chances of the dreaded “W-shaped” recovery – the one that says we’ll cough again before we pull up for good. To the relief of many of us he gave the latter forecast a less-than-one-in-five chance of taking shape.
Instead, Sacks said, Oxford’s view suggests that the private sector will take over from government stimulus to sustain this recovery, coming out of the second half of 2010 and into 2011. Slower growth than in the bubble, natch, but sustained and sustainable.
Nothing “accidental” about this tourist
This view holds that the remarkable resilience of our visitors – they continue to vacation although shopping and shortening – will get some encouragement from the employment news as this recovery unfolds in full. Knowing that the travel decision is harder when a prospect’s job is uncertain, or even when they know someone whose job is uncertain, many of us in the industry have been concerned about the possibility of a “jobless recovery.” Not likely, as our industry’s economists see it.
It seems that inventories were drawn down so deeply in the uncertainty of 2009, that the makers of goods have no choice this year but to make some more. And the employed workforce is already operating near capacity – at unprecedented levels of productivity. So – at last – more goods, more jobs.
Travel leaders are already on the move
Our STS Road Ahead research study showed recently that leading members are already doing things differently. Cultivating those leads and taking an active part in converting them. Considering their database to be a live community of customers. Refreshing their appeal to engage “the new value-seeker,” as STS speaker Phil Bruno outlined in Nashville.
The territory ahead
Yes, time was lost as the economic news caused many to hesitate. And we can’t expect things to go back the way they were (unless we want another bubble). So we have to start now learning the new ways to sell to a permanently more-careful customer. STS members are already hard at this – our own research shows it.