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This month’s “Leading Idea” was about eco tourism, and how to maintain a competitive advantage in this space. There are lessons for every business trying to use corporate social responsibility as a strategic tool. Read the full article here, or see a summary below.
Competing on the Eco Front
by Jürgen Ringbeck and Stephan Gross
4/01/08
Environmentally friendly countries have a leg up in the competition for international travelers, but sustaining that advantage takes work.
Why do travelers — be they on business or just visiting — prefer to go to Switzerland rather than, say, Ukraine? It’s no surprise: Switzerland offers a much more attractive combination of factors. It’s easy to get there and to travel within the country, it’s clean and visitors feel safe there, and Switzerland’s combination of traditional culture and natural beauty is justly famed all over the world. Yet the continued popularity of Switzerland and other desirable destinations is by no means a given. Maintaining the relative purity of the environment while promoting and growing tourism is critical as competition intensifies among regions to attract the ever-growing number of travelers.
A recent study by Booz Allen Hamilton (part of the World Economic Forum’s Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Report 2008) found that environmental factors may determine whether travel and tourism sectors thrive or falter in the coming years. The report evaluated the health of the tourism industry in 130 countries based on 14 pillars important to travelers, private operators, and public authorities — including regulatory framework, infrastructure, and cost to natural, cultural, and human resources. This year, for the first time, the index also ranked each country according to its environmental sustainability. Among the items examined were the stringency of environmental regulations and the extent to which they are enforced, carbon dioxide emission levels, and the percentage of the country’s species that are endangered.
Continue reading ‘Competing for Eco tourists’
I spend a lot of time in carparks, specifically at airports. Normally, I am rushing to park and get checked in. And, at most airports around the world, there are not enough parking spaces, and it can take a lot of time to find an empty bay. But, at OR Tambo International airport in Johannesburg, the carpark has added a wonderful new feature.
Above every parking bay a small unit has been installed in the ceiling. This has the ability to detect whether something is parked in the bay, and turns a bright light from green to red if the bay is full. This is a remarkable improvement - you drive into the parking area and scan the ceiling for green lights. Search time is dramatically reduced, and from the far side of the parking garage, you can set a course for an open parking bay.
Thanks ACSA. This is one of your best innovations ever!
I write this entry as a South African. I say that because we’re extremely hard on ourselves on this end of the planet. We often compare ourselves to the resources, experience and might of the ‘developed world’ when we open our world class attractions. And when things don’t work the way they’ve been billed to, we simply blame our ‘African-ess’ on our inability to deliver to the standards and levels that were expected.
This week British Airways opened Terminal 5. Since the opening it’s been on the news, flighted as the greatest travel achievement the world has ever seen.
You can imagine my amusement at the e-mail I got from our travel agent this afternoon. Even with truck loads of cash, and wheelbarrows of experience, getting it right isn’t as easy as one imagines. It doesn’t matter who you are or where you come from : )
Continue reading ‘To err is Terminal 5′
The long awaited monster passenger plane, the Airbus A380, is now ready for delivery. In fact, Air Singapore today took delivery of their first plane with much pomp and ceremony. Read about it here at the international airlines news, and read about the financial details at Forbes.com.
Some people have said:
- The plane is too late - the market has moved on, and there won’t be enough orders to pay for it.
- Given the delays and increases in development costs, they need to sell almost double the estimated number of planes to turn a profit.
- Its unlikely the market will be able to absorb the additional planes they need to sell.
- The plane will become obsolete before they sell 400 units.
- The plane is too big - no-one wants to fly with that many people.
In fact, these things were all said of the Boeing 747 when it was introduced to the market in 1970. Some people are saying very similar things of the A380 today. They have obviously not looked at the past and learnt from it. That’s a problem everywhere today, isn’t it?
Regular readers of this blog may have noticed the stand still in postings over the last month. This is largely (but not entirely) due to my not having Internet access at my home office. This is entirely due to South Africa’s telecomms provider, Telkom, not being able to supply me with a telephone in my new home for NINE weeks now. They have promised to have it in by this Friday! I will refrain from ranting, suffice to say that there is a website dedicated to people like me - its called Helkom.
My reflection, though, is on how much I rely on having instant access to the Net. My last few weeks have felt that low level functioning. This led me to wonder why hotels still insist on charging for Net access. They do not charge you extra for electricity (although some guests must surely use more than others). They do not charge for water usage (although some guests use more than others). So, why charge for Net access? At worst, they can put a cap on usage. At best, just build it into the price, like they do with other utilities.
For now, the coffee shops in my suburb are smiling - especially those that provide Internet access (free or otherwise).
For those who travel regularly to different cultures, you know the nightmare of arriving in a new country and realising that you don’t know some important local customs. I’m not talking about the customs officials at the airport, but rather issues like do you tip the taxi driver, and if so, how much. Do you tip the porter at the hotel, or the waitress at the restuarant?
Then, you probably also know the frenzy of trying to work out the power adaptors and trying to get your laptop juiced up (its battery-life died somewhere over the Indian Ocean, right in the middle of an important email).
OK, so maybe you don’t care, but I have just found two great websites, and need a place to put them so I can remember them:
While doing the research for the above sites, I came across a great one that seems to list everything in one place: http://www.kropla.com/.
A nice innovation is being experimented with by Air France, JAL, Singapore and Virgin airlines. They will now be offering in-flight language tutorials on selected routes, helping passengers to learn a few key words and phrases of the language of the country of their destination. This is based on an interactive audiovisual language program developed by Berlitz, the company that supplies many in-flight entertainment screens. The system currently supports 23 languages.
This is an example of a massive trend - consumers are demonstrating a value shift from passive consumption to mastering skills. The smartest companies are offering their customers the opportunity to add to their skill set, not just consume a service or product.
You sit on the Executive Team of very large company. The company had a tough year last year. All through the business, costs are being contained and cut. You’ve got to attend a company conference a couple of continents away. You don’t travel that often, and while the business has decided that Executive members can fly business class, you decide to set an example and fly economy.
Your boss walks into your office and tells you that you can’t fly economy. Executives fly business class.
What do you do? Do you set the example, fly economy and take on your boss? Or do you fly business class?
I heard this scenario during the week. It’s not really important what happened, but it does pose some interesting thoughts.
So what would you do?
I have travelled quite a bit since the terrorist plot to blow up planes was uncovered two weeks ago in England. In fact, I actually landed at Heathrow on the Thursday morning it all went down, and was kept waiting on Heathrow’s runway for 2 hours before being allowed to park and disembark (if you watched BBC or Sky News that morning, you would have seen us sitting on the runway, as the SAA Boeing we were in was in the TV’s crew background). This was NOT fun, as I had my wife, mother-in-law and three daughters (all under 8 years old) with me.
There has, of course, been the usual panic and reactions from everyone. Firstly, the British Security chaps banned ALL hand luggage - yes, everything. You couldn’t even take a magazine on board with you. Now, they are allowing everyone to take one piece of baggage on board, but it is smaller than what was previously allowed, by a few centimetres (see photo). Since the terrorists are believed to have been creating bombs in soda (fizzy drink) cans, I wonder how this will help. It makes no sense.
I really do believe that this is an irrational bit of policing. What difference could it possibly make? None. But they have to be SEEN to be doing something, so they reduce the size of hand luggage by 20%, and now I am supposed to fell safe? What are they thinking, and why do we all just accept it? (It is, however, another instance of how so far out of touch the airline industry is from its customers…).
Some time ago I wrote about the way SAA dealt with delays on the Sunday night of the A1 GP out of Durban. No problem about the delays (after all who can control a thunder storm!) but rather the total lack of information to those impacted by a delay that in my case was actually 4 hours.
But there was another issue I had with SAA: On an international flight out of Jhb to Hong Kong the flight was delayed by 2 hours. This meant that the staff overshot their no more than 16 hour continuous service law. The compromise was to refuse to serve half of the evening meal and breakfast. As I had traded in 35 000 voyager miles to secure business class this response wasn’t good enough. I wrote asking that they reinstate my miles as I had paid for a service that in part I had not received. This is SAA’s response. The saga will not end here…
Continue reading ‘SAA does it again: saga continues…’
-12-09-2005%5Dsa.jpg "SAA")
In the SAA lounge await flight 572 to Jhb. A bit grumpy to boot as who wants to be in the lounge on a Sunday afternoon (missing the finish of the A1 GP round the streets of Durban) anyway!
My flight is due to depart at 17:40. 17:40 comes around and there has been no announcement. Knowing that flight SA 570 has just been called is not a good sign as by anyone’s logic this is an earlier flight and I would guess by some distance.
I go to the lounge desk and ask what is going on only to be told…
“Sorry Sir, your flight has not yet left Jhb”. Unbelievable! Here we are facing at least a 90 minute delay and SAA have not even had the courtesy to announce a delay. I ask why no announcement and am told that they (SAA lounge staff) haven’t received any official notice and that once the flight has taken off from Jhb they will be able to give an eta. Well of course…but how about simply informing us of the situation as it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to do the maths as to the extent of the delay? Of course such logic and concern falls on deaf ears and the suggestion that they inform their clients is met with blank stares and no action. So here I sit…still in the lounge…still none the wiser…and longing for the government to stop covering for the shambles that is SAA so that they will be forced to get their act together!
One piece of advice: Thinking about booking with UA? Don’t - Not if there’s the slightest chance you may have to call their ‘customer service’ in Dublin.
For the past 3 months I have spent my Saturday morning on hold , listening to the same operatic track only to be relieved by a new wierd dialect of English. Based in Eastpoint BusinessPark, their customer malservice has so far racked up the following on me: agents whom you have to explain criteria of your ticket to, on a premium rate number nonetheless, almost 100% failiure to follow up on promises to call me back re queries they were unable to answer, the loss of my registered delivery airline ticket
and it mysteriously turning up 3 days later after UA being informed by Irish Post that one of their representatives had signed for said letter, and now the DOUBLE
charging of my credit card through erronously reissuing my ticket twice.
Continue reading ‘United Airlines nausea’
And so, you’re sitting around one day as a broke 21yr old student pondering how you’ll pay for your university tuition fees. It’s really simple - host an advertising site where you sell space. Alex Tew is the brains behind www.milliondollarhomepage.com. At a premium of $1 per pixel, he is aiming to sell $1 million worth by the end of the year - he’s already $889,000 down the road and has only been going since September. Nice quick buck!
Technorati : million+dollar+homepage
“The American travel industry is staring at a generational divide. On one side are the deep-pocketed baby boomers, with more money and free time than ever. On the other are the burgeoning Generation Xers, whose oldest members turned 40 this year and who increasingly are asserting their buying power. The challenge facing hotels, golf courses, airlines, travel agents and tourism marketers around the country is how to appeal to two groups of consumers whose tastes could not be more different. Typical boomers look for a natural environment, luxurious decor and comfortable accommodations when they travel. Average Gen Xers want an urban environment, trendy decor and functional accommodations.”
So begins a great article, “Hotels face challenge of generation gap“, By Stephanie Paterik in The Arizona Republic (4 Dec 2005).
The older Silent generation is SKI’ing (Spending Their Kids Inheritance), and doing more global leisure travel than any retirees ever have before. Boomers are big business travellers. Xers are big leisure travellers, but want different levels of comfort and cultural experience to their older travelling counterparts. And, Xers are spending more on experiences than any other generation has ever done before. All this adds up to great opportunities, to those who understand the desires of these very different markets.
Paterik’s article is a short, but insightful, starting point for thinking about Minding the Generation Gap.
Lately I’ve been wondering if we are using our “voices” as much as we should be. (Or in the right ways?) There is so much “communication” happening these days (what with blogging, texting, emailing etc) … but how much of it is being heard?
Maybe it’s just my experience over these past few weeks that’s coloured my outlook on this …
I was catching my daily train through to Waterloo a few weeks back and thanks to the ever increasing “signal failures” we were being pushed and shoved onto trains like cattle. (Actually, had we been cattle there probably would have been animal rights groups all over the story!)
Instead everyone just stood there smelling the armpits of the person next to them. (seriously). And I thought to myself “Is no one going to do anything about this?” So I wrote a letter to the editor of one of London’s daily papers …
I know that it’s not going to change things overnight (or even at all) … but I thought that if I don’t speak up on this issue then how will anyone know that there is a problem?
Continue reading ‘Speak Up’
Within the space of 24 hours, my relationship with airlines underwent another rollercoaster ride. Loves to travel, hates to fly … is fast becoming my new mantra.
It all started when we tried to change the dates of my husband’s British Airways ticket from London to SA. We tried everything … from the travel agent, to the airline watchdogs to a friend at Expedia who we thought might “know someone who knows someone” … to no avail. We were down £500 as the ticket was completely non refundable. Our own fault for not reading the fine-print admittedly … but still, the experience did not leave me feeling warm and fuzzy. I was left with the impression that BA was heartless, inflexible and archaic. And just as I was vowing to never fly with them again … they managed to show me the flip side of the coin.
Continue reading ‘Are all airline’s full of hot air?’
Over at my China travel blog I’ve written about how much I love my Apple iBook laptop. It doesn’t give me any problems, runs really well, doesn’t get viruses, has excellent battery life and is very portable (when I bought a camera memory card reader the other day in Mudanjiang, China, I whipped out my iBook from my backpack, plugged in the card reader, checked it worked and then bought it - without a word of English being spoken). [On a side note, I don't see many non-Apple users who are passionate about their laptops.]
And this is my point - not to engage in a PC vs Apple debate but rather to note that most/all Apple users feel the same way as I do about their computers - to the extent that “normal” people are mystified by it. How does Apple create such brand loyalty? What is this magic which other companies would kill for?
Continue reading ‘Die-hard brand loyalty’
Ingrid Sanden’s one year old daughter has made it onto the infamous ‘no fly list’ (aka Advanced Passenger Information System) in the US, because her name is too closely linked to a possible terrorists name (click here for full story on CNN.com). Sanden lives in Washington and was flying internally when she was first stopped.
This is the list that got Cat Stevens booted out of the US last year for his Islam name Yusef Islam. In fact the plane he was on was diverted once his name popped up in the system. It wasn’t that he was accused of terrorism, it was that his name is similar to someone who might be linked to terrorism. Still he didn’t get into the US even after an interview. I’m sure there were good reasons?
While there are aparently over 100 000 people on the list, there is a system in place to help remove people who shouldn’t be in it. “The TSA has a “passenger ombudsman” who will investigate individual claims from passengers who say they are mistakenly on the lists. TSA spokeswoman Yolanda Clark said 89 children have submitted their names to the ombudsman. Of those, 14 are under the age of 2.”
The UK holiday season has been left reeling with the Industrial Crisis at British Airways. Tens of thousands of travellers stranded at Heathrow and tens of thousands more left stranded in other countries trying to get home. More than 500 flights cancelled due to the problem and a revenue hit that is incalculable.
This is the third August on the trot that BA has suffered industrial dispute. But this most recent crisis is particularly interesting because it is not of BA’s own making…
Gate Gourmet, the company that supplies the BA flight food, is a company itself in financial crisis. The reason for the latest problem is that 600 of its low-paid workers walked out in protest at working conditions - the result of which was that the management tried talking to them with a loud hailer in the car park - and then promptly sacked them all!! The baggage handlers at Heathrow came out on strike in sympathy with the sacked workers (such secondary action is, of course, illegal in the UK) and BA was once more left in turmoil.
The interesting thing for me here is Connections…
Continue reading ‘Negative Connections?’
Kim Penstone, of Marketing Web, makes a brilliant point in her latest contribution (click here for article). Flying is not glamorous, yet many airlines use glamour as the basis of their advertising and marketing campaigns. Its time for them to get real. Kim’s argument is irrefutable, except for one thing: Boomers have an odd passion for flying. They mourned the death of Concorde, and they often stop near the airport to just look at the airplanes. Maybe its because flying was the stretching of the horizon for them when they were young (Gen Xers have a similar love affair with technology, like laptops and iPods). Whatever it is, the airlines need to get over it.
One of the greatest opening lines of any book is from the late Douglas Adams, Dirk Gentley’s Holistic Detective Agency (I quote from memory). “It is no surprise that the phrase ‘As sexy as an airport’ has never entered the English language”.
Take me with you - by Brad Newsham. Read it! (Buy it at Amazon.com or Kalahari.net) This book review might seem a bit out of “left field” … because it’s got nothing to do with business, corporate policy or anything remotely related … it’s a travel book.
Ah, but it’s a travel book with a difference. Let me tell you why.
1) Brad is on a 100 day trip … to find a stranger to invite him back to America.
2) He really does take you with him! (This is not just “armchair travel”.)
But what made me realise just how incredibly unique this book is …. I emailed Brad (he has a website: www.bradnewsham.com) … and he emailed me back. And it wasn’t just some standard template email … it was personal. We connected.
To me he is really an author that is fully emersed in the connection economy. That struck as something pretty special!
PS. If you can - find the Random House version of the book - it is the most recently published version and has a few extra’s which are well worth reading.
SAA’s strike is now dragging on and on and on… It must be seriously inept (and/or arrogant and out-of-touch) management that can allow this to happen - and possibly intransigent and unrealistic Labour officials - asking for 9% pay rises in a climate of 3% inflation (didn’t they do economics 101?). Whatever - its fairly boring now.
BUT, it is causing serious ripple effects across the entire continent (and world). Businesses are cancelling/postponing meetings and conferences - that affects my company directly, as that’s where we do a lot of our work. We charge our clients a fee for any changes, so the cost escalates for everyone. Holiday makers are scratching South Africa off their list of destination, business people are looking elsewhere for their work, and everywhere people are being inconvenienced.
Well, I for one, am not going to go quietly into the night on this one. I’d like your help, please. Once the strike is over (and it should be soon), I want to make a point of “returning the favour”. The cabin crew and ground staff of SAA have seriously disrupted my life, my work and the functioning of my business. What can we as travellers do to disrupt theirs for the next 2-3 weeks in order to let them see what it feels like? I’d like your suggestions.
“Death and taxes”, the old saying goes, are the only things that are absolutely certain in life. Well, I’d like to suggest that living in the 21st century, there are one or two things that could be added to that list. Its just a matter of time for most people - and the more active you are, the more the odds stack against you.
Continue reading ‘Death, taxes, lost luggage and credit card fraud’
In an unprecedented move, the members of a labour union representing the ground and cabin crew of South African Airways (SAA) downed tools and went on strike at 4am on Friday. This caused chaos with South Africa’s national airline, bringing their schedule to a grinding halt and leaving thousands of commuters stranded.
In a democracy, I defend the right of anyone to strike (only emergency and essential services are not allowed to). And I understand that SAA management were particularly inept at managing the negotiations up to the point of breakdown and the declaration of a dispute - at this time, its unclear of the exact timetable of the strike. I also understand that the workers may have exhausted every other possible line they had to get management to listen.
BUT…
Continue reading ‘How not to have a strike’
Well, avid blog-reader, you may remember some time ago (4 June to be exact), that I blogged my dismay at the airline which didn’t know anything about geography or the finer aspects of British constitutional history, to whit: I queued up at the “All UK flights” section to check in for my flight to Northern Ireland, only to be told that Northern Ireland is not part of the UK “for the purposes of our company, sir”. I won’t bore you with the finer details of that experience. Check the archives if you have forgotten or not read it in the first place…
…Well, the sequel to my story is this…
Yesterday morning, at 0600, I arrived bleary-eyed at the same airport for a day-trip to Holland on business.
Holland.
Not England. Not Scotland. Not Wales. Not even Northern Ireland.
Holland.
(Are you with me so far, avid blog-reader?)
Continue reading ‘The Sequel to my Story’
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