Megatrends Defining the Future of Tourism: A Journey Within the Journey in 12 Universal Truths [1st ed.] 9783030486259, 9783030486266

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Anticipation Science 6

Valentina Boschetto Doorly

Megatrends Defining the Future of Tourism A Journey Within the Journey in 12 Universal Truths

Anticipation Science Volume 6

Editor-in-Chief Roberto Poli, University of Trento, Trento, Italy

Anticipation Science encompasses natural, formal, and social systems that intentionally or unintentionally use ideas of a future to act in the present, with a broad focus on humans, institutions, and human-designed systems. Our aim is to enhance the repertoire of resources for developing ideas of the future, and for expanding and deepening the ability to use the future. Some questions that the Series intends to address are the following: When does anticipation occur in behavior and life? Which types of anticipation can be distinguished? Which properties of our environment change the pertinence of different types of anticipation? Which structures and processes are necessary for anticipatory action? Which is the behavioral impact of anticipation? How can anticipation be modeled? The series is interested in receiving book proposals that: • are aimed at an academic audience of graduate level and up • combine applied and/or theoretical and/or philosophical studies with work especially from disciplines within the human and social sciences broadly conceived. The series editors aim to make a first decision within 2 months of submission. In case of a positive first decision the work will be provisionally contracted: the final decision about publication will depend upon the result of the anonymous peer review of the complete manuscript. The series editors aim to have the work peer-reviewed within 4 months after submission of the complete manuscript. The series editors discourage the submission of manuscripts that are below 150 printed pages (75,000 words). For inquiries and submission of proposals prospective authors can contact the editor-in-chief: Roberto Poli: [email protected]

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/15713

Valentina Boschetto Doorly

Megatrends Defining the Future of Tourism A Journey Within the Journey in 12 Universal Truths

123

Valentina Boschetto Doorly Dun Laoghaire, Ireland

ISSN 2522-039X ISSN 2522-0403 (electronic) Anticipation Science ISBN 978-3-030-48625-9 ISBN 978-3-030-48626-6 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48626-6 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

I have always been searching. So far I have found much more than I was hoping for.

This book is a journey within the journey. Dedicated to all those who travel, in body and mind.

Acknowledgments

Sincere thanks to Prof. Roberto Poli, Ph.D. UNESCO Chair in Anticipatory Systems, Department of Sociology and Social Research University of Trento, who instigated the writing of this book, allowing me to unlock and release two decades of industry observations and anticipations. Thanks to all my colleagues, friends and professionals, with whom I have worked, debated and eviscerated any and every angle of the Travel and Tourism Industry throughout its progresses and challenges. Special thanks to the review panel who has offered their precious feedback on the manuscript: Prof. Roberto Poli, Rachel Haslam Senior Strategist at JWTFolks, Dublin; Valerie Steinbeck Head of Group Marketing Division, Sales and Revenue at Gleneagle Group, Kerry, Ireland; Fiona Herald, Sales Director at Guinness Storehouse Dublin. Thanks to Ciaran Rowe Head of Product and Digital Marketing at Bookassist, Dublin; Jamie Tanner Director of Production and the Vstream team, Virtual Reality and Digital Media Dublin. Anticipation matters.

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Contents

1 Introduction: Travel and Tourism: An Industry Is Born in Four Milestones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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2 Travel and Tourism Universal Truth: Why Do We Travel? . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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3 Megatrends, Macro-Trends, Trends and Fads: Jargon Explained . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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4 The Technological Revolution Impacting on Travel Tourism and Hospitality Industry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 Introduction: The Changing Nature of Tourism . . . . . . . 4.2 Holiday Anticipation Trends: From Holiday Anticipation to Holiday Pre-experiencing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 Holiday Booking Patterns and Logistics: The “Anytime-Anywhere-Holiday” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4 Holiday Fruition: Mediated, Augmented, Seamless: Never Lost, Never Bored . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.5 Socialization of Holiday Experience: From F.O.M.O. to J.O.M.O. and Back . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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5 Upside-Down Pyramids: A Demographic Revolution Unfolded . 5.1 The Soaring Numbers of Silver Tourism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2 The New Seniors: Older & Bolder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3 New Travelling Formats: Solo Travelling, Multigenerational and Loose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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5.4 A Loneliness Pandemic? It’s a Dogs’ World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.5 Old Is the New Cool: The Surprising Curve of Happiness . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Climate Change and Its Impact on TT&H Industry . . . . . . . . 6.1 Climate Change and the Emperor’s New Clothes Paradigm 6.2 How Will Climate Change Affect the Travel Tourism and Hospitality Industry? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2.1 Amenity Migration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2.2 Extreme Weather Events and Solidarity Tourism . . . 6.2.3 Water Contention . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2.4 Sustainable Holidays, Trains and New Transport Modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3 A Case Study: The Alpine Chain’s Adaptation to Climate Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3.1 Alpine Tourism Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3.2 The Impact of Climate Change on the Alps: Double the Rate in Average Temperature Increase . . 6.3.3 Mitigation, Adaptation, Transformative Changes Taking Place in the Tourism Economy . . . . . . . . . . 6.4 Viewpoint on Climate Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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7 Globalisation: A Megatrend on Its Last Legs? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.2 Mass Movement, Over-Tourism and Multiplication of Destinations. Have we Entered The Golden Age of Tourism or Have we Reached the Tipping Point? . . . . . . . 7.3 Polarisation of Wealth and the Irresistible Ascent of Luxury Tourism. Rent Me a City . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.4 Distribution Channels and More: A Capitalism of Platforms’ Monopolies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 De-Globalisation: A Newly Born Megatrend . . . . . . . . . . 8.1 Introduction: The Day Santa Claus was Kidnapped . . 8.2 De-Globalisation in Travel and Tourism: The Great Spill Over and the Quiet Charme of the Less Famous 8.3 Digital Detox and the Forgotten Body . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.4 The Age of Opinions: Responsible Tourism, Activism and Boycott Tourism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Contents

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9 Conclusions and Envisioning Exercise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179 Appendix: The Predictable Unpredictability of Futures: Covid-19 Pandemic 2020 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

About the Author

Valentina Boschetto Doorly has worked for two decades in the Tourism and Hospitality industry at international level as Destination Manager Director, Marketing and Sales Director in world renowned visitor attractions and major hotel groups. She has always implemented a strategic foresight-led approach in companies, embracing innovation and brave decisions. Winner of multiple awards, she has engaged with the world of futures studies firstly with the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies, within the Horizon Scanning program, and subsequently with the Trento UNESCO Master in Social Foresight, led by Prof. Roberto Poli. She is fully accredited member of A.P.F. Association of Professional Futurists and A.F.I. Associazione Futuristi Italiani. Valentina believes in the urgent need for a radical overhaul of our economic model. She champions and works for the birth of a more functional, inclusive and humanist form of capitalism. Tourism could and should play a leading role in this process.

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Chapter 1

Introduction: Travel and Tourism: An Industry Is Born in Four Milestones

Abstract How the travel and tourism industry came about to become a powerful protagonist of our economies: a brief history of tourism in four milestones. Keywords Travel tourism and hospitality Tourism evolution Tourism future





TT&H history
Tourism history


Since the beginning of time mankind has shown an irresistible urge to push its horizons further afield. No boundaries, mountain passes or walls have ever managed to contain our waves of movement, no land has remained unchartered, no DNA has remained un-crossed. With bellicose intents, for migration or exploration purposes, people have incessantly swung from north to south, from east to west and vice versa. The Travel, Tourism and Hospitality (TT&H) industry is a relatively young one, effectively conceived and shaped in the XVIII and XIX century by the British elites descending through continental Europe for a full cultural immersion in classical heritage and contexts. This experience served as an essential formation rite for the young members of upper class families. At the age of 21, they would embark on a pleasurable journey, accompanied by a chaperone, a journey that could last from a few months to several years. Paris, Geneva, Venice, Florence, Rome were typical stopovers. Others would push the itinerary further south to Naples, Sicily, possibly Turkey or Greece. Returning to their homeland would entail crossing Austria, Switzerland and then Germany. They would have been away for a very long time, learning languages, social skills, fencing and dancing amongst others; visiting all European highlights of classical architecture and heritage, meeting and bonding with equally high-ranking members of society everywhere on the Continent. Who would fancy embarking on a year long wandering around the world nowadays, merely for formation purpose? Societal patterns change dramatically over time and yet we can never imagine the future if not as a consistent evolution of what we see around us now.

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 V. Boschetto Doorly, Megatrends Defining the Future of Tourism, Anticipation Science 6, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48626-6_1

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The Travel and Tourism industry has grown from this niche beginning to a global, powerful industry, accounting for 10% of the European GDP and 26 million jobs (UNWTO 2019). Globally, it sustains twice as many jobs as the financial sector 108 million directly, 292 million indirectly (WTTC 2017). But it took some transformative evolutions and a couple of quantum leaps to get the industry this far. These evolutions were marked by four defining passages: the formation of the middle class within the first world countries; secondly, the broadening of the outbound flow generating countries base, thanks to economic development of the second world countries; thirdly the advent of the digital era, coupled with the launch and explosive growth of low-cost airlines. Finally, the deployment of the full digital power over the accommodation element, turning it liquid and granularly ubiquitous. The first paradigm shift in our industry was made possible by the Second Industrial Revolution that ensued WWII; as soon as a vast middle class was formed, following the post-war economic rebirth that so successfully created and, crucially, distributed wealth, travel movements gradually became a must-have of any respectable family and an integral part of the top of the Maslow Pyramid: disposable income = opportunity for self-expression. From being a privilege reserved solely for the uber elites, holidaying, travelling and exploring places for the sake of cultural/leisure interest became a widely accessible experience to majority of the newly formed middle class throughout Europe and North America. While washing machines and black and white TV sets were making their appearance in most households, our fathers, with just one salary, could provide for families of five or more members, buy the family’s primary residence, build a second holiday home on the coast, dispatch all the siblings to good schools. A bygone era, a time when everyone was entitled to a full summer of idle holidays, two to three uninterrupted months of basking outdoor and imagination-stretching boredom. In the meantime, the upper class was boarding the first flights in the newly born industry of civil aviation. Ushered in with utter mannerism by impeccably dressed cabin crew, they would be choosing from a full food menu served on real crockery and cutlery. The second step change in the industry came with the acceleration in economic development in an ever broader range of countries. Rising from poverty and isolation, often emancipating from dark periods of dictatorship, these developing regions would access the more comfortable ranks of developed first world ranks, creating in the process, their very own middle class. The biggest case, both for magnitude and symbolic value, set in motion by Gorbacev during the 1980s was the now ex-USSR. As the Soviet block disintegrated, subsequently opening itself to new economic models, eastern citizens started travelling outbound in droves. Signs in Cyrillic popped up in all the popular European destinations. Some coastal resorts on the Mediterranean Riviera increasingly looked as if they had leapt from the NATO block onto Gorbacev’s lap. Through the last three decades, the emerging wealth of an ever growing number of countries materialises itself in millions of passports and visa requests, further

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swelling the global tourism mass movements. China is our contemporary case in point. With an estimated population of 1.4 billion, as of today only 8.7% of Chinese citizens own a passport, this already generating 149 million outbound trips in 2018. (Travel China Guide 2018). Europe is deemed a priority visit and Chinese arrivals into this continent are vigorously growing year or year, making the industry stakeholders talk of “Chinese bonanza”. What then is so deeply ingrained in our psyche across all social classes and status, to motivate us to pack the bags and engage in this frenzy of visits and explorations? Why is leaving our comfort zone and, incidentally, spending substantial amount of money to go places is so widely perceived as an unrivalled way to spend our leisure time? What are we looking for, amongst ancient rocks, dazzling urban architectures, unfamiliar colours and tastes? The light-hearted and breezy surface of holidays and travels, an industry not infrequently once derided as “industry of fun” conceals a much deeper and ostensibly universal, trigger. One that, we could argue constitutes a “Universal Truth” that, oddly, is never talked about and, yet, has a lot to do with our insatiable demand for travelling. We should reflect upon it, and we will. Travel and Tourism have changed enormously in the past two decades, where technological advancements have reshaped the very hierarchy of stakeholders, turning the “ways of doing business” on its head. After the paradigm shift from privileged experience for selected few to a wider societal reach, coupled with the multiplication of origins of movements, the advent of the web came next. This technological revolution unlocked at once the coffers of contacts and information making these democratically available to all, bypassing intermediation overnight. For those who have been involved at the forefront of business for some time, it seems like yesterday and yet, a tale from another world, when bookings were received by fax machine, and the tour operator emissary threatened to remove the hotel from the sales catalogue if one dared putting the business’ details on the newly born www. Sounds crazy now, but this is how the disruptive power of innovation is often received, triggering dismay and panic, when no foresight is applied to our way of conducting business. The entire potential customer base suddenly had all the accommodation information at their fingertips, comparing images and rates. Soon after, hear hear, flights could be booked from the comfort of your home. And one could even choose the seat. Gone were the crockery and the romance of the 10 000 feet of altitude. We had traded the high standards of the experience for convenience of access at rock bottom prices. In parallel, the civil aviation had discovered a new business model, one that could fully capitalise on the digital power of the web; a quantum leap, this one, nearly single-handedly forged and delivered by one man, who happened to have captured a defining trait of human nature: in his (infamous) words “people would crawl naked over broken glass for a low-cost airline ticket”-Michael O’Leary Ryanair legendary CEO-. The rise of no frills flights has decreed the ascent of the low budget airline companies to the king and rulers of our industry landscape with

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the power of opening-or closing- the tap of millions of arrivals to a tourist destination. The new landlord in town low-cost carriers, determine with their spartan seats and hasty mannered crew, the performance of entire tourism districts across Europe. Opening a new route means creating from scratch a new tourist destination, pouring volumes of arrivals into the area, delivering oxygen to all local operators, boosting the P&L of hospitality, retail mix and visitors attractions. Switching the light off is the equivalent of closing the tap, with the inevitable consequences. When running a Destination Management Organization (DMO), we should always concern ourselves with monitoring access to the area, piggybacking the opening of new flight services and routes with marketing campaigns targeting the origin of the new flows. In our industry, access is possibly the most strategic element, the only one able to deliver the essential sap of arrivals to the district. The last defining passage that ensued tackled the “accommodation” element within the holiday experience. The rigid and conservative hotel business model was about to be gripped in an unprecedented siege, left right and center, by the newly invented and immediately exploded, format of liquid accommodation. Airbnb, founded in 2008 in San Francisco by Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia, turned each house in town, into a potential holiday accommodation, with guest manual, miniature toiletries and all. Newly minted amateurish hosts sprouted in droves everywhere, especially in urban centres with strong inbound arrivals for heritage or business motives. The start up took off with a mere $20 000 public funding, shortly after followed by a more sizeable $600 000 by Sequoia Capital investment and again, in 2010, with another $7.2 million by Greylock Partners investment fund. In the following years, the company proceeded to secure rounds of funding to the tune of $1 billion a shot allowing it to acquire emerging competitors with at least eight high profile acquisitions, the last one in 2019, Hotel Tonight, for over $400 million (Wikipedia 2019). The company, which by now showcases over 6 million properties worldwide, distils the very essence of our time, where business: (a) Is scaled up at global level through serial rounds of phenomenal financial capital injections; (b) Proceeds to consolidate the market within a few years by acquiring all, or most of emerging competitors; (c) Asserts new, disruptive business models, liquid and granular, that spread with explosive acceleration. The travel and tourism industry has been transformed in size first, from a niche phenomenon for a privileged elite, to an accessible experience for all; in scale second, through a multiplication of origins of outbound flows as well as destinations. It has then witnessed a true revolution in three elements of its supply chain, that is the information seeking and booking through the invention of the World

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Wide Web; access with the creation of low budget flights, and finally stay, with an accommodation model reinvented by home hosting. We are now at the cusp of further transformative evolutions in the industry, impacting other elements both on the supply chain (transport, accommodation, visitors’ experiences) as well as on the demand chain (customers segmentation and consumers trends.) This book explores how five megatrends will be defining the overarching structures of our industry in the coming decades: Technology advancements, Demographic Shift, Climate Change, Globalisation, De-Globalisation. Around these underlying macro structures, Macro Trends, Trends and Fads will blossom, appear, disappear, in a kaleidoscopic and typically colourful guise. We will address how technology will re-invent the fruition of the holiday, adding a layer of information, animation and content to the surrounding reality (mediated reality) and how this will become, for vast consumer segments, the mainstream way to go about travelling and exploring. We will look at how new devices and I.O.T. (Internet of Things) enabled technologies will evolve the “anticipation of the holiday” to a whole new level. The anticipation of the holiday, which entails a long funnel of research on the part of the prospective customer, plays a pivotal role in our industry’s marketing, capturing the great majority of our communications, sales budget and efforts. Tourism marketing will increasingly work through sophisticated imagery, videos and VR experiences, granularly delivered, smooth and customised, via private and public channels; from our household’s kitchen to the wide urban context, in a sort of “virtual dazzling arcade”. A permanent trade show, magisterially woven into the customers’ daily life routines and touch points. Digital marketing will go on steroids. Enabled by technology and urban developments, entertainment and cultural content will then spread, spilling over the limiting walls of museums and designated places, to deliver widely accessible, ubiquitous and surprising urban experiences. Events become liquid, accessible, ever mutating in contents and media. Ticket paying will become irrelevant. We will then face the megatrend of the demographic telluric shift that our societies face just around the corner. The European continent, and not only, is embarked in a silent birth-rate strike where most of the EU countries have seen the number of births-per-woman fall under the threshold of 2 children, necessary threshold to maintain the population replacement rate. As of today the >65 years of age already account for 20% of the European population. In Germany and Italy the >60 years of age cohort are projected to account for 37.6% of the population by 2050. In parallel, the number of single persons keeps steadily growing, with 30% of European urban centres recording between 25% and 30% of households being made up of one single-person occupier. We will imagine a travel and tourism world where the silver hair wave makes the biggest median group, because it is the age-cohort with the biggest number of individuals.

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Climate change is, tragically and culpably, a megatrend that spares nothing and no one. The earth’s surface has already warmed up an average of 1 °C (Celsius). A misleadingly modest figure as this suggests to the uninformed punter the notion of English summers of 23 °C degrees average temperature versus the 22 °C conventional one. However, that is not how this unfolds. The average increase conceals very different levels of temperatures rise in different areas, latitudes and environments, with dramatic consequences that the wider public is just starting to be awoken to. Tourism will be impacted in the grand scale by this self-inflicted tragedy; heritage sites threated by disastrous weather events; the Alpine chain that serves 80% of surrounding European lands water will be stripped of all their glaciers. Water scarcity and hence contention, will occur in vast areas. Spain and the South of Italy will experience vast areas of desertification. We will see how climate change will impact tourism and instigate new possible and likely trends: Amenity Migration, Changes and alterations in Seasonality of movements, Adaptation of local tourism industry and its economic fabric. We will observe how extreme Weather Events can impact on Heritage Sites and Tourist Destinations with one case study, the Alpine chain. Second last megatrend, Globalisation, enabled by Financial Capitalism has long ago replaced our traditional capitalism model based on agriculture, manufacturing, trading goods and services. In the previous macro-economic model, in place until the 1970s, financial services were at the service of what many would call the “real economy”, supporting the growth of Small Medium sized Enterprises (SME) as well as large companies; receiving, protecting and rewarding the private savings of families. A momentous decision taken by Nixon on the 15th of August 1971 unhooked the state money-printing machine from the Gold Standard. Whereas up until then the Federal Reserve System (Fed) could print as much currency as was backed in value by its physical Gold reserves, after that date the money printing machine was set loose, free to print limitless amounts of money. Through the following decades, unprecedented volumes of liquidity were poured into the financial markets and the financial system soared in power weight and influence in our economies. The relentless injection of liquidity has driven the global aggregate debt to $244 trillion, which corresponds, to 3 times the value of the total Global Gross Domestic Product, GDP (International Institute of Finance 2019). Enabled by a massive amount of liquidity virtually injected into the global system, globalisation delivered its dazzling effects, positive and negative. Advancements in transport and communication shrunk our world to a well connected global community, with know-how and ideas circulating from any given point to any other given point in seconds. The abatement of trade barriers created a one, single global market, a gigantic playfield, and aptly suited, for multinational and large corporations, redesigning the economic make-up of western societies. In the TT&H Industry, mass transportation unleashed mass global movements. An entirely new, phenomenal dimension that allows vast segments of the middle class to travel around the world, familiarising with the dazzling beauties and

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heritage of our planet. At the same time, the unlocking of mass movements via low-cost airline has ignited a multiplication of destinations, bringing great economic benefits to communities everywhere. However, this relentless, soaring mass of holidaymakers in search of heritage and instagrammable landmarks has also generated the phenomenon of over tourism. Over tourism is plaguing the 1st tier must-see destinations, blackening their sites with inhuman queues in front of by now, meaningless monuments. The tourism machine is spewing out masses of holidaymakers without control. Urban landscapes are turning into gutting convoys of eateries and food businesses. Residents are driven out of their own neighbourhood and out priced by the business of short term rentals; the Airbnbification of towns and cities is a game changer of our time. Policymakers struggle to cope or do not address the phenomena at all, still stuck in the liberal narrative of “market knows best”. What is the future evolution of this phenomenon? We will envisage a few in Chap. 8. Globalisation’s inherent mechanics also paved the way for an unprecedented accumulation of wealth at the very top of our societies. The Ultra High Net Worth Individuals (UHNWI) are generating a form of unprecedented super luxury tourism. Renting castles and mansions for events is not expensive enough to deploy this scale of wealth. Rent-me-a-city is the new way of going about private events. Ultra exclusive resorts, having exhausted all possible imaginative services to justify their rates, simply produce astronomical rates that, by themselves, justify themselves. This new dimension of tourism will keep growing in size and scale and power in the next decades. Ultimately, we will touch on the emergence of a new capitalism of platform monopolies, an inevitable consequence of globalisation, affecting TT&H industry to the full. The massive amount of liquidity circulating in the markets and the need to cater for the global market field at one time have created the conditions for global Leviathan corporations to achieve a near-monopoly on several areas of the supply chain. The distribution channels of bookings and services of all kind are dominated by a handful of players, globally. Welcome to the era of platform monopolies. Finally, De-Globalisation, our last megatrend, is possibly the most relevant emerging megatrend. Directly and counter-symmetrically originating from the damages and malfunctioning of the previous one, de-globalisation bears the compelling new demands for sustainability, localization of products and services, re-evaluation of the pathways and mechanics by which we operate our societies and measure our success. In its negative interpretation, a return to looking inwards, rejecting the logic of “global family” and eventually putting up walls. In its positive and legitimate demand, the request to adopt a logic of circular economy, care for the local causes, environment, heritage, quest for renovated strive for authenticity and rejection of globalised, standardised solutions and products. In TT&H, De-Globalisation has just started to take shape. We find its signs within the soaring phenomenon of experiential tourism; retro and slow holidays; responsible and sustainable holidays; trail-tourism. We envisage the onset of tourism choices become more politically charged, with boycott/reward list of destination choices.

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Will De-Globalisation mean de-growth? We will hone the green-growth hypothesis and unfold it onto TT&H industry. As the Nobel Prize for economics Michael Spence phrased it “De-Globalisation is dangerous but the world needs a re-foundation”. But before we delve into the Megatrends, a foreword on our industry’s Universal Truth: “Why do we travel?”

References Online Publications: Organisation Site UNWTO. 2019. European Union Tourism Trends report 2019. World Travel Tourism Council (WTTC). 2017. Benchmarking report 2017. Available https://www. eturbonews.com/157113/wttc-global-tourism-supports-twice-many-jobs-financial-sector/. Travel China Guide Tourism. 2018. https://www.travelchinaguide.com/tourism/2018statistics/. International Institute of Finance. 2019. Report 14, November 2019.

Online Document Airbnb Inc. Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia. Available at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbnb.

Chapter 2

Travel and Tourism Universal Truth: Why Do We Travel?

Abstract Why do we travel? Why does travelling and exploring new lands exert such a magnetic pull on most of us? An insight into the deepest motivations that cause the number of International movements to soar, year after year. Keywords Travel tourism and hospitality drivers travelling Travel motivations Travel motives








Motivations
Psychology of

If we look at the diagram chart of International Tourist Arrivals through the years, we get an immediate glimpse of a relentless, unstoppable growth. International Tourist Arrivals (ITA) measures the number of people who, each year, undertake outbound journeys, that is, outside their own country’s boundaries. The growth is, simply put, staggering. The World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) statistics tell us that in 1950 only 25 million people travelled abroad. In 1970 this number had risen to 66 million and to 435 million on 1990 (UNWTO E-Library 2019). Fast-forward thirty years on, we are now contemplating a whopping 1.4 billion trips abroad taken every year. That corresponds to an increase of nearly 350% in the span of three decades. UNWTO projects this number to reach 1.8 billion by 2030 (UNWTO E-Library Baseline Report, Tourism Statistics 2019). We have witnessed this progression remain unabated through volcano ashes, terrorist attacks and pandemic scares. It lowered its head in a small and isolated glitch in 2009, when recession made its frightening appearance, only to return to growth, undeterred, the following year, showing a resilience and a determination to go places that begs for an explanation. Yes, residents from the northern latitudes descend in droves below the 45th parallel latitude to top up on sunshine and vitamin D. Yes, inhabitants of the sunnier countries flock north to seek refuge from the too much sunshine and vitamin D. Europe is a vast, fascinating complex mosaic that hosts the biggest number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. At the 2018 count, Italy (54), France (44) Germany (44) Spain (47) UK (31). Together, they create an irresistible offer of diversity and creativity that is hard to resist. Indeed, Europe is the number one continent in the world for ITA, having posted 713 million ITA in 2018 with an © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 V. Boschetto Doorly, Megatrends Defining the Future of Tourism, Anticipation Science 6, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48626-6_2

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increase of 6% on 2017. Europe’s international arrivals are more than the double than the second continent, Asia and the Pacific, which stands at 343 million (UNWTO E-Library Baseline Report, Tourism Statistics 2019). Nonetheless, apart from the conventional “psychographic motives” that we so well capture and codify in our marketing categorisations (culture seekers and learners, nature exploration, fun and entertainment, escapism and so on) there must be a deeper trigger that prompts all of us, regardless of social class, status, gender and nationality to embark on incessant travels. There must a subliminal, common denominator across all continents and cultures that instigates millions of people across the globe to buy an air ticket as frequently as they can, step outside their comfort zone and be exposed to unfamiliar colours and odours, tastes, experiences and languages. Mankind suffers, no doubt, from a compulsive urge to travel. Proof is in the immediate uptake of outbound trips arising from emerging countries as soon as they come out of poverty and enter the A list of ranking of first world nations. One could actually sit on the steps of some famed, must-see heritage rich city in Europe and gauge the state of the global economy, country by country, by observing the make up of tourists. Dollar exchange unfavourable this year, China growing in quantum leaps, Japan nursing a flagging economy, so on and so forth. From the outskirt of London, to the centre of Berlin our visiting ITA has something in mind, even if they do not know it. What is the secret thread connecting the intrepid explorers of the past, from Marco Polo to Captain James Cook, from Ferdinand Magellan to Charles Darwin to our happy bunch of contemporary holidaymakers? Defining the notion of consciousness is an arduous task and not one for our work. However, it inscribes itself in that delicate notion of what defines us as human beings. A peculiar species, indeed: gregarious, we need one another and we form social connections that pave the ground for the formation of collaborative societies; inventive, we look at things not only as they are, but as how they could be. Imagination, and the capability of envisioning, forming visions of scenarios that are yet to come, seems to be one of the most distinctive attributes that defines us as a specie. Our neural network somehow developed the capability of simulating what is not there in reality. In 1976 Richard Dawkins wrote “The evolution of the capacity to simulate seems to have culminated in subjective consciousness. Why this should have happened is, to me, the most profound mystery facing modern biology” (R. Dawkins 1976, 1989). Self-aware, human beings are connoted by a high degree of introspection and self-consciousness: our existence within in the environment, our self as a matter of reflection, that preoccupies us to some acute extreme. Not only we are conscious of the world around us, but we are conscious of our consciousness. The perception and awareness of our mortality, in time and space, the awareness of the finiteness of our bigger journey, the one that only comes with a one way ticket, cascades into our subjective feelings and perceptions, to different degrees of acuteness.

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Deep down, we know that we have a limited amount of time, the end of which will bring the end of the body as well as the mind, with all its imaginative power. The finiteness of our existence, intended as a unique and personal tale of experiences and events, is a hard line of the horizon to contemplate. That must be why; most of us prefer not to contemplate it, exorcizing it instead, with a frantic amount of tasks. The end of our time determines the oblivion of our mind and, with it, that self-awareness that tells us that, right now, we are alive. At the same time, we live in times of great welfare, where entire generations have grown without knowing fear or scarcity, threats or wars. We live in times of abundance of all, within the grand scheme of a global economy fuelled by oversupply of goods, services entertainment and distractions of all kind. Our daily lifestyle offers a long list of menus to choose from. Options and alternatives are infinite. We have developed a “drop down menu” syndrome, where we want every possible version of everything. Now. All of this choice, around us, subtly instigates the thought that, why not, we should be able to devise and craft our life as it better suits us. We should and we could, right? Life comes in infinite forms and options, and we are all under the impression that we should be able to select and choose. Images and content delivered to our screens in megabytes and terabytes illustrate this abundance of different kinds of existences. The choice of where to live is a defining one, changing the entire ecosystem around us and us with it. Where should we live? Better, where should we live, for now? How does it feel to live in Berlin or Manchester? In Milan or an Austrian village, New York or Les Moines? The exponential growth of easy access to every corner of the globe, coupled with the glossy narration of megacities and mobility is forging new generations with a well-pronounced propensity to shift around, changing city and jobs. A transient, globalised, urban crowd for which roots and stability could be a stifling option is emerging. Lured by dazzling colourful tech offices with free canteens, in the various hotspots around the globe, they go. Move, shift, adjust. Co-house. Co-work. Use Car sharing services and most importantly, be ready to change and move. Each move, secures a new point of view; each town new experiences. Each new ecosystem, represents the opportunity of a different lifestyle, a different life, in fact. Here the meeting point between two dimensions. On one side, the unspeakable, unpronounceable angst for our finiteness. The corrosive (but silent) awareness of our limited time on this earth, that propels us towards an exciting as much as poignant thrust for new discoveries. The FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) has not been invented with the digital age. It comes ingrained in our psyche, and all the great explorers must have been seriously affected by it. Our species wakes up every morning with more questions that it can answer. Travelling is our way of going around looking for some of these answers. Or, at least, help us to better define the questions.

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On the other side, the impression that one life in this life is just not enough any longer. There should be a way of experimenting with different lives and lifestyles. Across different cultures, ecosystems and social relationships. There should be a way of experimenting with our lives like gloves that one puts on, testing the feeling and then trying the next one. There should be a way of interpreting alternative versions of myself, possibly in a different place, where I can be slightly different or a lot different, that the previous myself. Such an opportunity does exist, indeed, and it is as good as it can get. It is a simulation called “Holiday”. A warp in time and space where we allow ourselves to feel different sensations, see different landscapes, experiment with other interpretations of oneself. Our innumerable journeys, be they a sumptuous sabbatical year, conventional holidays or short-breaks, are repeated simulations of possible other interpretations of our life. At the same time, the journey, in all its formats, is a moving metaphor of our own bigger yet painfully short, terrestrial journey. We all share an innate instinct to travel and push the boundaries of our comfort because, quintessentially, we are travelling around ourselves, within our imagination. Even simply laying on a beach refusing, for some time, to be productive is a way to see things from a different viewpoint. A holiday is a warp in space and time. Entirely yours. That is why Travel and Tourism industry will keep growing to phenomenal statistics. And that is why travel and tourism is an industry so charged with anticipation, expectations and why it so intensely socially and digitally communicated. What’s more compelling than this, a wonderland of experimental lives in parallel universes?

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Universal Truth ♯ 1 Our travelling mirrors the metaphor of our terrestrial journey.

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Universal Truth ♯ 2 The multiplicity of our travels allows us to simulate parallel lives in alternative worlds impersonating different versions of oneself.

References

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References Online Publications: Organisation Site UNWTO, E-library, https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/jul/01/global-tourism-hits-recordhighs-but-who-goes-where-on-holiday?utm_term= RWRpdG9yaWFsX0d1YXJkaWFuVG9kYXlVS19XZWVrZGF5cy0xOTA3MDI%3D&utm_ source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GuardianTodayUK&CMP=GTUK_email. UNWTO, E-library, Baseline Report on the integration of sustainable consumption and production patterns into Tourism Policies, June 2019 Available: https://www.e-unwto.org/doi/book/10. 18111/9789284420605.

Books and Chapters Book, authored R. Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, 1976, 1989

Chapter 3

Megatrends, Macro-Trends, Trends and Fads: Jargon Explained

Abstract We categorise and describe the family of “trends” in their meaning, features and characteristics: what renders a “fad” such and a “megatrend” a “megatrend”. Examples are supplied.
















Keywords Fads Trends Macro trends Megatrends Counter trends Zeitgeist trends

With the extraordinary acceleration of all things innovation, our societies are overdosing on adrenalin with the effort of anticipating the future and avoid being left behind by events. Companies and businesses of all types challenge themselves on a daily basis to stretch their “Horizon Scanning” attempts and keep ahead of the game. These efforts are aimed at intercepting opportunities that may present themselves overnight as well as category killers that, equally, may emerge at the same speed, making their business irrelevant and obsolete. Futures literacy is set to become an essential skill within the education industry. Stability has given way to the triumphant narrative of disruptive transformations, trans mutating the once negative connotation of the word “disruptive” to the hero hallmark of our time. The Markets, gluttons for Unicorns, high potential start-ups that, by receiving phenomenal rounds of funding, can be scaled up and made fit to conquer the entire global market within 3 to 5 years from inception, scan the landscape to secure the next global win. And it’s a clash of Titans, where only one will survive. Our times are of extreme Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity: a VUCA context, an acronym invented by the American Military after the dismantling of the Berlin Wall (1989) shortly after followed by the dissolution of the U.S. S.R. (1991). This term is now used in Futures Studies environment as well as well informed management and academic ones, to summarize the sheer complexity of our reality.

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 V. Boschetto Doorly, Megatrends Defining the Future of Tourism, Anticipation Science 6, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48626-6_3

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Those events marked the end of a known and organized world, divided by ideologies and economic models. In that world, things had their place; evolutions and innovations unfolded organically from the ecosystem’s principles and within each ecosystem’s market. On our side of the story, the capitalistic model based on primary, secondary and tertiary sectors, that had delivered sixty years of unprecedented growth, with increases in per-capita productivity closely mirrored by similar increases in labour remuneration, (this meaning that wealth was not only created in great scale, but also distributed across society), was surpassed by a new economic model. This new model is based on monetary policies that inject volumes of liquidity into the stock markets, thus asserting the supremacy of financial sector over any other. Free from constraints and, it appears, political control, a separate world of high frequency bidding and unlimited availability of self-multiplying resources, the financial system spread their control over state policies and countries’ affairs. Within the two first decades of the Noughties, the total value of global financial assets has gone from $23 trillion in 1990 to $175 trillion, now standing at twice the total value of the global GDP (zerohedge.com 2019). We will see later on how this affected and will continue to affect the Travel & Tourism industry. On the other hand, the invention of World Wide Web has exploded communications and connections, wrapping the globe in a tightly knitted network that leaves no geographical point untouched. Everything goes fast. So fast indeed, that there is little space for slow and steady organic growth of companies and long lifecycles of products and trends. Lifecycles are shorter and shorter. Innovation and ideas are hurled across the world in a nanosecond, leapfrogging from New York to Patagonia, from Hong Kong to Goteborg. One wins a big hand, or looses big style. Companies and products are created, launched, expanded, merged, acquired, demolished and terminated in a turmoil of events that would make Schumpeter, theorist of “Creative Destruction”, rivet with joy. Younger readers will have no recollection of what it was life before: a much calmer ecosystem, where the line of sight was reasonably clear. Companies were founded and built riches on one idea, asserting and controlling a market place that was known, limited, controlled. Organic growth is now, a thing of the past. The competition can sprout overnight on the other side of the world and deliver goods and services to your doorstep through Amazon the following day. Either one can stand up on a global scene or one is not at the races. In this volatile and uber-competitive context, the Travel, Tourism & Hospitality industry stands over a great advantage: heritage sites, beautiful sceneries and landmarks cannot be moved; they can not be transplanted; they can not be challenged by competing products being minted elsewhere and delivered to your target market by courier.

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Tourism and Hospitality rely on un-movable capital assets such as heritage sites or unique natural landscapes, that only require to be well managed, protected and appropriately communicated. This represents a phenomenal advantage for all local communities involved. However our industry, like any other, is exposed to the telluric changes underway throughout the supply chain. Hence we join in the effort to hold the gas lamp higher and shed light over the road ahead. In this unsettled context an entire new vocabulary that strives to capture the ever-moving phenomena and manifestations, is being coined and proposed by Futures Studies academics and practitioners, swiftly adopted by the media, not without some degree of confusion. The “Trends” and “Trending” family, in particular, offers a new range of tools to help make sense and organise the emerging or about to emerge epiphenomena. Trends are structured and categorised by size, scale, impact and duration. We loosely use the many variations to indicate emerging or future trends: mega, macro, counter trends, fads and so on. Let’s organize their meanings in orderly fashion, starting with the most volatile: Fads. Fads are the most ephemeral manifestation of trends. Typically showing up in the realms of fashion and grooming styles, health and dieting, music, toys and dance, language jargon etc. fads are short-lived. Lasting a few months, a season, maybe a year. They emerge within a certain peer group, and develop like wildfires, spiralling from zero to widespread craze within weeks. They come with some degree of excitement and get shared enthusiastically. They are often used as a recognition code amongst communities or age group, a sort of self-validation of belonging to a certain environment and to be in the know. You will recognize a fad, for example, joining a certain work environment in a city, where a certain locution, or catchword gets enthusiastically peppered into conversations, with a tongue-in-cheek twist. The quinoa seeds may enjoy a sudden popularity across health shops and then supermarket shelves, hurled from the realm of unknown ancient grains to the must-have healthy food of the moment. Next year it will the turn of Emmer or Broom-Corn, precipitating the operators in the sector to a cut throat competition to deliver the desired item with the right packaging at the right price in the right timeframe. At some stage, somewhere in the urban landscape, someone decided that brown red and blonde just weren’t sufficient colours for our hairstyles and we all rushed to buy a purple shade. Purple streaks emerged in a stadium-hola like sequence across countries and cities, sprinkling this fairy tale touch across teenagers, mature females and even grandmas. Fads happen fast, develop furiously, disappear suddenly, as if a concerted, scientifically timed “retreat” call had been delivered subliminally to all involved.

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Never to be mentioned again. Often fads emerge and disappear, having failed to reach popularity. In tourism, that seemed the case with the “tornado tourism”, fast abandoned for obvious reasons. Like Fads, Trends emerge from specific industries or consumers groups, or geographical locations. However, they can be distinguished from Fads for more than one reason. Their lifespan cycle is longer, lasting at least a year and typically 2–3 years. They tend to be adopted by a vaster segment of the market and they involve larger numbers of consumers. They are more stable in their manifestations and they fade out in an orderly manner instead of abruptly disappearing overnight. They manifest in all sectors of Fast Moving Consumers Goods (FMCG), beyond the pinnacles of evanescent expressions of fashion, grooming, health, dieting etc. Often, a trend aggregates more than one expression within itself, comprising under its hat, several Fads that mushroom and disappear. Hence, Trends offer commercial traction to more than one product. For example, our fad of Quinoa seeds inscribes itself in the vaster trend of “ancient grains revival” that rediscovers cultivations of lesser yield but higher nutritional qualities. Within this trend, it will be one year the Chia seeds, another year Spelt and Buckwheat but all still feeding into the trend of Ancient Grains. Sometime trends may carry a subliminal-unconscious message with it. For example, in the recent past we have witnessed the trend of millennial male beards. It started in western urban hotspots, involved a very vast segment of the 25 to 25 year old adults males. It promoted sales of corollary products, from beard grooming, to new elemental and remotely rough packaging, relaxed dress codes, braces and colourful socks. It spread across Europe and North America with determined calm and consistent speed. Urban meeting points and offices looked as if they had been turned into breweries. It lasted for 3–4 years. It may have carried a subliminal and unconscious push back message from young males against the macro-trend of ungenderness, where gender specifics features are blurred in the vision of a looser society where sexual identities are to be considered more fluid. In TT&H industry we witness many and multiple trends: solo travelling, slow travelling, couples intrepid travel, bleisure (business trips extended and turned leisure) and so on and so forth. Macro Trends are, as the name suggests, not only vaster trends, lasting longer time, impacting on larger number of consumers, but they come with two typical attributes: they involve more than one industry at a time, and they point to a deeply changed-changing-or about to change sentiment amongst people’s mind-sets. Macro trends often reveal, before academic studies, how people’s value sets and opinions evolve through time. Gender Equality and Fairness for example, emerged as a common feeling/ request from the younger segment of the population, for a society where gender and sexual orientation do not define any longer, in any way, how society deals with us. It came to life with Millennials and even more with Generation Z. It manifested itself in fashion as well as in the overhaul of thousands of administrative forms, in privacy protection and digital settings options. It propelled age defining legislation

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changes as well as a rejuvenated energy around female-male equality in pay treatment and representation at all levels. Going back to our Quinoa seed, which is a Fad belonging to the Trend of Ancient Grains, the Trend of Ancient Grains belongs to the Macro trend of “Healthy food”. A very large and long lasting Macro trend, sweeping all western societies, and that manifests itself into innumerable trends and fads: from avocadoes to juicing, from vegetarianism (Trend) to organic foods. The Macro trend of Healthy Food comes with the evolution of our societies into discerning, informed and attentive ones, yet challenged by increasing obesity and by work lifestyles that chain most of us to desks and computers for entire days. All healthy foods macro trends express not only a craving for healthy living, imposing an exacting control over our food, but, subliminally, also a tentative attempt to reconcile our lost souls to land and nature, local produce and more bodily-appropriate activities and lifestyles. In TT&H possibly the most relevant macro-trend of today is the rise of eco-travelling: an all encompassing change in mind set that will start asking questions about low-footprint travels, sustainable transport, low plastics impact and no-rubbish left behind. This macro-trend is just cropping up as a generic sentiment, but will most likely soar to a much more pronounced demand that will put our industry under a 360° scrutiny. at This macro trend heralds an age where climate change will become a defining feature and much discussed topic. Megatrends are of a substantially different nature from all of the above. To explain these well, we need to introduce the differentiation between Forecast and Foresight. By Forecast, we intend a projection on future facts, scenario or state of things that we can draw as a natural, mechanical, numerical consequence of the current state of things. For example, if an airplane is flying, on schedule, with 143 passengers on board we can reasonably forecast that it will land on time, and will disembark 143 passengers. If we look at the population makeup of a certain country in a certain year, we will be able to identify how many people belong to the, say, 60–75 age group. Applying a statistical average of mortality and another one of immigrants belonging to the same age band, we will be able to forecast with a high degree of precision, how many people will belong to the next above age group in the following decade. Forecasting is close to scientific; it does not apply personal intuition and qualitative observations to the work. Foresight, instead, moves from qualitative observations on phenomena and epiphenomena as well as quantitative. It aggregates horizon scanning elements, fact, information, trends; it draws from all disciplines and science, and aggregates all these elements to envision possible scenarios. Foresight uses intuition and farsightedness. Foresight pushes the vision beyond the unfolding of numerical data; it depicts possible futures describing their possible attributes. It is often delivered in the form of envisioning, a narration, a tale of what the future could look like.

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Megatrends are closer to the forecast realm than any other of the family of trends. They describe macro phenomena that, literally, shape the very foundations of our societies, at global level. A megatrend is not a hypothesis up for debate, a trend that will pass. A megatrend indicates the very overarching backbone around which our economies, societies and collective global community clot. A megatrend is here to stay and defines the structure ahead for the next couple of decades and beyond. Climate change is a megatrend. Population aging in Europe is a megatrend. Globalisation and Financial Capitalism are megatrends. The Technological evolution-revolution is another one. De-Globalization is the last megatrend we will cover in this book. Megatrends impact on our societies at every level and on every industry. Megatrends sweep the globe from one corner to the other. Megatrends shape our present and our future. They are here to stay and we can describe their defining features and evolution with confidence. Around their overarching structure all the rest is shaped and takes shape. For example, the aging population in Europe is a well established megatrend. It involves a 500 million people continent, Europe, impacting all levels and orders of society, from health care to housing, from schools to public finance, from FMCG market to tourism. It is not stopping, and it can be reversed with great difficulty, it will carry a multiple amount of consequences for decades to come. Applying all of the above to the Travel and Tourism Industry, we will, for example, define the Globalization megatrend that spurred T&T Mass Movements, with its inevitable consequence of over-tourism within popular 1st tier destinations by now reaching the point of collapse. This megatrend is likely to originate a symmetrically opposite macro-trend (a counter-trend) against the pitfalls of over-tourism and uncontrolled mass movements, a sort of rebellion to the Disneyland-ification of popular spots. Shunning uncomfortably crowed spots, diverting attention and holiday time to 2nd tier destinations, small provincial towns (Borghi, Bourg, Burg). We will examine, in the last chapter, how minor destinations will have their opportunity to shine as valid and vivid with authenticity alternatives to the popular celebrities destinations. Finally, a certain event, happening or motive, may determine a sudden rise to fame of one particular type of village, initiating a short lived cycle of popularity (Fad). To conclude and complete our taxonomy of the trends family, a brief but notable mention, must be dedicated to the last two definitions belonging to the Countertrends and Zeitgeist trends.

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Countertrends are Trends (of all size, scale and dimension) that arise as a counter-posing reaction to a previous Trend, Macro Trend or Megatrend. We choose our opinions and adopt behaviours not only in favour of something, but also in open opposition with something. Countertrends emerge and rise with the same strength, intensity and scale as the rest of the family, except that their identity can be recognized as a clear reaction, contraposition to a previous phenomenon, trend or global mainstream narrative. Any level of the trends family (megatrends, macro trends, trends and fads) can also be a counter trend. For example, after decades of unrestrained Globalization (Megatrend) we are now entering in an era of De-Globalization (Counter Megatrend) that takes multiple forms in trends and manifestations in the political arena and not only. A strong movement of opinion against unbridled neo-liberal approach to economics, where financial markets have been left free to assert their game over the rest of society. We can expect a visible thrust towards fragmentation of what once commanded unity, a retrieval of local identities; a multiple emersion of regional, multiples and multiplying centres of gravity. We must prepare for a multipolar world. Counter trends are fascinating. We will see later on some counter trends unfolding in Tourism. Zeitgeist trend is, instead, an eloquent definition with a philosophical twist. It refers to trends that, albeit not necessarily vast and numerically strong in their manifestations, capture the very essence of a time. The German word, indeed, stands for “the spirit of the time”. For example, in South Korea a new form of retreat tourism is appearing: fake prisons. In an attempt to detox from digital and screen addiction, stressed South Koreans pay to be “imprisoned”, after having surrendered cell phones. Zeitgeist trends are trends particularly emblematic of a time and an age. They condense a nexus point in the evolution of a society and represent it with a trend snapshot. Fads, Trends, Macro Trends, Megatrends and Counter Trends are useful tools to make sense of the soaring mass of data, observations and content. We all need to cope with volumes of information; it is a requirement of our times that cannot be avoided. Futures Studies, with its toolbox and vocabulary, is refreshingly apt to interpret the complex reality and unfold it towards all possible scenarios.

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Only aggregated information can become “Intelligence”. To remain” intelligent” beings, capable of taming the volumes of information constantly made available to us, we need to learn to discriminate and organize content. We will soon realize that most of it, is just irrelevant white noise. This book focuses on the megatrends that define the future of Travel, Tourism and Hospitality industry. As mentioned, megatrends are profound changes that are so deeply ingrained in the overall structural evolution of the world that deflecting them would be implausible (Poli 2019). The megatrends that we focus on are of particular relevance for our industry as they impact on how, where and when we carry out our holidaymaking activities. Through years of observations on how the industry shapes up, reacts and accommodate change, we are capable of drawing useful conclusions on the likely “trends” that stem out of the megatrends. The methodology of constant “horizon scanning”, here used, implies the spotting of emerging consumers demands as well as landscape modifications, both in terms of opportunities and constraints. As industry professionals, we should adopt such a method, to the point of it becoming integral part of routine activities. Horizon scanning entails a 360° view scrutiny across political, economic, societal dimensions to identify changes and novelty modifications that can play a role in the unfolding of the future. This activity should be constant, and not intermittent. Should draw from all sources, written, oral, academic and journalistic disregarding no stimuli. Personal and anecdotal observation can also supply precious insights, especially if conducted from the front line of the business, where the magma of consumers behaviors first manifests itself. The book draws from a wide and constant horizon scanning in the industry, to place the megatrends that will beat the drum and rhythm of our performance in the next decade and beyond into the spotlight, supplying at the same time, a long-range view point to the professionals, business owners, managers and students of Travel Tourism and Hospitality industry. As futurists, we insistently invite all stakeholders, private and public, from the industry front line ranks as well as the policymakers responsible to create law frames, to get engaged with the future. Acquire the methodologies to study it, learn to talk with it and extract information. Assemble scenarios and detail them into vivid narrations. Imagine what has not been imagined yet, as future will happen and will surprise us.

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This book also wants to celebrate an industry that protects our lands, heritage and cultural specifics. An industry that deserves a higher status and needs to acquire new management methodologies; this work is meant to be a contribution in this direction.

Reference Books and Chapters Book, authored R. Poli Lavorare con il futuro—Egea, 2019.

Chapter 4

The Technological Revolution Impacting on Travel Tourism and Hospitality Industry

Abstract Technology and its dazzling innovations not only change how we travel but also the very notion of travel and tourism itself. The emergence of an all-knowing and omni-present digital cloud will modify all of the stages of our travelling and holidaying: from the research phase to the booking, from the fruition to the socialisation. New types of holidays will emerge, new ways of engaging with local reality will gain traction, potentially revolutionising the very essence and purpose of the experience.







Keywords Technology and tourism Holiday anticipation New types of holidays Mediated reality Augmented reality Virtual reality in tourism Technology in holiday booking Role of reservation centers Video production in tourism I.O.T. in tourism Customisation in travel and tourism Customer profiling social media in tourism FOMO JOMO. the future of travel and tourism Experiential tourism Tourism future











4.1




























Introduction: The Changing Nature of Tourism

We can most certainly spare a long introduction to convince the reader that technological innovation is a main driving force of our time and specifically, of our industry. Whatever number and statistics we choose to single out to describe the topic, they will be obsolete within six months, so tumultuous is the rate of innovation. Identifying one technology or specific device that we deem will be the winner of its category would be equally foolish with new entries, mergers and dissolutions that can affect any companies, even global blue chips, at any time. We will instead take a farsighted look at how technologies change the very essence of tourism, enabling experiences that would have been unthinkable, and putting a completely new spin to how we package and promote our destination or hospitality product.

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 V. Boschetto Doorly, Megatrends Defining the Future of Tourism, Anticipation Science 6, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48626-6_4

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The adoption of technologies, in their multiple and multiplying formats, will profoundly modify four steps of the supply-demand chain: the “Anticipation” phase, the “Booking & Logistics” the “Holiday Fruition” and the “Holiday Socialisation”. We enumerate them here, before eviscerating in the dedicated sections. In “Holiday Anticipation Trends: from Holiday Anticipation to Holiday PreExperiencing” (Sect. 4.2) we will examine how the new technologies will modify the anticipation phase of holidaying: – The production of CGC (Consumers Generated Content) will keep increasing in volumes and quality. Uploaded on the web, this forms an authoritative body of “references” much trusted by the customer in the phase of research & decision (peer-to-peer advice). Confronted with this spontaneous and infinite bulk of CGC, professional multi media and video production agencies will be challenged to up their game. Communicating tourism & hospitality content will become an artistic exercise, bringing multi media content to new heights. The quality and insightfulness of the narration element underscoring the content will play a strategic role; more refined and artistic, instigating Hollywood-like productions. – A plethora of technologies, mesmerising in quality and richness, will enable destinations and products to communicate themselves so effectively that the media content will, at some stage, even risk over exposing the product itself. If, already today, we marvel at companies that are still mute and invisible on the web, or display a sloppy presence, this gap will widen dramatically in the future, with companies who remain digital marketing illiterate doomed to oblivion. – The Ultimate Omni-channel: the fitting of urban contexts with blast speed 5G, coupled with the gradual rolling-out of Internet of Things (I.O.T.) will bring urban landscapes to a totally new dimension, unlocking ubiquitous touch points with the customers and creating the ultimate omni-channel for (marketing) communications. We will experience the birth of mixed retail concepts hosting Virtual Reality experiences, where we can mix socialization and holiday destination VR content. Holograms and animations, interactivity and real time content distribution will most likely become the norm. The distribution of tourism promotional content will spill over into the traditional communication channels we are currently using and granularly flood the most varied and unthinkable environments, engulfing private and public spaces. All the content served will be customised to levels unthinkable nowadays. – The holiday search journey (customer journey) will also change dramatically, the search funnel becoming anything but linear, with customers segments leapfrogging from one behaviour to another, from one touch point to the next one. The tasks will be carried out through voice assistance, not keyboard, modifying the speed of search and removing a good deal of “toil” element to the opinion

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formation. The cloud, by now all-knowing and knowing-all-about-us, will materialise with light and simple devices, mostly wearable, that will be activated by voice search and satisfy any given request. “Holiday Booking Patterns and Logistics: the “Anytime-Anywhere-Holiday” (Sect. 4.3) investigates: – Through a mobile-first (or “wearable-first”, as hard medium evolve into lighter and simpler all the time), our customers will become increasingly demanding and expect a back-to-back, seamless purchase experience integrated with the fruition itself. Integration of all holiday elements in the one-stop booking will, indeed, be the imperative effort for the bookings provider giants for the next decade. The massive leap from offering accommodation only to that of adding all the items of the experience including public or private transports, restaurant bookings and local experiences, is the big target mission ahead for the digital supply chain. – An economy of impatience will develop, where both delays and glitches are unforgivingly sanctioned by the clients with “abandon cart”. The customer journey to purchase will have to be fast, flawless and, most importantly, customized. It’s time to do your work with the data management. – As travelling becomes a routine lifestyle and holidaying looses its connotation of fixed calendar date with designated destination, we will see the rise of a new, surprising movement pattern, what I call “Anywhere-Anytime Holiday”. In this interpretation, travels and holidays are booked without a specific date or place in mind, but simply logging in and shopping for whatever rock bottom price from airlines or digital accommodation provider. This will represent a conceptual evolution of the Last Minute purchase, where the openness’s to suggestions is now total. Price yielding will become widely adopted, most likely led by Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) software bidding. The supply chain f tourism will have to re-organise to harness the opportunity of driving the impulse buying. “Holiday Fruition: Mediated, Augmented, Seamless: Never Lost, Never Bored” (Sect. 4.4) deals with the following topics: – Holiday Fruition will be incessantly led by our tour guide, mentor, restaurant finder, map navigator: the mobile phone/or the wearables. For the foreseeable future the fruition of reality through the interposing medium will keep growing, mirroring the global increase of connectivity as well as mobile phone penetration. – Augmented reality and mixed reality will lead the way of mobile-led fruition of the holiday, and Location Marketing will soar in importance in our marketing strategies. Augmented reality glasses are poised to perform well in the market, but the hard—medium devices will keep evolving and experimenting with many formats, most likely, lighter in design.

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On the other hand, your “access to the web” and to your virtual butler, now limited to the desktop, tablet or smartphone, will multiply to a variety of support devices. Besides routinely engaging with the virtual assistant at home, we may find ourselves talking into our necklace or a smart fabric. – Within the physical reality of travel destinations, technologies peppered around and embedded in urban contexts, will not only bring heritage to life, but will literally unlock a monumental amount of topics and items to optimise fruition. Topics and items that would have not be conventionally categorized, up to then, as “touristic content”. They will now become such. Tourism will not just happen inside museums but on the streets. Fruition finally open to all and declassified. – A game changer is also a looming question mark over our industry: the abatement of language barriers thanks to technology activated instant translation. That would (and will) be a paradigm shift with far reaching consequences. Finally, Socialization of Holiday Experience: from FOMO to JOMO and Back (Sect. 4.5) will analyse the mutating nature of Social Media implications for the industry: – Travel and holidays is inherently a social experience and has always been. Sharing and passing information has evolved from photo-album showing to Social Media sharing. Travels & Holidays represent the most actively socialized items on the web. The billions of images, videos, snippets, posts and comments feed the infinite cloud of content creating a sort of tourism collective live encyclopaedia that acts as on open source global content. – On the other hand, to be part of the vast digital game, we are required to constantly attend to our virtual avatar, embodying a very successful and cheerful version of our personas. Always on, always connected and up-to-date, the Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) is causing a growing degree of strife also amongst the young ones taking a toll that, most likely, will soon make the pendulum sway in the opposite direction. From FOMO to JOMO (Joy of Missing Out) intentionally embracing social-media –free experiences and real “me” time recovery. Let’s examine all in more detail.

4.2

Holiday Anticipation Trends: From Holiday Anticipation to Holiday Pre-experiencing

A journey or a holiday begins well before its due departure date. On average, a European consumer engages in about 38 researches on the web before committing to a booking (Expedia Traveller Attribution Study 2015) a process that Oliver Heckmann, Google Travel Vice President, appropriately defines “travel snacking”.

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This “travel snacking” unites the necessity of information seeking with the pleasure of anticipating the getaway; each dip into the web a sort of appetizer of the travel to come. The big game for tourism digital marketing consists, right now, in delivering relevant content, in relevant and appropriate touch points, when the opportunity window of the customers’ attention is open, beating the competition in quality, engagement and, ultimately achieving conversion to sales. This complex and technical-heavy exercise is what the digital marketers call S.E.M. (Search Engine Marketing); S.E.O. (Search Engine Optimisation) being part of it. Multifaceted with ever changing toolbox of technicalities, its implementation has long ago become the prerogative of tech-savvy agencies, although the strategic thinking behind it should at all times remain in the hands of the company’s management. From the prospective customer’s viewpoint, the anticipation phase includes imagining, researching, comparing, evaluating and finally, making the purchase commitment. The anticipation phase is the lengthy and vast space where marketing activities find their only influencing chance on the purchase funnel and ultimate decision. Hence, most analytics, behaviour analysis and intelligence gathering focus on it, as well as the majority of marketing budget spend gets allocated to it in a bid to cover all relevant touch points with the best possible propositions. What we see today is a very labour intensive digital machine, that requires both sharp strategic marketing intelligence and inputs from the side of the supply chain, destinations and operators alike, as well as painstaking scouting qualities from the consumers side, the demand chain. The latter, to carry out a great deal of spade work to identify a luring proposition amongst a magnitude of alternatives. Holidays are an expensive exercise and, unlike other products or services, there is no “return policy”. Hence a great deal of attention is dedicated to the research phase and the decision that ensues. But the future of Anticipation is a very different one: on the supply-chain we will evolve from a machine gun hurling ads in all directions (multichannel, multi environments), often stalking customers with useless re-marketing strategies, to a much more sophisticated marketing architecture, most likely Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) led. For one, the type and intensity of targeting will sharpen its accuracy, forcibly diminishing the quantity of clutter and non-relevant communications. Big data, aptly elaborated by A.I. operated software, will micro identify relevant target pools to a degree of accuracy yet unknown. Social Media, a major harvesting field for these, will also mature towards a more structured landscape, with micro and not so micro communities defined by interests and allegiances. With 3.5 billion people actively engaged in social media, the market at digital reach is as useless as much as immense if left unfiltered. “Niche communities” are emerging on the web, recognisable by “artificial walls” of their interests and mind-sets, purchase style and motives. Niche communities will help identify appropriate and selective distribution channels that will allow a great deal of clutter to gradually disappear.

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Secondly, the content of communications disseminated will escalate to a truly artistic, meaningful quality. As the web gets constantly fed with millions of posts, imagery and videos on sites and destinations, generating a landmass of CGC that commands an authoritative grip on fellow holidaymakers, the professional layer of multi media producers will necessarily have to up their game, offering to the supply chain of TT&H a substantially different product. Interpretation, narration and artistic execution of content will have to be stand out, striking a cord with the prospective customer. Overall, the marketing machine will be faced with the blatant ineffectiveness of ill-conceived and poorly put together marketing material, by now more irrelevant than ever, given the magnitude of CGC out there. The professional content suppliers will necessarily mature, opting for lighter touch but purposeful strategies. The multiplication of possible technical media to choose from, from virtual reality to augmented reality, immersive experiences, holograms and incrementally interactive and responsive web will concur in sprinting the content production agencies to a breath taking evolution towards quality. However, whilst the environment will become even more technically heavy, further widening the communication gap between the client (companies) and the agencies, the human-centric angle in media production will scoop the prize. Tourism is essentially made of story telling; the medium of choice remains silent until imagination and interpretation give it the breath of life. The winners of the anticipation game, within the supply chain, will be those capable of harnessing the power of new technologies without surrendering cognitive control over them. The deepest drivers of human behaviour (and purchases) remain the universal truths of our species: emotions, empathy, curiosity, vanity and the eternal quest for more. The purchase of a product is never confined to the fulfilment of simple tangible needs. More than ever, in the post-scarcity society, the purchase of a product is meant to fulfil deep drives and urges that transcend the mere face value of the product itself. The quest for beauty, in all its forms, and inspiring experiences will remain insatiable. Video and content production will need to produce the most exquisite and authentic results to be enjoyed by the public; content that talks to the deep insights and deeply resonates with the customer’s imagination. We can envisage a new cinematic industry being born, apt to creating and distributing creative and/or high quality content on destinations and brands. Marketing Directors will need to cover a more intense and meaningful role in interpreting the very essence of the land or brand they work for, to brief the content production agency. The best and most authentic narration, will earn the attention of

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the customer. We do not need to rely on sensationalistic stunts to go viral, but we need to focus on creating a true selection of beautifully produced content. On the demand chain, the consumer will be relieved of self-driven tiring research and evolved to the point where relevant content will instead reach the user organically and in the most varied environments. As technological advancements are determined to relieve us from all toil, a sure “achievable” is the relief from the lengthy research of holidays and travel destinations that we would be likely to enjoy. The customers’ profiling will improve its accuracy in strides, including all aspects and aggregating all steams of information. Tailgated in each and every interaction with the web, watched in every physical move we take in physical reality, monitored in each monetary transaction we make, the body of information on each citizen will reach astounding detail and precision. Information will be increasingly converging to form a laser sharp profiling on each person. After which, one’s desires will be served before they are even conceived. The convenience of receiving “predictive suggestions” that have already deforested the jungle of alternatives in the magnitude of the market place will most likely beat concerns over privacy. Suggestions, relevant information, offers and commercial propositions will reach us seamlessly from the “interaction point” in our household (Alexa or the like of; the interactive mirror in the bathroom, or the touch button on the fridge). They will flow into our mobile or wearable (watch, necklace or glasses) as we are on the move. They will offer captivating video-moments, perfectly tailored to our tastes and interests, in the VR fitted café’ at the corner where we stop every morning, and so on and so forth. Whenever we want to initiate a search, the interaction with the all-knowing web will take place less and less through keyboards and more and more by voice assistant. Voice led search is gaining traction at breakneck speed, advancing in correlation with the voice recognition technology. Speech recognition was poised to develop much more slowly. Indeed it’s progressing nicely, and has the full, enthusiastic approval of younger poeple. Voice recognition is with us to stay. Voice recognition allows digital assistants such as Siri, Cortana or Google Assistant to engage with us in natural language. With the tech giants Amazon and Google vying to take the lead within this commercial perimeter, we can rest assured the progress is guaranteed as a result, if not yet in its consistency. One of the main advantages of voice recognition is speed. We can utter an average of 150 words per minute whereas we can only type 60. Although we can agree that this technology is still in its infancy and has an intricate set of obstacles to suss out such as pitch fluctuations, inflexions, local accents and semantic, we have no doubts that the improvements will be exponential and will soon surprise everyone.

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Interacting with machines in “natural language” will be the way of choice; mainstream and normal. We define “natural language interaction” as a mode of interacting between human and machine where the human does not need to adjust and simplify their speaking flow to accommodate the machine understanding. As of today, 1 in 3 travellers engaging in holiday search are interested in using digital assistants to support them in the research and/or booking (Google Phocuswright Travel Study 2017). The majority of people desire a fast service that can only be achieved through personalised search that, in turn, can only be delivered having acquired personal data and preferences. 57% of USA travellers want brands to have and manage their data in order to deliver tailored offer;, 36% of travellers would be prepared to pay extra for a brand that offers information and a trip experience tailored-made based on their previous personal preferences, captured through data analytics. (Google Travel Statistics, how the travel industry is shifting to assistance, 2017) Convenience beats privacy. The opportunity of being relieved from the toil of explaining yourself to the infinite, overwhelming amount of offers and opportunities is too enticing for the vast majority of the public. “Know-me” is the outcry that comes loud and clear from the customers’ base, and: “use what you know about me to reciprocal advantage”. The virtual assistant will carry out the research on our behalf, suggesting lists of places of interest and best travel combinations. The content will not be simply delivered on a 2D screen but projected on walls or with 3D technology that will make the imagery and videos as realistic and immersive as possible. Tutorials, music and narrative will deliver information in an engaging and artistic fashion. Potential visitors will experience the destination in an organic and effortless manner, receiving a number of stimuli that will allow them to not only imagine the experience but to pre-experience it. The world of destinations and the competing Hospitality providers there contained, will have to start imagining a landscape of communications where their product experience does not begin with the customer’s arrival on site, but with the very first stage of the Holiday Anticipation Journey, now turned into a true, compelling, holistic preexperience.

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This will foster a new landscape of marketing communications where commercials and ads will less and less resemble to commercials and ads. More native, more relevant, more content rich; more informative than claim making, targeted and, therefore, welcome. Most importantly they will be elegantly produced and elegantly woven in the ubiquitous net of multiple touch points each person goes through every day. Seamlessly. Softly. Amongst others, Virtual Reality, evolved in the form of lighter headset devices, possibly absorbed into glasses or even contact lenses, will deploy its potential and, will disseminate tourism content in daily life occasions. For example, as the retail mix of our urban landscapes gets reinvented under the challenge of e-commerce, the city centres will evolve becoming socialization destinations. Experiences of all kinds will be cross-pollinated with traditional retailers. Tourism content will be distributed through Virtual reality Cafés, where one can meet friends, socialize, have a bite and step in VR tele-transporters with an immersive library of holiday destinations. Immersive experiences will also to some extent replace real-life travels. It may sound a hideous idea now, but think about situations that can benefit from a surrogate virtual experience: sites besieged by over tourism, or where the physical limits of the site itself do not allow more than a certain number of visitors in: these could benefit from setting up a satellite station with virtual representation of the actual site. Fragile, and often small, heritage sites, like a dolmen chamber, that could be replicated in its 3D dimensions and used by visitors as a surrogate experience, where the alternative is that of missing out completely. Think about people with impaired mobility, for which travelling is simply not an option. And again, think about education and academic purpose, where geographical and historic content could be delivered as an immersive experience. Within the context of rising concerns for climate change and climate crisis, (as we will examine in the final chapter on de-globalisation) the hypothesis of curtailing travel and tourism movements to curb carbon footprint is not a far fetched one. The propensity to replace a real-life experience with a surrogate virtual one seems to gain ground generation after generation. For example, in sports activities we are seeing the emergence of E-Sports, whose rise in popularity is clearly to the detriment of physical sports. Younger generations enthusiastically adopt these forms of entertainment as a natural extension of their always connected lifestyle. According to research, over 285 million US citizens engage in E-sports, and what is even more surprising, 40% of Millennials claim to to prefer E-Sports to real physical activity (C.I.F.S. Copenhagen Institute Future Studies 2017) New technologies not only multiply ways of communicating tourism content, but also mint from scratch new spaces and environments where your message will be received. The worlds that are being replicated and reinvented virtually are many, and potentially, each one of them could be a new market place to deliver tourism themed content.

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We see here how the meaning of “Omni channel” keeps expanding with every decade. This is an opportunity for our industry to sponsor the creation of new electronic E-gaming and E-sports to set the scene for a tourist destination. In one of my focus groups, I heard a participants claiming that through E-Gaming they have met and become friends with people they have never physically met, people that, they claim, they now know “intimately”. The memories of those e-games and their virtual context are stashed as real and vivid memories. Fast forward twenty years, we can imagine our days unfolding in highly connected contexts, where things interact amongst themselves and with individuals, where mobiles or wearable’s provide constant connection to the net; this allknowing, all-resolving, and all-reaching butler who knows his masters better than their close friends. We will interact by voice commands; we will receive mannered and timely reminders, alerts and suggestions. A world that glides on digital velvet: a quiet, remote global cloud powered by artificial Intelligence, serving as watchful Big Brother and incommensurably efficient P.A. Who, ultimately, will be the master and who the butler, it’s a defining line for us to decide.

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Universal Truth ♯ 3 In the post-scarcity society the quest for uniqueness and distinctiveness of places and the thirst for inspiring experiences will remain insatiable. Technologies will heighten this hunt, leaving no stone unturned, no place uncovered.

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Holiday Booking Patterns and Logistics: The “Anytime-Anywhere-Holiday”

In 2017 the number of searches conducted from a mobile device surpassed those from desktops. From the point of view of the hospitality providers, this implies three strategic imperatives. Make sure that your website is mobile adaptive, in fact, start building your site with a “mobile first” approach. Structure the mobile version in a way that allows the top three items of the research to be immediately visible and actionable as the mobile screen is smaller than a desktop. Get the reservation team at the call centre ready. Yes, the old, unassuming call centre, will keep playing a very relevant role in the future of hospitality. Google Hotel Finder, so efficiently singling out the basic information of the accommodation of choice, displays the telephone call icon in the maximum visibility position, so clear and convenient, thus inevitably driving inbound calls rolling in. The call centre and reservation team is, in my experience, the most overlooked element in the hospitality industry. Carrying out a tiresome and repetitive job, these teams often convert up to 50% of the hotel bookings. Which means they convert 50% of our hospitality sales revenue. If one considers how much small improvements in this team could deliver with some TLC, training, good use of analytics, upselling skillsets, the low hanging fruit for the company is evident. And yet the reservation team is often overlooked, paid at minimum salary and, not infrequently, left to themselves. As strange as it may sound, the future of the booking process still runs through this neural infrastructure, more so with the imperious advent of mobile search, voice search and overall familiarity of travelling. Within a decade, the majority of searches will be initiated by interacting in natural language with our devices. Accommodation booking will ensue in the same manner, instructing the AI Assistant of choice, Google Assistant for example, to “call” the hotel of choice. Et voila, within seconds we leap from dealing with an Artificial Intelligence to a traditional man-operated call centre, where human beings sitting in cubicles and wearing headsets, will deal with us to carry out our booking; from the XXI century, to the previous one. Except that, behind the amiable voice of the local staff, a full-blown data analytics system will be at work, supplying real time information on the customer calling, well beyond what we are familiar with today. Lifted all remaining privacy meagre protection (and concerns) the customers name will come equipped with all customers preferences, likes, dislikes, habits and purchase history. An accurate profiling, aggregating data from all sources, served orderly within a screenshot for the sales agent to use. The entire booking experience will be seamless, fast and, crucially, customised. The span of time we are prepared to allocate to waiting times is inversely

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proportional to the increasing memory of the microchip: the former approaching zero, the latter infinity. With a relevant generational leap marked by Millennial and Gen Z, the economy of impatience is well underway. We call the “economy of impatience” the attitude Of consumers, groomed by globalisation and technology, to expect each and every product or service to be available immediately, in the desired form and shape, delivered seamlessly and fast. We are not prepared to walk to the product. The product must come to us. “Waiting time” will be a thing of the past, and regarded as inefficient and unacceptable. Technology and e-commerce have brought the entire world of products and services to our doorsteps. We expect to open the doors of the magic closet of the Internet and find an infinite selection of objects to fulfil all our desires. Desires that are consumed and surpassed with the very act of ordering, hitting the payment button, only to make room for new ones the moment later. We will not settle for whatever product is physically available, right now, in our brick and mortar vicinity. We will proceed to order a similar, but incommensurably better one, in our views, as it has exactly the shade of colour we had imagined; of course, available on line. Only, it has to be shipped from the other side of the world, tragically contributing to the traffic of 60,000 circa cargo containers that cruise the oceans every year, with dire impact on the Co2 emissions. For the near future, the temptation of the economy of impatience will be in full swing. For the medium-term future, however, this may take an abrupt and unexpected turn with the watershed brought about by climate change. We will examine this point in a further chapter. The economy of impatience ticks on the notion of “time” and “waiting time”, which differs greatly amongst countries, cultures and generations. An interesting global survey carried out by US fund giant Legg Mason that shows a shrinking time-span as attached to the notion of “long-term”. The study analysed the attitude towards “time” and “patience” of wealthy Millennials globally. When asked the definition of “long term” 35% defined it as two years or less, and another 26% 2–5 years. For older generations, “long-term” would mean 10 or 20 years. When it comes to diverse national perceptions, the map gets colourful. Where to over 40 Swiss investors “long term” means 10–20 years, the same concept, when presented to Chinese investors, means “less than 5 years”. Chinese males also emerge as the group with the most aggressive attitude when it comes to investing, with the over 40 affluent class showing the highest risk tolerance of any other national group and the highest expectations.

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Amongst the most conservative and patient, with a risk adverse attitude and longer perception of “long term” one Italians and Germans, probably as a result of a long tradition of manufacturing, industrial culture, where it usually takes 5–10 years to grow a company to a stable and strong entity (Legg Mason 2016). The shortening span of time-length consumers are prepared to wait for services, products and results impacts on all industries. In TT&H, if your company’s phones systems come with a voice mail offering a funnel of six different options and then shifting the customer to an opera long symphonic music, chances are, they will move on to the next hotel/business on the list for their booking. Integration of off line and on line must find a true implementation in our environment if we want to stay competitive. The entire process from the first contact to the farewell moment should always be managed through integrated systems that harvest information to better assist the client in his experience. The operator will be required to know-the-customer’s tastes, likes and dislikes from the moment of the first engagement. It is a data mining “must do” exercise and it will become easier and easier by the year. “Know-me” will become a imperious expectation from the customers’ base. The business that you have been visiting for 15 years and still, every time you call to make an appointment asks for your telephone number should be well and truly put to shame. The same cultural and technological backdrop that is enabling the “economy of impatience” will also drive an increase of impromptu travelling, that is travelling without having put much planning into it. Travelling and shifting from one point to another has become a way of living. Up until the 1990s the holidays occupied a very defined, rigid, meticulously planned one or two breaks a year with the days running up to departure marked as a true countdown. Holidays followed a pattern, took place within designated seasons and the destinations’ options were lined up in well-known lists of names. Nowadays travelling and holidaying has already become integral part of the way of living, a taken for granted routine, an expected bonus attached to the post-scarcity society. “Holidaying” is mutating its semantic meaning, spilling over the designated calendar time to be granularly woven into nearly each month or nearly. We expect and make arrangements to ensure that some away-leisure time, including stimulating experiences, and exposure to the diverse, takes place with exacting frequency, the more the better. Movement has become a defining trait of a globalised, urbanised society. Globalisation has opened up exposure to an immense diversity of cultures and lifestyles; people and young workers have moved around, leaving their native countries, en masse. In Europe, countries have an average on 7–10% of foreign nationals living within their boundaries. Some cities like Dublin record a presence of foreign nationals of 17%. In London, over 36% of residents are foreign born.

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The phenomenon of urbanisation, brought about by globalisation, has ushered people from the countryside to major urban dwellings. Today 73% of the European population lives in cities. This phenomenon is set to keep growing, driving a number of corollaries even in the behavioural sphere. For a growing landmass of people, travelling and changing scenery is becoming part of how life happens. A journey (or a relocation) can always be around the corner. Shifting from point A to point B is simple routine; visiting family that was left behind somewhere else a frequent recurrence. Visiting friends made during a work experience some other places, some years ago. Business trips extended with a couple of extra days local stay (Bleisure trend: Business + Leisure). Seizing the low fares opportunities for a weekend away. The pattern of once a year chock-a-block travel/holiday, unique and cherished, awaited with much drooling, planned to the minimum detail and engaged in with great emphasis is more and more eroded. More and more people adopt a travelling “anthropology of the moment”, that acts on opportunities and moves constantly. “Where to” is less relevant, as long as it somewhere else from here; keep moving is what matters. The rise of the “Anywhere-Anytime-Holiday” represents one of the most interesting examples of how the act of travelling is gradually liquefying in its contour, pattern and concept. This pattern, or better, lack of, will slowly spread seasonality, pushing up the overall number of International Tourist Arrivals (ITA) but also boosting local movements and micro tourism. The latter, a format that will become most likely very much in fashion in the next few years, when climate crisis will point the finger against air travels (contributor to 2% of global emissions). The words “sustainable”, “considerate” and “in moderation” will replace the top hits of popularity in the place of the current favourites: “disruptive” “scalable” “global”. The “Anywhere-Anytime Holiday” approach is also changing the very booking mind-set of many trips: gone is the list of desired destination(s). The traveller, especially if young, is wide open to suggestions. According to vast data collected by Expedia, while 51% of Boomers (56+ years of age) know exactly where to go, to do list and priority ready to hand, the younger generations, Millennials and Gen Z are open to “inspiration” and “suggestions”. Respectively, 63% of Millennials and 66% of Gen Z are open to suggestions and inspirations for sites and locations to visit, ideas that they look for browsing through social Media imagery posted by friends (45% Millennials, 46% Gen Z) travel videos (32 and 31%) and reading reviews on platforms such as Tripadvisor (84% Millennial, 80% Gen Z) (Expedia Multigenerational Travel Trends 2017)

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Any point on the planet can theoretically be turned into a holiday destination. There is less and less of a list of, somehow codified & approved holiday destinations. Virtually any point on the land can be turned into one, once it ticks the boxes. In a world that has reshaped from “vertical” to “horizontal” the keys to locations are no longer the preserve of the intermediation and service providers. Once access is in place, anything and anybody can decree the crowning of a new point of interest. A film shot in a certain area; a celebrity buying the house in a given resort; a national completion on food or heritage won by a certain village. What matters is to leave and visit areas not yet explored; there is no codified and sanctified time of the year to leave. The spreading of the suitable time to leave includes both the younger urbanites, a transient crowd by definition, as well as the empty nesters, whose siblings have flown the nest, and have regained freedom of movement. The scouting of the destination is done purely on the best commercial offers available on the spot for flight and accommodations. A surprising 60% of US travellers are already declaring them selves ready to go any time, anywhere. The absolute abundance of choices, either in destinations and in accommodation, will also drive up the extreme-last-minute research, that is already experiencing a +150% increase in the search term “tonight” and “tomorrow” (Google Travel Statistics 2017). The Anytime-Anywhere-Holiday makes perfect sense in a society where the number of empty nesters age +50, plus the number of singles and the number of childless couples are rising constantly across all western world. The Anytime-Anywhere-Holiday is equally attuned with a society where the work patterns keep being diluted in ever more free-lancing formats, remote and intermittent, project-based structures. Work carried out by a new, vast strata of precariat, by now a hallmark of our liquid societies. The Anywhere-Anytime is not just another trend on the horizon of our industry. It marks a historic passage in the TT&H industry. In the medium term future, the boundaries of business travelling, leisure travelling are incrementally blurred, confounded and welded into one another. As of today 50% of the Global population has chosen to live in cities, this figure will grow to 70% by 2050, meaning that an enormous mass of people are relocating and dislocating, adopting a transient form of lifestyle where movement is intrinsically inherent to the daily life. Packing a bag is not an event any more. Not packing a bag for a long time will be one. Holidays as a monolithic concept with a start and finish date will become eroded as a concept, and will instead get more and more blended into the daily routines.

4.3 Holiday Booking Patterns and Logistics: The “Anytime-Anywhere-Holiday”

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Vast sections of the population will be constantly moving, visiting, unlocking great deal of “holiday content” everywhere, anytime. What if the scenario, preconized by a spate of high profile studies, of a nearly jobless society, where automation has hollowed great parts of all labour, the leisure time at one’s disposal becomes so vast as to topple the ratio to labour time? In long, state funded voids bridging intermittent and randomly remunerated work, the entertainment, travel and tourism, training and education industries could acquire great importance. Once upon a time leisure and holiday time was the Diversion from the work routine. In the future, we may witness the opposite pattern to happen, where work is the diversion from the predominant leisure, unoccupied time. The Anywhere-Anytime-Holiday would become a true way of living, with semi-constant movement supplying a metaphorical glue to keep together an evanescent, ever shifting reality.

4.4

Holiday Fruition: Mediated, Augmented, Seamless: Never Lost, Never Bored

Holiday fruition is possibly, until now, the last element left untouched by the travel and tourism transformative sequential changes. Its time has come. In the next couple of decades the way we enjoy and engage with the destinations and their contents will undergo substantial change along three main trajectories. The advent of granular geo-tagging and multiplication of mediated reality options is the first lever of overhaul. The geo location and geo tagging of streets, buildings, businesses, points of interests of all kinds is progressing so efficiently and atomically, that there will not be a point in the planet left unchartered, outside the grid. Our unquestionable guide and mentor to navigate this myriad of physical “points of interest” now unmuted, the mobile phone/and or any other form of connecting device or wearable, will act as a mediation layer between ourselves and the surrounding physical reality. This means that all relevant and desired information will be retrieved on the spot, anywhere we happen to find ourselves; both our digital and terrestrial navigation will be seamless and secure. The location of the closest E-scooter integrated in the map with the distance of the next point of interest to visit. At the same time, the landmass of information regarding not only the high profile heritage sites but also virtually everything and every aspect of a locality, will be available to our visiting customers. Businesses of all types will be immediately spotted on the virtual maps, their DNA and propositions represented, their message

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delivered at the time of maximum relevance and opportunity: when the visitor is on site or nearby. Information will be embedded in multiple layers of depth, for the customers to engage at will or gloss over. Categories of businesses, retail, points of interest, curiosities and plain elements of normal local life will be pleasantly organised for our fruition. Speech recognition will allow us to engage in natural language with our virtual navigator. An omnipresent virtual blanket of information, content and interactive content that will soon invisibly poach the landscape, urban and not, to keep visitors informed, entertained, and stimulate their appetite for engaging and spending. The I.O.T. wired, smart city is around the corner, with Asian towns leading the way, and in Europe, Paris at the forefront of the endeavour. With the help of interactive signs, blue-tooth fitted streets, smart sensors, presence will be captured, marked and monitored, with the mobile phone or wearable carrying our identity with all the aggregated data of our behaviours and tastes. The game will have to be masterfully played in between the line of “push-content” (content pushed by the supply into the prospective customer’s device) and “pull content”, available content, sitting dormant until the customer intentionally engages and enquires. Soon enough, even different languages may be automatically translated by the likes of Google Translate service, possibly ushering one of the biggest re-evolutions of our times. In parallel, accommodation-providing platforms, such as Booking.com, will be integrating their current accommodation offer with connecting transports and more, for an end-to-end seamlessly organised journey. Booking anxiety, sign reading and instructions interpretation efforts will gradually become a thing of the past. The logistics and toil of the fruition will be so unimaginably simplified: hand-held from the start to the finish of our travelling experience. At the cost, of course, of surrendering another slice of our privacy, glad to constantly feed all our movements, choices, and travel expenses to the all-knowing-cloud. However, a positive corollary of the great technological advancements in geo-location and geo-tagging is a facilitation to abandon the beaten tracks, the overcrowded high profile sites, and venture further afield without fear of being left in black out of information and stimuli. Second tier destinations or off-the-beaten track locations can become relevant by making the effort to upload interesting stories and reasons-to visit. Previously unknown, can become interesting by sheer force of content enrichment and communication through mediated reality. In a way, planting a geotagging flag on the vast virtual reproduction of physical reality brings that point-in-themap alive and into existence.

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On the content interpretation and fruition level, eternal conundrum of museums and visitor attractions, the availability and progress of “interpretative” technologies will not only enrich the up until now static fruition of culture and heritage, but totally transform them. Museums and heritage sites will not only introduce virtual reality amongst their interpretation media but, slowly and surely, will start to reconsider the very essence of their mission. Static, obsolete exhibitions with pedantic explanations, geared to please a tiny crowd of the selected few and bore the very vast majority of all the others, will be ousted, gently but surely. One by one, the stakeholders and decision makers responsible for conveying history and culture will be led to grasp the very concept of Edutainement. A great opportunity unlocked by technologies that will ultimately bring cultural contents back to their very essence and purpose: inspire people in the droves. This new wave of interpretation of historic, artistic, cultural contents of all kind will surely use the new technologies starting to appear on the market having completed their Beta phase. This will design a true reframing of the entire interpretation of fruition phase, a reframing that will impact three fronts. For one, the nature of the content communicated will have to loosen up and come to life. Downplaying the corporate voice by which high-brow conservation institutions still deem appropriate to communicate the culture that they are meant to divulge. People are interested in broader and more humane contents, elements and information they can relate to and take away to form a vivid picture of the era, the context, the artist etc. Secondly, institutions and visitor attractions will have to invest into the physical infrastructure that are meant to convey the content. In 90% of places and sites we still operate with didactic static panels and audio-guides to rent out. However, a totally new and deeply disruptive approach could break on the scene. One that is not lead by the museums and conservationist institutions themselves, but instead goes about the issue in a more typical Internet fashion: liquid. Nothing stops, indeed, other stakeholders, already equipped with content writing, artistic direction, video-production facilities, step into the arena and create a newly minted, engaging exciting library of podcasts, mini and medium format videos that cover the high profile subjects in all countries. The grandiose buildings, the masterpieces and pinnacle of achievements in our history and culture, could be interpreted, explained and brought alive in exciting fruition by the likes of authoritative brands such as national TV broadcasters. At the same time the not so high profile content could be covered, you have guessed, simply by Consumer Generated Content. This is starting to happen, with bloggers and local residents uploading interpretation content on their town, village or region. However there is still a long way to go to structure and systematise a mixed content often of dubious quality.

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Embraced and besieged from this threePronged innovation process, visitor attractions and heritage centres of all level and ranks, will be persuaded to change their approach: from “preservation” and elitist fruition to unlocking the contents for the learning and the pleasure of all. Technologies will offer a plethora of media to better interpret content and to better engage with the visitor. Virtual reality, to mention one, has the advantage of merging, in one medium, three types of stimuli: visual, acoustic and written. These, rendered in a 3D format, deliver a footage content that will enable the user to interact and be absorbed in an immersive landscape that makes the content fruition as powerful and real as it can get. The British Museum, amongst the early adopters, offers a VR experience on its Egyptian collection. The Burj Khalifa skyscraper in Dubai, the tallest building in the world, offers instead an extravagant VR experience replicating the ascent and descent of the tower. The Stadt museum in Berlin, is now equipped with a free virtual journey throughout the four most important city museums and are shuffled from one to another with stunning drone views. The recently opened Casanova Museum in Venice recreates a VR experience of the life and setting of Casanova’s times. A dedicated room, equipped with 18 VR stations, with a multi language choice, delivers several minutes 3D engagement on the streets of XVIII century Venice. As the visitor literally steps into Casanova’s shoes, he or she perceives the character’s arms and legs as if they belonged to his or her own body engaging with other local characters and wandering around the canals. Marriot hotel group, leader in hospitality innovation, is equipping its properties with VR experience featuring other holiday destinations and Marriot properties around the world, even allowing their guests to order a selection of VR experiences to their rooms, VR-Room service. But VR is only one of the main tools being adopted. After teething issues, glasses delivering augmented reality are making their breakthrough in the market. With dynamic holograms, triggered by image recognitions, these can achieve stunning level of visual impact on a visitor who is engaged in his own time, in his own space. By the time this book is printed, more attractions, museums, centres and generally speaking, any situation where content needs to be spelled out in an engaging and fun way, will have embraced the multimedia machine; technologies will have conquered another segment of the business and another segment of the audience. Innovation translates into marketing; innovation leads the way. Innovative technologies will not only help culture and heritage to come alive inside the four walls of designated centres, but will also cause culture to spill over those walls, and conquer city space in a cheerful and dazzling manifestation of our progress.

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Technologies and urban innovation will confer to our towns and cities new life, unmuting stories and contents that have been silent for centuries. The first exemplary case of this new form of free and shared culture aided by technological support must be traced in the phenomenon of the light shows being organised on large and not large cities across the globe. The French city of Lyon, a forerunner in this exercise, is the point in case. Lyons cathedral and heritage buildings have been visited and engaged with in the conventional way, with tourists lined up like good school children, audio guide and didactic panels, until the Fête de Lumière was invented. This event now draws one million of enthusiastic visitors on the spot, to spend an unforgettable night watching mesmerising and poignant representations of imageries, meanings, stimuli on its façade. La Fête des Lumières, celebrated every year in December in Lyon, one of the best examples of how culture can and should become an uplifting, exciting celebration for all. Towns, cities and megacities have the means and the technologies to celebrate themselves, their DNA, their contribution to the history and progress of mankind in the open air; out and beyond the closed walls of institutions. Tickets and ticketing are not necessarily any longer a must. Culture and history can come alive through collective rites and joyful celebrations, open to all. Not only we will never be lost, not only will culture and content fruition spill over to become open-source, ubiquitous and largely free, but the new decades come with a further promise: we will never be bored: the demand and in parallel, the supply of experiential value to enjoy during the holiday time will increase visibly. The demand for experiences and experiential depth within the holiday has been there for some time. This is being promoted by the coming on stage of an increasingly discerning and at ease crowd of holidaymakers. As travelling has become the norm, more and more people have exhausted the must-do list of 1st tier destinations and all their must-see, often overpriced, visitors attractions. People are looking for more and for different; the carry on of the tourist circus, with its fish bowl effect, can only satisfy first time and mildly inexperienced visitors. Discerning travellers, young urbanites from all age groups and walks of life, but sharing a curiosity about all things authentic, demand now to get under the skin of a location and meet the locals to get a real sense of what life is about there. Demand for experiences has outstripped supply for quite some time, but, as we know all too well, such market asymmetries are easily and swiftly fixed in a highly connected and scalable world. As per the engagement with the locals, the demand is being promptly fulfilled by the emergence of platforms such as Airbnb Experiences. Airbnb Experiences was conceived and launched in 2017, more or less at the same time as Showmearound, another platform offering activities and chat-encounters with the locals, or Meet the Locals, under the slogan “Come as a foreigner, leave as a friend ”. Still, to be noted, decades after the forerunners of experiential tourism, the Wwoofers, (Willing Workers of Organic Farms) born in 1971, in the years filled with the pyrotechnic energy of the post’68, the platform still offers active holidays

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in organic farms around the world (www. Wwoof.net). Originally a European concept, now present in over 50 countries, in this format the guest works alongside the farmer for four to six hours a day, in exchange for food and accommodation. The farms are often nested in idyllic spots in iconic territories. The activities on offer on all the “experiential” digital platforms span across the wildest of arrays: history, art, food or forest, photography or social activism, the host is always driven by the willingness to share. On the other side, the motivation that prompts the visitors to book, is the willingness to meet, engage, come in contact with another person, from a different place, a different culture. Brian Chesky, founder of Airbnb in 2009, declared that “there is an “Amazonsized opportunity” in selling experiences”. And we know he is right. It appears, however, that the platform, up until now has lost some $100mill dollars (The Wall Street Journal 2018). The encounter between the technological force unlocking contents of any nature on any locations, and the insatiable curiosity of our species, in constant quest for experiences will further extend the reach and depth of the tourism industry; possibly turning everything into a potential tourist experience. “Come dine with my grandmother to hear local stories of the past” could be an option. No doubt, the purists wrinkle the nose. When is something authentic not authentic anymore? Is it not the very act of wrapping and packaging of a local experience into a quantifiable and sellable product an automatic contamination of what previously was “authentic”, genuine and spontaneous? In a compelling as much as provocative paper, Cameroonian philosopher Prof Achille Mbembe exposes how “every sphere of life has been penetrated by capital and subject to quantification”. Our world is subject to a methodical process of abstraction, classification, quantification and calculation to serve the purpose of digital computation (Achille Mbembe 2019). Every sphere of human behaviour and spontaneous expression is put through this ruthless machine so that the digital computation process can serve information to quantify and make sellable each and every aspect of our life; transforming a skillset or an hobby into a quantified and sell-by-the-hour experience. There is, indeed, something irresistibly sad in turning into commercial transactions what used to be simply part of one’s lifestyle, personality, and knowledge. Nevertheless, we must acknowledge how this process also shortens the distance between visitors and locals, helping us getting under the skin of our destinations. We would also be unrealistic not to recognise how the whole business concept creates new revenue for the locals out of nothing else but what was already there, integrating individual incomes with ancillary revenue. More disturbing, from an ideological point of view, may instead be relentless unearthing and exposing to sudden global attention small and fragile locations that have been left unspoiled until now precisely thanks to their lack of fame. The power of communications is nowadays so invasive and effective that landmasses of tourists can suddenly be directed to a tiny, windy, remote spot on the Atlantic Ocean simply because… it is a tiny, windy, remote spot in the Atlantic Ocean and its unspoiled beauty is rare.

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The Faroe Islands, made famous by some influential bloggers, have seen a sudden surge of numbers, numbers that soon got out of hand affecting their fragile environment. Instagram did the rest, putting arrivals on steroids. Their local authorities, in an exemplary case of farsighted and future awareness, closed the doors to all visitors entries for weeks. Never mind profits and tills ringing. Their identity, their integrity comes first Period. The power of digital communications and the trending phenomenon that goes with it is such that it can catapult overnight a location from the status of “obscure” to “visit asap” driving sudden volumes of visitors towards areas and facilities that are not apt to cater for them. We will further debate this point in the chapters of Globalisation and De-Globalisation. Before closing this section, we will touch on one last element that is mysteriously developing undercover and could dramatically reframe the future of holiday fruition: the advent of instant-translations devices. We suspect, this could well and truly represent a wild card: a highly improbable event with far reaching repercussions. On the “highly improbable” we cast our informed doubt. This is one of those game changers whose impacts are the most difficult to gauge and yet would have far reaching consequences. The dominance of English language has been a hallmark of our international community since the inception of Industrial Revolution. Wherever we go we assume that English will offer at least some sort of communication platform. Yet, this is so incredibly limiting, altering the nature of the contacts and, to some extent, even distorting it, and attributing a groundless supremacy to the English speaker. Now imagine a future, possible, probable, not so distant any longer, where we can engage with locals, and vice versa, each one in his/her own native language. What a revolution this would be. Gone the linguistic barrier and the undeserved advantages. Open for much wider and deeper fruition destinations that never came on board with English. More experiences can be unlocked. More formats and types of tourist products can come into existence. Vast numbers of the population that were previously barred from contacts could incrementally be brought into the communications exchange. This innovation project is in the hands of Google/Alphabet. The company, contacted for an interview on the progress of the “Google Translate” function and app, declined to engage with us. In any case, should such a technological breakthrough take place, this will deeply change a lot of elements in the way business is carried out and holidays are enjoyed.

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Universal Truth ♯ 4 Dazzling technologies will animate the world of tourism and its fruition. However, the very essence of the industry remains that of Interpretation & Storytelling. Without a well-executed narration element technologies will look like dumb automatons.

4.5 Socialization of Holiday Experience: From …

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Socialization of Holiday Experience: From F.O.M.O. to J.O.M.O. and Back

“If a tree falls in a forest, and nobody is around to hear/see it falling, has the tree really fallen?” This question has been formulated in the philosophical environment of the early XVIII century and has been going around since then. Originally, the philosophical conundrum underscored the debate of identifying the existence of things as a per-se’ reality or, on the contrary, only in relation to the observers. The question can be expanded in many directions: the crucial role of media, for example, in reporting facts and giving them the space they deserve effectively makes them real in the eyes of the public. If you have a little degree of familiarity with the mere basics of quantum physics you will know that one of its postulates states that reality only exists in the very moment of our own directing our look at it, and not in metaphorical sense, but in real terms. Apparently this point was the object of debate between Albert Einstein and his fellow and friend quantum physicist, Niels Bohr, when Einstein asked whether he realistically believed that ‘the moon does not exist if nobody is looking at it.’ To this Bohr replied that however hard he (Einstein) may try, he would not be able to prove that it does, thus giving the entire thesis the status of infallibility, given that no one can either prove or disprove it. As per the mind-boggling postulate of quantum physics, the exposure of a destination to the blinding light of propaganda of media communications, (including the magnitude of social media content, with its newly minted hierarchy of “new adept”, “experience contributor”, “blogger”, “influential blogger”, “celebrity blogger”) can raise it to the podium of fame, making it successful overnight. The instantaneous power of digital communications can point a collective, sudden spotlight in one direction/location causing a nearly immediate surge of interest and arrivals. Discovered, exposed, overexposed, consumed, abandoned. Liked to death, in the words of travel blogger Matthew Karsten, who after a decade of successful travel blogging on the digital space, has come to seriously doubt the consequences of this overexposure (ExpertVagabond 2019) Success can be lethal and can lead a precious resort or destination to self-consume itself, like the apoptosis of living cells. You know a destination has reached its apoptosis phase when the elements that once made up the very core of its identity are packaged and sold at each and every corner of the streets, when the location is dolled up like a girl for a pageant contest to meet stereotypes and expectations; when its landscape is blacked by excessive number of visitors; when resources are used beyond the limits of sustainability. Technology not only acts as an enabler and a facilitator, it’s a means by which we achieve better results. Technologies also have the power to intrinsically change the nature of tourism and the nature of tourists themselves.

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The frenzy of sharing and socialising our lives and travels on Social Media has a huge impact on TT&H industry and begs for an explanation as much as it demands to be explored to its far reaching consequences. That innate trigger that urges us to share all of our experiences often to the most insignificant details, can not merely explained by our gregarious nature. That sharing urge, supplying incessant evidence of our whereabouts, stems from our unspeakable desire to have witnesses to our existences. Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, all modern days diaries, grant us the hope that someone will read, aka, someone will care to read. I post, therefore I exist; if I don’t, have I really lived? Where have I left my human traces and imprints, evidence of my existence? Accordingly to statistics, Travel and Tourism is the most shared topic on social media, another proof of the vast grip this industry hold on our inner landscape. Research tell us that over a third of Millennials Consider the pictures posted on social media to be as important as the holiday itself. 37% of them have their holiday choices influenced by social media, with 41% of them influenced by travel bloggers and influencers. 61% of all travellers and holidaymakers are determined to share their holiday pictures on line. A remarkable 29% would not even consider going on holidays in places that are not “Instagrammable”. (WeSwap research 2018). The hubris of documenting and sharing our doings and whereabouts, coupled with the advent of camera-equipped smartphones has caused a photography boom. The number of digital photographs taken in the world has rocketed from 660 billion in 2013 to 1, 2 trillion in Of these, 85% are taken with the smartphone. This is Statista estimate and keeps growing exponentially. (Statista 2017) The F.O.M.O. Fear Of Missing Out, has always been there but it soared to the scale and size of a pandemic in the last decade. Being in the know, being kept up to date, has always represented a much sought after social currency. However, it is only with the voluntary self-stalking we inflict on ourselves through our mobile phones that this natural aspiration has turned into a maladie, an addiction.

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Firstly, the constant exploration of our environment through the lense of our phone camera, is making us unable of enjoying, the sites we came to visit “bare handed”? Secondly, if the location is not photographed, photo shopped, tinted, augmented and posted, is it just not interesting enough? Is reality per se’ irremediably turned boring in its physical spontaneity? Thirdly, what is that matters, my enjoyment and taking it all in in the very moment or the social currency that I will get out of my being here and letting the world know about it? The mobile phone often sucks us out of the environment we are physically in, and hurls our thoughts and consciousness in an elsewhere-ness that can be thousands of miles apart. We are here, or not. Our presence-mindedness is on and off in fragmented hic ups of miniature frames that follow our connectivity patterns. We are here, if we are not immersed in the else-where-ness of the phone. But SM socialization of our travels has brought about another profound distortion: any landscape, heritage site, landmarks or events have been magically turned into nothing else but a backdrop: a backdrop for our selfies. Niagara falls is the side order, the accompaniment to Sylvia’s latest hairstyle and Mario’s design sunglasses. Apart from the anthropological and philosophical reflection we could elaborate on, how on earth have we come to deem our little selves more compelling than any wonders that the globe has been displaying for millions of years? How is this self-centred, others would say narcissistic, point of view will change how we go about our industry? At first sight, we should act to harness and piggyback this Instagrammability of elements and situations, even creating some new ones, offering them to the spontaneous coverage of our public; it works. There is no doubt, this is a free and very efficient marketing machine. Ten years on, we could even assume that the spontaneous flow of consumer generated content, delivered in every nook and cranny of the web and conveniently Omni-channel distributed, will be so thorough as to spare us any effort in activating marketing campaigns. Such a globally detailed and atomic effort we could never have matched with our own in house marketing and sales machine. I wish to think, though, that there will be some sort of capping, some sort of hushing and backtracking to this ubiquitous white noise we collectively emit as excited little pups on an imaginary stage. Possibly, the beautiful phenomenon that goes by the name of “collective wisdom” at some stage will adopt a self-imposed code of conduct to leave some area, some layers of our earth, off the grid and off the radar, for travellers to discover by themselves and…to keep to themselves. Avoiding exposure and overexposure, which, as the ancient tribes knew, steal a bit of yours’ and the location’s soul, one picture at a time.

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F.O.M.O, fear of missing out will, sooner or later, meet its limits, acknowledge its downsides, downsides that, in spite of our immediate apparent interests, foster more negative that positive. We can envisage, and secretly invite, a countertrend of J.O.M.O. (Joy of Missing Out) where people will rejoice at the idea of keeping their experience to themselves, if they can rise up to this challenge. Refraining from sharing and over-sharing, relinquishing segments of our beautiful world to the simple and tangible dimension of its own physical reality. Possibly, tired of being communicated, copied, exposed and diluted in authenticity, some locations/experiences and sites, will even actively invite visitors not to share on SM. We can even eccentrically envisage, a counterintuitive marketing alliance, of year 2030, amongst destinations and hotels, intercepting the public fatigue for overexposed products: a newly forged network of “Social Media FREE destinations. Come see for yourself. “Visitors and Customers agree to be bound not to share images or content on the Internet. What would life be, if we didn’t leave something to the unknown, the unspoken, the private?

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Universal Truth ♯ 5 I post then I exist. The extraordinary success of social media can only be explained by a poignant request stemming from the deepest recesses of human mind: Please, be witness to my existence.

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A Note on Technologies in Tourism To draw some general considerations on the multifaceted and turbulent mega trend of technological advancements, it is useful to point out some overarching elements that constitute the “rule of thumb” when dealing with technological innovations. New technologies typically get overestimated in their short-term impact (speed and reach); underestimated in the long term. New technologies, regardless of their usefulness and contribution to progress, can meet many and multifaceted obstacles in their implementation; legislation (or lack of), adoption resistance by the public, technical issues. Nevertheless, they are often saluted by the public of innovators and broadcasted as world changers in no time. Their life cycle, instead, can move in jolts and bolts from inception to launch and maturity. Sometimes they seem to be withdrawn as a “fail” (see the first specimen of Google Glasses), and then they come back ready and fit for the market. Technologies do not limit their transformative force to the “way” we do things but also to” how we think” about things. Innovation always impacts on our cognitive structure. It is a well-known fact that the brain is defined by its neuroplasticity, allowing it to wire and rewire differently accordingly to the stimuli its gets offered. The question we ask when testing a new technology is “how will this change the way we think about this or that topic/product/theme”, is a legitimate one. Start experimenting soon. The early adoption of innovation is a sure bet for companies of any industry, not necessarily to achieve immediate commercial advantages, but to get the time to understand, test, experiment how that specific new tool can deliver maximum benefits in your own environment. This sort of training exercise will allow the company to experiment before committing to large investments. It can save costly mistakes. Innovation is marketing: showing that one’s company is at the leading edge of early adoption and innovation does a great deal of good for the brand. It sends signals of vitality, a progressive mind-set, and healthy managerial practice. Customers want to be associated with this type of brand. Offering innovation led experiences to the customer base will leave an unquestionable positive impression. From novelty to commodity: the step can be faster than we may expect. This pans out in two ways: to be the real innovator of your category one truly needs to be an early adopter. Coming second does not make the same impression. If, on the other hand, the said new technology is too expensive for your business, the likelihood is that this will come down in price fast enough, copied and commoditised by the global market of suppliers. From “anticipation” to “Pre-Experiencing” and the “Boring-Reality” Effect: the quality and quantity of dazzling digital materials put out there for everybody to see will often portray places and landmarks at their very best. Thanks to extreme-customisation of the content that we will be served, this will be micro-tailored to our tastes. In our Pre-Experiencing phase, we risk enjoying our destination at its so-very-best that the Pre-Experience threats being more compelling and slick that the actual physical destination. Physical reality will be

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challenged by this parallel world of immersive, wonderful experience and appear dull and disappointing in its real, physical dimension. How to keep on delivering what we have promised it’s going to be the next challenge. Finally, no technical innovation or astounding technology will ever replace the necessary power of interpretation and narration. Human psyche will be always turned on by empathetic connection. Tourism is a story, a story that waits to be told, and we all want to listen, like children around the fireplace. As the say in Ireland, an unrivalled country for storytelling traditions, fadó fadó….. in the old Gaelic language, once upon a time…

References Online Publications: Organisation Site (Chap. 4.2) Expedia Traveller Attribution Study. (2015). https://www.travelmarketreport.com/articles/ Consumers-Visit-38-Sites-Before-Booking-Expedia-Says. Google/Phocuswright Travel Study (2017). https://storage.googleapis.com/twg-content/original_ images/1121-Future-of-Travel-Download-03.jpg. Google statistics, Google, Travels statistics. (2017). “How the travel Industry is shifting to assistance” Think with Google. https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/marketing-resources/newconsumer-travel-assistance/.

(Chap. 4.3) Legg Mason Global Investment Survey. (2016). https://ww2.leggmason.com/trending conversations/. Expedia Multigenerational Travel Trends. (2017–2018). https://info.advertising.expedia.com/ european-traveller-multi-generational-travel-trends. Google travels statistics. (2017). How the travel Industry is shifting to assistance” Think with Google. https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/marketing-resources/new-consumer-travelassistance/.

(Chap. 4.5) WeSwap Research. (2018). From looking to booking: how social media is taking over tourism. https://www.weswap.com/blog/travel/social-media-influencing-holiday/, https://www.telegraph. co.uk/travel/news/millennials-social-media-holidays/. Statista. (2017). Smartphone cause photography boom, Aug 2017. https://www.statista.com/chart/ 10913/number-of-photos-taken-worldwide/.

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On line Blog (Chap. 4.5) Expertvagabond, Matthew Karsten, Liked to death: is Instagram & social media ruining travel? October 2019. (2019). https://expertvagabond.com/instagram-tourism-impact/.

Journals and Articles: Journal (Chap. 4.2) C.I.F.S. Copenhagen Institute Future Studies. (2017). Scenario magazine.

(Chap. 4.4) The Wall Street Journal. (2018). Greg Besinger, Airbnb wants you to do more, Feb 21. https:// www.wsj.com/articles/airbnbs-push-into-experiences-has-been-a-slog-1519209000.

Article in Electronic Journal (Chap. 4.4) Eurozine, Achille Mbembe, Deglobalization, Feb 2019. (2019). https://www.eurozine.com/ deglobalization/.

Chapter 5

Upside-Down Pyramids: A Demographic Revolution Unfolded

Abstract The aging of our society is a well known epiphenomenon. Yet the multiple consequences and impact on the travel and tourism industry are only starting to surface. Accustomed to dealing with the Silent Generation of the elderly, we investigate what characteristics the next wave of over 65’s will bring with it: their travelling patterns, their attitudes and their spending power. Surprising facts and features emerge.









Keywords Silver age tourism Population aging and tourism Silent generation Baby boomers Generation X Millennials Senior travels Slow travelling Travelling by generations Loneliness and tourism Pet vacations Tourism future trends




5.1



















The Soaring Numbers of Silver Tourism

Unlike the previous megatrend, incessantly awing us with its nearly daily rate of innovations sprouting before our very own eyes in a popcorn maker like fashion, the demographic shift proceeds slowly and silently. We could miss it out completely, were it not for the muffled echo of its thuds, an underground excavator gnawing the soil right beneath our feet; were it not for the stark statistics that lay bare the raw reality of societies that seem to have exhausted their primal thrust of vitality. The silvering of the western world and, in particular, the European continent’s population is a well-known issue to policy makers. The three main drivers of this epochal shift are: a constant fall in fertility rates, the longer life expectancy and of decrease in mortality rate. Although the EU population is projected to grow from 512 million in 2018 to 520 million in 2070, the age make up of it, will differ substantially, with the working age population (15–64 years) constantly and consistently diminishing amongst the EU nations up to a point when the so called “old-age dependency ratio” (ratio of dependency retiree- versus-active population) will grow from 29.6% © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 V. Boschetto Doorly, Megatrends Defining the Future of Tourism, Anticipation Science 6, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48626-6_5

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to 51.2%. In other words, the number of active (working) people supporting each retiree will go from 3.3 in 2016 to just 2 in 2070 (European Commission 2018). This deep transformation is well underway and confirmed by statistical evidence. Take the median age: by “median” age we refer to the most numerous age cohort that is present in a society. In Europe, Italy and Germany have the highest median age, at over 46 years of age, while the youngest median age country is Ireland, at 37. These are no less than worldwide records, only surpassed by Japan, whose median age is 47 years and where a demographic melt down represents a serious concern for the government. Within the European perimeter, by 2018 already 19% of the population was aged 65 or more, while the population below 14 years of age only accounted for 14% of the European population. At the same time the super elderly segment (+80 years of age) keeps growing both in absolute terms, as well as in relative terms, with a statistical incidence projected to account for 14.5% of the population by 2100 (Eurostat 2018). The statistics forecast modelling offered by the United Nations for Germany, for example, looks startling: in its medium variant scenario, applying the current fertility rate, Germany will start experiencing a steady population decline that would bring the country’s population from the current 82 million to more or less 71 million residents citizens by year 2094 (Fig. 5.1).

Fig. 5.1 United Nations WPP Germany population probabilistic projection, medium variant, 2019 https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/POP/TOT/276

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Aligned with Germany, both Italy and Spain, with a fertility rate dwindling between 1.3 and 1.5 births per woman, can expect their population make up to be formed by circa 39% of over 60 years of age by 2050. The Italian National Statistics Office ISTAT tells us that the national population would have declined by 1.300.000 units between 2014 and 2018, was it not if this severe negative trend had not been counterbalanced by the arrival of over 638,000 foreign nationals immigrants. ISTAT projects a further loss of 6 million people by 2065, shrinking the total Italian population to 54 million (down from its peak of 60 million). At the same time, the life expectancy would reach 90 years by 2065 (ISTAT-ANSA 2019). Most European countries are witnessing a fast aging of their population base, with the Eastern European block particularly affected, spurring a number of transformative changes in our societies. An inevitable consequence of this societal mutation is the on-going growth of single-occupier households: in 2018 one third or 33.9% of all the European Union households were made up of a single person unit. To fully grasp the epochal change, consider that, back in the sixties, the singleoccupier household only represented 7% of the total. (Eurostat, household composition 2019) On the other side of the spectrum, mirroring the same trend, we witness a steady decline of the larger households. Today only 15.5% of the EU households is composed of three members and 13.1% composed by four members. To round up the picture, within European households with children, almost half of those (47%) had only one child, while 40% had two children and 13% had three or more children (Eurostat, household composition 2019). While Europe sees its active population silently shrinking and gracefully aging, the Asian and African continents literally explode. Although the sheer progression of world population as a whole is, per se’, frightening, with the earth hosting an estimate 2 billion people in 1950, 6 billion in 1999 and ballooned to 7.7 billion today, the UN projections for the future are even more staggering. As of today 61% of the world population live in Asia (4.7 billion), 17% in Africa (1.3 billion) and only 10% in Europe (750 million), 8% in Latina America and Caribbean (650 mill) and the remaining 5% in North America (370 million) and Oceania (43 million). The United Nations medium variant forecast projects a further increase of 2 billion people inhabiting the planet by 2050, bringing the total globe population to 9.7 billion. Projections beyond that date speak of 11.2 billion by year 2100.

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However, Africa is by far the fastest growing continent with half of the entire globe’s population rise expected to occur in this continent over the next few decades (United Nations 2018). All numbers summed up, whilst in year 2000 the ‘senior’ population of the globe (over 60 years of age) accounted for 10% of the total, by year 2050 this cohort will account for 25% or 2 billion people, with the highest statistical incidence in Europe. The substantial overhaul of the age make-up in our societies is promoting a vast new set of transformative changes. Threats and issues on one side, opportunities and new business models to be developed on the other. The construction industry, for one, will have to adapt, supplying new house formats, where solidarity by proxy (proximity) is invited whilst at the same time guarantying privacy and independence. In a fragmented and displaced society we must reinvent the role of the “next door neighbour”. Senior co-housing schemes are quietly appearing and multiplying in the EU, UK and USA. These offer loose schemes of mixed residents, with private dwellings but handy communal areas, shared services and facilitated socialisation. Medical care will be under pressure to supply aids and solutions to home assisted formats for senior citizens. New generations of Home-Automation devices and gadgets will equip households, fitted with IOT connection to remote monitoring and assistance facilities. Self-managed medical apparatus and systems will appear in numbers and become common place. Personal finance management will need to evolve in order to accommodate a much longer life expectancy and the consequent need to save more or find alternative solutions. Training, retraining, permanent learning are on also the up to accompany much longer life cycles where increasingly stimulated and demanding citizens will want to acquire new skillsets while rejuvenating their competence as they grow older. Equally, the clothing and fashion industry will have to acknowledge the existence of a huge landmass of over 50’s and over 60’s who do not necessarily want to dress in pale cream and dark greys and are necessarily not prepared to put up with the lack of comfort of skinny jeans. And, of course, our industry, Travel, Tourism and Hospitality, will have to imagine new formats, new products, new business models, to cater for a growing number of senior holidaymakers. We need to reacquaint ourselves with “the new seniors” as, with the generational changes underway, they will be travelling differently from the previous silver waves.

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The following numerical snapshot sums up well the demographic scenario ahead for the TT&H sector: By 2030 the European continent will welcome over 140 million tourists over 60 years of age, a number that will have grown four-fold since 2010 when we were looking at 40 million senior tourists. This will represent an increase of +72% of senior European tourists as well as an increase of +125% in American senior tourists. (Centro Studi Turistici Firenze 2018) It comes at no surprise, given these data, that 39% of all holiday bed nights in Europe is generated by the over 55 years old, representing already an unquestionably sizable segment that deserves maximum attention, and not only for the sheer numbers that it moves, but for its travelling patterns and purposes. Travelling patterns and motives change across different generation cohorts. These differ slightly accordingly to country and sociological taxonomies, however, we can broadly distinguish: Silent generation (born 1925–1942, >77 years old); Baby Boomers (born 1946–1964) nowadays >56; Generation X (early-mid 1960s to early 1980s) currently in their early 40ies up to mid 50ies; Millennials (born from the mid 1990s to early 2000s, now ranging from 25 to 40 years old and finally; Generation Z, born starting from the early 2000s, now in their teen-agers years. When we delve into the multi generational travel patterns, at first sight Millennials take the largest number of trips a year across the European continent. With 4.3 trips a year, they outpace the Baby Boomers at 3.1 trips a year. Nevertheless, it’s the Baby Boomers (+56) who take the longest holidays with 10.5 days versus 8.5 days for the Millennials. If we move to the upper echelon, the over 65, their average duration of their holiday is 7 days, while the active population (15–64) has an average of 5 days holiday. Over 65 years old dedicate 91% of their movements to take leisure vacations or visiting friends and relatives, and only 3% for business reasons, whereas Millennials’ motive of trip is a work reason in 25% of cases. Of course a larger proportion of the >65 years old do not travel at all, mostly for health reasons, but only a small proportion of this segment mentions financial restraints as the reason for not travelling (Eurostat, share of different purposes in the total number of trips 2014).

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A larger proportion than any other group 31% of Baby Boomers happily travelled by car, suggesting a different ways and methods of travelling as well as motive, more removed from must-see destinations and far away locations. Their propensity to take domestic trips is indeed higher than any other age group. While 68% of UK travellers and 72% of Germans prefer to travel outside their own country, the interest in going abroad is seemingly strong amongst all age groups with 67% of gen Z (77 years of age) who were young or new born after WWII. They have dedicated their lives to rebuilding economies from total destruction, literally, from ground zero. They are often associated with punishing work ethics, rigid saving habits and regimented lifestyles; no other generation thereafter has the same virtuous and collected attitudes. On the contrary, we are about to check-in the silver ranks rebels who animated (or came immediately after) the ’68 social revolution; lefties and liberals who made a substantial political majority in Europe and the States throughout the 70ies. Women who, for the first time in modern history wore pants, adopted fertility control, entered the work force in droves and achieved unprecedented status of freedom and independence in our society. Further down the line, the current Gen X, born in between the mid sixties and early eighties, who, thanks to the societal upheaval that had just occurred, has never known threats or scarcity and was able to nurture its own individuality without fear of being reprimanded. Individuality, is, indeed, a word that finds space of expression only in well evolved societies, where all the necessities have been taken care of and individuals can dedicate time to think about themselves, their vocations, their likes and dislikes. It is a very recent conquest indeed. A fact well documented if we look at vintage portrait pictures is that no one ever smiled. From the first shots ever taken, early or mid XIX century, be it in the United States or Europe, families, groups or individuals, only stared bluntly and sternly at the camera. They were fixing on the picture, not their emotions, or feelings, let alone happiness, but their social status and their mere existence. Happiness, as the achievement of self-actualisation, or expression of one’s talents and vocation was, back then, not yet a right nor faintly perceived as such. It is only with the 1960’s that smiles and attitudes, emotions and opinions start making an appearance in the pictures. Well, those “first smilers” are now about to

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become seniors, and they will want to keep expressing themselves in all forms and formats. Possibly, the first drove of self-aware individuals in large numbers. Once an innovator always an innovator: these new seniors keep lifting taboos as they age, publically talking about subjects that were not to be talked about; or refusing to conform to bygone stereotypes. We have recently witnessed the acceptance of “white hair for women”, until recently frowned upon by society as women had to look young and pretty at all time. In fact, consumers went one step further, unleashing a multiplication of hair colouring, from purple to fairy-tale turquoise, from burgundy to ivy-green. In the “any-colour-is-fine” frenzy, incidentally, the utter white and shining silver has been forgiven, accepted, celebrated. This is what we can call a Fad turned “Zeitgeist trend”: a trend that denounces the “spirit of the time”. The new seniors will be substantially less conservative in their tastes, more adventurous in their choice of experiences, more relaxed in their travelling patterns and will engage more with locals. Prepare to cater for many well-carved individuals. Less regimented than in the past, more opinionated and comfortable in themselves. This also includes a self-challenging attitude in undertaking travel experiences that involve a certain degree of physical performance: adventure travel specialists are telling us that in UK, 40% of over 55’s interviewed state it is an exciting time of their lives for adventure travels, and they are looking outside the comfort zone for challenging destinations: walking the Great Wall of China, climbing Kilimanjaro or exploring Vietnam only to name a few of the bucket-list items. Better off than, alas, the generation to come: the next generation of seniors will most likely be the last one who can reasonably count on a pension, before the entire welfare system runs onto the rocks and is forced to find transformative new solutions. The average durability and steadiness of each job we occupy has shrunk consistently and keeps shrinking by the year. Unlike in the past, the new generations, Millennials and below, are looking at a work life rife with instability, with an interminable sequence of “on and off ” periods, hence leading to a bleak and uncertain retirement age. Precariat is the unspoken bug blighting our time, a topic aptly polished, wrapped up and re-sold to the public smuggling job uncertainty for “freedom to move” and to explore new experiences. To make things worse, we must acknowledge that the creeping inflation that has undermined our economies for three decades now, has seriously dented the purchasing power of salary. USA Millennials, today, earn on average 20% less than their age class counterparts earned in the 1970s, and their median net wealth is 56% less than Baby

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Boomers had at their age. The median Millennial salary, inflation adjusted, was $50,900 in 1971: it stands today at $40,500 (USA Census Bureau 2017). On the contrary, the next ranks of seniors, now in their 50’s and early 60’s, have had the chance of building their finance in a less damaging and unstable environment, through the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. Unless directly impacted by the great recession of the 2007 that has not yet been resolved either structurally or in its epiphenomena. The current seniors and the ones to follow immediately after are most likely to be the last two generations to reach retirement age with an overall, comfortable financial situation. The same cannot be said for those who will follow. Learning and New Experiences: at the mature stage in life, we tend to attach less value to goods and material items and more to experience. The peak earning years is behind and so that of shopping. Instinctively, we start looking “up” towards higher elevations, and “around” broadening our point of view to comprehend a vaster perspective on life. Furthermore, the new generation of seniors represent those who once were the first generation of middle class siblings who accomplished senior school cycle in the vast majority of cases and also entered university in great numbers. Learning is, for the seniors to come, a familiar act, as much as travelling. In fact, the two go hand in hand. This instigates a wider-than ever openness to experience and learn. Expanding the comfort zone of “what we know” to acquire more is a pleasure for a great numbers of the future generation of seniors.

5.3

New Travelling Formats: Solo Travelling, Multigenerational and Loose

If we were to distil the DNA of the 21st century to one word, it would be defined by urbanization and mass displacements, technological revolution, waning of ideologies and disenchantment towards all forms of authority; mass access to information and services within the horizontal space of the web; challenge and erosion of any brick and mortar intermediation with constant disruption that leapfrogs any known structure and known pathway; well, that word would surely be “liquid” as magisterially synthetized by Zigmund Bauman (Bauman 2000). This liquidity inevitably circles and redesigns the TT&H industry in many ways, namely with the changing structure of its vast clientele.

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A society characterised by marked aging, singledom and an ever growing pool of discerning travellers, mutates not only in attitude and personality, but in travel formats and patterns too. The modifications in hand, driven by this societal shift, are not only numerous but also interesting, providing the opportunity for a more diversified, flexible and wide spread tourism. Let’s examine some. Off-season movements: a well-established pattern, we can expect off-season movements to increase consistently in the next couple of decades, offering our industry a great opportunity. Not limited by school calendars, the growing numbers of seniors travel off peak, benefitting from lower prices and helping the industry to spread costs prolonging seasonal activity. As previously mentioned, the coming generations of silver travellers bring with them an unprecedented familiarity with travelling (“Travel Native”); they are the most educated generations to join the silver wave ever; they bring a high propensity to allocate time and money to leisure tourism. The already well established pattern of off peak movements, favoured by the seniors, will enlarge in numbers swelling the revenue, will widen its target destinations areas, will extend in duration and will increase in repetition. This 360° widening of the pie is not only explained by the sheer volumes involved, but also by the generational attitude towards travelling. More frequent, more diverse, more active. The high propensity to travel, united with the wise management of the purse, will lead this vast generation to switch a fresh attention to destinations and areas beyond the pantheon of celebrities. Spotlight on “2nd and 3rd Tier” destinations: “Travel-Native” as we have called them, the next generation of seniors have probably already seen the Tour Eiffel at least twice and are mildly motivated by the “must-do” lists. TourismNative, they have started taking holidays and travelling at an early age. Travelling comes natural, and they are well and over the 1st Tier roster to visit, conventional list of “celebrity” destinations: Paris, Rome, Amsterdam, Venice and so on and so forth. There is life and interest beyond the A-list of high profile, must-see destinations. The seniors’ motives are less about be seen in the high profile sites, and more about just being, just enjoying; to be at ease in empathically geared environments with human-sized thrills. In fact, for many of the Generation X, seniors-to-be of tomorrow, discovering new areas to explore will nearly become a competition. Especially within the upper middle class, plus couple and singles who have remained childless, or “child-free”, a growing segment currently hovering around 20% of European women aged 40 and over, travelling has become the number one favourite way of spending leisure time. These tourists are eager to explore not only “away-from the beaten path destinations”, but especially second and third tier ones. Areas, territories and towns that, until now, would not even have featured in tourism marketing, as “tourist destinations” will have their chance to sing their song.

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In addition to this, shunning the curse of over-tourism that crams the streets of the popular sites, gutting them of any pale remnants of authenticity, will soon become, the true must-do, and we will eviscerate this theme later on. We are skirting here, on the periphery of what is going to be a real paradigm shift in the future of tourism, and that we touched on the technology chapter: We are evolving towards times where everything and everywhere can be turned into a holiday/leisure time experience, as long as it transformed precisely into that: a full rounded, accomplished experience: a product, a concept that has its rightful positioning and its clearly defined purpose. The way we spend our holiday time will be so much more varied and broadened to encompass virtually everything, thanks to the growing professionalism of tourism operators, capable of extracting content, history and tradition to convert them into personal growth fostering experiences. Hence, especially for the future generations of senior travellers, the “celebrity” status of the destination to visit will become less and less important, as long as the alternatives provide a well aligned product mix of quality, value for money and authentic engagement with local culture. Climate extremes driven senior holidays: the escalation of climate change will, in itself, create a new and compelling motive and holiday format for the seniors. As we will explore in the climate change chapter, a growing number of climatologists and experts are whistle blowing to signal a dramatic acceleration of the climate change patterns, that seem to be shifting from “linear” to “exponential”, disproving many cautious predictions and their asserters. This acceleration will bring more frequent extreme heat waves over the European continent as well as North America. Weather will become incrementally unpredictable, with one foreseeable constant: increased and increasing temperatures. These will tend to grow more in the northern hemisphere, due to the larger emerged landmass located there, and will also tend to increase greatly more towards the continent’s inlands. In lay terms this means that, internal regions in USA and Europe will see average increases of 3 °C, 3.5 °C degrees possibly more, in the next two decades. “Average” is a misleadingly benign word that conceals statistical variances that can be pretty wild. Heat waves will be nothing short of life threatening, especially in intensely populated and developed core regions. Climate change will scramble our holiday patterns, and more so for the seniors of the next two-three decades, more susceptible to suffer in extreme temperatures, and with greater time and resources to make alternative arrangements.

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In many destinations and resorts, May will become the new June and June the new July; September a replica of August and October the new September. The northern European countries will see increasing arrivals of holidaymakers-partially escaping from the scorching temperatures of the south. One could scan a geographical map of his region and identify the “temperature-safe’ areas in summer time and nearly scientifically expect that these will see a rise of arrivals in the short-medium and long term future. Multigenerational groups: while life expectancy brings us well into the 80’s years of age, globalization and mobility scatters families all over the world, fragmenting and diversifying, at the same time, the very notion of family itself. In this context, the hospitality sector can expect an increased demand from multi-generational and multi-composite family groups. One of the main megatrends we are in the process of experiencing is the on-going attraction of megacities as chosen places to live. In 2007, for the first time in history, the global urban population exceeded the rural one. Today, year 2020, 56% of the European population lives in urban areas, this figure will be close to 70% by 2050 London is growing at double the pace of the rest of UK. (The World Bank 2019). The choice of urban living over rural and provincial one would deserve to be explored properly, as it distils a crucial nexus of a globalised world, with its pros and cons. A counter trend of back-to land should not be ruled out in near future, but this is not for this work to eviscerate. For the purpose of senior tourism, though, the rush to urbanisation is relevant for the sheer amount of displaced families that it is creating. Families that, be it Christmas or birthdays, occasions or events, need to identify meet-up points where every one can be comfortable, free and happy and reunited for the occasion. Often, neutral grounds in hotels and resorts are the solution of choice. Multi-generational groups, varied in age and composition, will slowly join as our hospitality customers. We foresee a growing appreciation for wider rooms in hotels, with interconnecting doors, that will recreate a sense of home-away-from home, where guests can loosely migrate from one environment to the other in their pyjamas. Hotels, especially if well located and well furnished, will more and more become events and seasonal get-together points for large, fluid, changeable families, increasingly living in different places, and fluidly morphing in size and types. A special note of attention, to the deserving element of food; an all time evergreen, the food experience, already leveraged and explored at great length, will not cease to command attention and reward. Traditionally a favourite theme for the seniors, the pursuit of food-discovery will not even start to abate. On the contrary, the new megatrend unfolding under our own eyes, De-Globalization, will impart further acceleration to the re-discovery of local specific foods and recipes. Our discerning and well travelled, environmentally aware, savvy and connoisseur senior traveller will appreciate and enjoy any truly local and un-adulterated food experience, as long as is genuine. Food will have to be slow, local, balanced and sustainable. In a lengthy March from just being fuel to keep us going, food is

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and will be more and more charged with all the possible attributes and ideological labelling. Packaged-holidays-unpacked: organized travel will experience a true renaissance, as long as it complies with the new market’s demands. The T.O. organised holiday has been under deadly attack by all disinter-mediating E-Commerce, with its ranks decimated for two decades and the final round of high profile casualties in the sector occurring in 2019 with the downfall of the largest and oldest T.O, Thomas Cook. At some stage, an aura of ineluctable doomed fate hovered over the industry. Dead is the intermediation; long live the intermediation. We are entering the third decade of the XXI century and the sector has still important arguments to boast. For the growing ranks of silver travellers, the convenient mix of one-stop-shop factor, the on site assistance and, crucially, the socialization element plus the safety factor are very solid reasons to seek the Tour Operators assistance. However, the packages must now offer max flexibility, with tailor made solutions and alternatives at each and every step of the journey. 57% of travellers feel the organized travel should tailor the experience based on personal preferences, personalization is key and is a growing demand (Google-Phocuswright 2017). Technology assisted data mining, customers profiling and communications will need to be leveraged to evolve the business model in the micro tailoring direction. Solo travelling: the dimension of singledom is soaring to mind boggling numbers and deserves our full attention as it is most likely a long term trend. “Singleton-Kingdom”, as someone has called it, is soaring in strides in a multitude of countries. Back in 2010, already 31% of households in Europe were lived in by single occupier; just six years later, 2017, the percentage had grown to 34%, with Sweden top of the chart, where over half of its population lives alone (51%) followed by Denmark, at 44%, and Germany, 42% (Eurostats 2018). The phenomenon of singleness is a multifactorial one: the increasing longevity rate necessarily leaves behind a sad corollary of lone survivors in couples (Fig. 5.2). The mass movement towards urban living comes with displacement, apartment rentals and, often, single household life ensues. The average age for marriage and set up of young families gets slowly but surely delayed with each generation, Sweden leading the delay with the average age for men getting married at 37 years. Overall, marriages rate in Europe declined by 50% since 1965. In the same span of time, the divorce rate doubled (Eurostat, Marriage and Divorce Statistics, 2019).

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Fig. 5.2 Eurostat proportion of single person households 2017

Many Europeans intentionally choose to remain childfree, with German, Austrian and Swiss women topping the chart on this topic: 20% of them reach age 40 childless, a number that further increases when the filter is applied to urban population and females with college level education (Max Plank Institute, Springer 2017). Once regarded as an oddity, intentionally choosing to remain childfree is nowadays considered just as another alternative under the fold of the very many variants and ways of living one’s life. Although many would advocate that this growing phenomenon is symptomatic of a decadent civilization, lead by individualistic and narcissistic instincts, it must not be forgotten that the rate of involuntary infertility is also becoming rampant across all western world (Dr Hagla Ievine 2017). Driven by a trend of reproduction postponement in European society, this trend is exacerbated by the ubiquitous micro and cumulative pollution of plastics in our food chain, notoriously acting as endocrine disruptors. ART (Assisted Reproductive Technology) has become a routine medical practice and a lucrative business for

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many. In the UK 1 in 6 couples struggle to conceive a child, unsurprising, if we consider that, accordingly to studies on human reproduction, the sperm count in the Western world has more than halved in the past 40 years (Science Daily, Hebrew University of Jerusalem 2017). Hence, considering the extended longevity rate, the expanding segment of lone survivors, the increasing rate of intentionally childless women, the halving of marriages and high divorce rates, mass movements towards mega cities and urban living, de-construing the traditional family nucleus, we are looking at the emergence of a very sizable market segment connoted by one common element: singleness, across all age groups. The solo traveller is part of our demographic shift, and has its most visible manifestation, once more, in the European continent. However, in the USA the demographic balance is more influenced by inbound immigration than by a genuinely endogenous force, therefore, effects and conclusions can be by simile applied to both realities. Solo travelling accounts for circa 18% of all bookings, recording a remarkable 7% Year on Year growth in 2018; 60% of solo travellers find insufficient offers and diversification for their needs in the arena of organised travels; 52% of them would prefer escorted holidays to independent travels. Solotravel yearly survey 2018 According to the Adventure Travel Association trends report 2018, a whopping 80% of Millennials travel solo, not exclusively, but as an alternative format. Indication that is confirmed in another study conducted by Princeton University (Adventure Travel Association 2018). Similarly, OTA Booking.com found, in a vast global study, that young seniors, Baby Boomers & Co. are causing a surge in solo travelling, with 40% of Global Baby Boomers (>56 years old) having taken a solo trip last year and a further 21% planning one next year (Booking.com 2018). Unquestionably, Solo travelling will be on the up: driven by the sheer scale of growing numbers, coupled by unabated and constantly growing propensity to travel. There is no doubt room for companies to expand and diversify. Single occupier room penalty in hotel will come under criticism: a difficult to justify penalty that needs to be readdressed. Single Travel Group Formats; may be segmented by age group, or marital status. Exodus Travels, voted best Tour Company for singles by Tripsavy, offers 600 different tour itineraries and across 100 countries, where up to 66% of group will be made up of singles the rest couples and families. Although not exclusively for solo travellers, on average this company’s tours have 50% of participants

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travelling solo, a statistic similarly quoted by Intrepid Travels, another successful T. O. boasting 1000 itineraries and Contiki Travels, T.O. who claims to specialise in younger groups of customers. If “making life long friends” during your group travel is not a luring enough proposition, singles specialised T.O. find another market niche, where the group formats only include singles. Encounter Travels, twice winner of the Solo Travel Award (2017, 2018) it offers six travel styles for solo holidaymakers: discovery, get going, relax, on the water, combo and essential. Groups can be age matched and although claiming not to be a dating agency, never put a limit to twists of destiny. The active over 50s are considered a specific target market for other T.O. In their corporate marketing literature, key words are intentionally designed to appeal to this age cohort, are: “active over 50”, “desire to immerse in a destination, not just visit it”, “learn more about the world”, “small groups”, “authentic experiences’ and “forging bonds” The group format, organised, guided and with logistics taken care of, can confidently project an expansion in the next couple of decades. The convenience of safety, the pleasure of company and the opportunity to make new friends are three winners for the singles segment. The conundrum gripping each single when holiday planning time comes, is ‘with whom”. Group travel relieves the pressure and allows new experiences under protected and organised circumstance. Freedom. Independence. Liberating. Alive. Solo travel is described as the new way of engaging with holidaymaking. Wild women, females only trips: another growing trend, bringing together female friends, sisters and female relatives, or solo female travellers, moves hand in hand with the progression of female status in our societies represented in their increasing activity rate –(percentage of women who hold a job). In 2018, 33% of female respondents to a Booking.com research confirmed that they had taken at least one solo trip in the past year. An overall safe world, unquestionably multicultural and open minded, female only travels are just the latest expression of another dimension of freedom conquered. The next development seems to point towards groups (Wild Women Expedition 2018). To attempt an insight into the matter and gauge if this could be a fad or a more solid trend, we should cast a look at its enablers. Three factors are, most likely concurring to feed the “females only” adventure segment. Firstly, after many years of quiet and compliant behaviour disenfranchisement and discontent have been taking to the streets. Gilet Jaunes in France, the Hong Kong protests, general strikes in Europe and, across the globe and all the climate change related sit-in, protests and lock down point to societies in flux and ferment. Although not directly related to the females-only travel, new phases of activism invariably come with a wider awareness of categories and their specific issues. “Women’s role in society” is surely one. The general phase of renewed advocacy has, indeed, stimulated the 6¼ Metoo social media phenomenon that has exposed such widespread harassment practice at every level and every industry.

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The 6¼ Metoo movement made women globally appreciate how far behind we still lag on gender equality. Secondly, the phenomenon of urbanisation and families displacement creates a void of family-bonding that needs to be filled. Within that comfortable family nucleus, now broken, reciprocal advice was traditionally sought and shared. That mini-community is now, often lost to vast if not immense geographical distance. If a mini-matriarchal group wishes to reinstate that bonding, it demands a females-only-multigenerational-retreat, where women of the same, extended families, regroup to share wisdom and memories. Although we do not have stats available, this is a niche-in-the-niche format, albeit not necessarily commercially relevant, but one that has a message to deliver. In the context of de-globalization, family displacement, and complexities to manage, regrouping amongst the family-females is an option to seek reassurance and guidance. Finally, we must not forget the biggest enabler of all: female labour force participation. Millennials and Gen X females have, indeed, achieved an unprecedented high activity rate in society. Although the European Union target of 75% women’s participation in the labour-force may still take several years to meet, the European average employment rate of females’ aged 20–64, stands at 65%, the highest ever recorded. The freedom and independence secured by one’s own occupation plus the professional bonding formed at work and in work-related relationships offer the strongest trampoline to drive this novel travelling pattern. Beyond families and old friends, females now have acquired a brand new, vast and rich playfield: their work environments and professions. This is incredibly liberating and will no doubt fuel, all forms of self-expression, travelling being a favourite one. Therefore we can realistically conclude that this niche travel format has a promising future and the new spaces conquered will not be relinquished. To summarise some Industry take-away for the future: prepare to welcome your guests for longer extended seasons. Seasonality will change, expanding beyond conventional seasons. Ship must be in perfect order and fully geared throughout the shoulders of the season to start with. Intercept and tap into the higher disposable income of Gen X and over 50s, potentially the last vast batch to enjoy financial security. Offer experiences, interesting and authentic food, adventures and accompanied mini tours. Think furniture and décor with the more mature age in mind: good lighting, comfortable spaces, magnifying mirrors in the bathrooms. Wider, larger font types in the communications and collateral a simple and yet disappointingly disregarded detail. New friends: the next generation of seniors will be more inclined than ever to meet and engage with other people. Think communal spaces with loose and casual meeting points. People are curious about people, the next generation of seniors more than the previous ones.

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Adopt the right attitude: we keep seeing very poor marketing campaigns targeting seniors with images that would sometime instigate lawsuits. Age does not define anyone as an individual, personality does. Think about motives and attitudes, aspirations and activities and depict the new silver haired customers with their own energy, not cliché’ stereotypes.

5.4

A Loneliness Pandemic? It’s a Dogs’ World

In 2017 the UK launched the newly conceived Ministry for Loneliness. In her official speech Theresa May, Prime Minister at the time and promoter of the initiative, stated that “loneliness is one of the greatest public health challenges of our time” (T. May, 14 Oct 2018). The creation of this newly minted ministry is meant to tackle it. According to UK data, GPs (General Practitioner, the first line doctors) say that every day they receive “one to five patients” lamenting loneliness, a condition that modern medicine links to onset of multiple pathologies, from heart diseases to Alzheimer. Across the country, over 200,000 older people have not had a conversation with friends or relatives for over a month. The new Ministry will tackle this pandemic of social isolation with the newly introduced so called “social prescribing” where the GPs, supported by the system, will be able to prescribe social activity such as cookery classes, walking and arts groups and so on. In Stockholm, >50% of the population now lives alone. One person out of four dies alone. In the United States, a nation wide study carried out by health insurer Cigna, found that 54% of respondents feel lonely and that “nobody really knows them well. (Cigna study, Fortune 2018). Millennials feel lonely in proportions never recorded by sociological research, whilst elderly people are actually lonelier, often for having aged alone or being left widowed. In any case, it’s a loneliness pandemic that deserves our industry’s full attention. Not so much for the hard data that emerge from research: these are mostly selfreported analysis and we must factor in that we live in a very civilised, high expectations society, where we are all promptly inclined to lament any obstacle and flaw on the path of utter bliss and contentment we all feel entitled to. But more so because, as any psychiatrist would confirm, when it comes to state of mind and moods, it’s the perception that matters: if one is surrounded by family and friends and still feels lonely, this inner reality is the only reality that matters and the one that prevails. Loneliness will for sure represent a master key apt at unlocking many and multiple business opportunities in the future. “Rent-me a Friend” (Japan) where Japanese, often students, actually rent a convenient companion, escort or friend by the hour, to “keep up appearances” without the inconvenient and time-consuming

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task of nurturing real relationships. Over ten agencies operate in Tokyo alone, with an average fee of $115 for a typical two hour commitment. Rent-a mum (or even grandma) in the United States, where displaced young families seek helping hands: “when you need a mom, just not YOUR mom” recites the website of one New York agency, interestingly a start up of a 63 year old lady, offering an array of services from just “listening without judgment” to “iron your shirts” for the menial charge of $40 an hour (http://www.needamomnyc.com). The remedy for loneliness, be it driven by lack of social skills, urban living or elderly age, are multiplying in the form of digital platforms offering solutions to the pandemic. In tourism, the industry has a cornucopia of answers to mitigate the problem. A virtually infinite array of “experiences” that puts the lonely traveller in contact with the locals for an authentic, first hand experience that spans from wine making in Tuscany to Tea tasting in Japan, from meet the bear in Canada to rugs threading in Turkey. Airbnb experiences and similar, bridges the void of walking alone and a bit lost in a foreign town creating a passage that shatters distance as well as solitudes. One trend that is definitely on an explosive acceleration curve concerns the adoption of domestic pets and, as a consequence, demand for pet-friendly holidays and accommodation. The number of domestic pets is, by now, nearly matching the total European population itself: over 103 million cats, favourite in Germany and France, 85 million dogs, plus another 100 million amongst ornamental birds, little mammals and reptiles. (Statista 2018) At Nestle’ they are rubbing their hands with glee with the pets’ food business area delivering four times (four times) the turnover of baby food and expected to grow by 20% in the next 5 years (2020–2025). It’s a dogs’ world. The love for Fido drives a number of new consumer demands, retail opportunities and new businesses. From the newly born Internet for dogs, and new generations of interactive technological toys for pets, so that they will not suffer loneliness when home alone, we only need to focus and identify when and how the pets dimension will start percolating through numbers in our hotels and facilities. Pet friendly resorts, accommodation, transport; Pets-sitters; Dogs and pet vacations; why not an Airbnb for dogs and pets of all types, which, by the way, has already been launched (www.housemydog.com) a platform that matches host houses and pet carers with pets that need accommodation for some time.

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We have a visual rendering of the fervour dedicated to making travel arrangements for the domestic pets observing the marked spike of related search terms on Google Trends when calendar holidays approach. Search terms such as “travelling with pets” is observed in tandem with the conventional calendar dates for holidaying, reaching 50/100 in spring, (100 being “highest popularity ever recorded”) 75/100 throughout the summer months, and 100/100 around Christmas time. Christmas, as we all know, is family time, how could Fido be left out? Eight airlines currently allow travel with pets in the cabin, all based in the United States and Canada. Aerlingus, the Irish carrier, is getting organised under the smart pay-off “If they are part of the family, they can be part of the holiday”. “Fur-babies”, Pet-Parents”, “Jet-Petters”: the vocabulary (and marketing) is coining new definitions for this category of furry travellers and their loving owners. The portfolio of newly forged terms is destined to deepen as well as the hospitality services. In the UK, a pet transport service offers to drive your pets by road, all across Europe. In security and comfort, fully insured, in insulated vehicles with air conditioning for the summer months, and wooden kennels. The company guarantees regular stops over the journey, feeding them only “owner approved foods”, respecting special dietary requirements. Should the furry friend need veterinary assistance during the journey, the company is also fully insured, up to £50,000 expenses. To travel across Europe, pets need to be micro chipped, vaccinated and have their own passport, issued by the vet. In Spain a pet friendly taxi service named Taxiguau is been adopted by a number of taxi drivers across 19 towns. Conceived and tested in Zaragoza first, it allows residents and tourists to summon one of these cabs, where they can travel with their domestic pets, appropriately installed over a blanket and subjects with a safety harness. As per the accommodation, one is never left wondering as the web has all the answers. Dedicated platforms are sprouting (PawsAbroad.co.uk, Bringfido.com, Petspijama) amongst others, indicate a selection of pet-friendly hotels in continental Europe, alongside convenient “pet-friendly” search filter for Tripadvisor, Booking.com, Expedia. Petspijama claims to be n.1 for pet-friendly holidays, amassing a list of over 4000 truly dog-welcoming hotels, all striving to make your holiday purr-fect. Customers can choose from “Cosy Canine Cottages” to “5 paws Luxe”, from “Fido family friendly”, hosting groups of dogs, to “Dining with Fido”. The pets’ trend is here to stay as it merges and overlaps with the growing number of single-occupier households, childlessness and long life expectancy. It deserves our business’ consideration as pet’ owners have high attachment to their little friends and high propensity to spend for them.

5.5 Old Is the New Cool: The Surprising Curve of Happiness

5.5

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Old Is the New Cool: The Surprising Curve of Happiness

Lonely or accompanied by loyal Fido, engaging in adventure travels or taking multigenerational trips with female family members, the new seniors are full of zest, personality and expect to be noticed. Gone are the times where old age was expected to be invisible, quiet and intrinsically depressing. Old is the new Cool. The FMCG industry, or any other industry, can’t be oblivious to big market shifts for long. Youth has always been in the spotlight of advertising and for sure overrepresented with regard to the spend power and demographic weight. Youth is sexy, flawless and has the appeal of the promise-yet-to-be kept. However, as we have examined, a billowing mass of silver haired customers are entering the stage and these do not belong to the “Silent Generation”. The big brands have captured the signal on their sensors and will be soon tuning in the new wavelength. The arrival of the next generation of “Travel-Native” seniors, at ease with themselves and the wider world, willing to engage in new experiences until as long as they can, has been picked up, in an appropriate anticipation exercise, by big brands in fashion and FMCG in general. The phenomenon made its surprising debut in the mainstream advertising of DS car manufacturer commercial in the 2017 campaign. In that commercial the brand ambassador chose to impersonate a new car model was the, frankly irresistible, New York stylist Iris Apfel. Iris, a perky and jaunty 90 year old, broke through the small screen with her unapologetically white hair and carved face framed by bold red glasses and matching lipstick, to provoke the viewer: “Rules? They are just a waste of time”. Not a random statement, but one that captures that silver lining that comes with aging: a sense of freedom and liberation from conventions that allows us to speak freely and just be. Shortly afterwards, as a deluge ofglobal fashion brands began dotting their seasonal collection catwalks with agee’ models, even more beautiful now, with life layered on their looks and bodies. Amongst the other, Dolce and Gabbana, Rochas, Valentino, American Apparel, L’Oreal rushed to secure testimonials such as Helen Mirren Charlotte Rampling, Benedetta Barzini Jane Fonda. Even the Michelin calendar dedicated one edition to this novel wave of femininity, with a selection of stars all rigorously above 60 year of age. It is a race to take the vows in the liberation of age from the slavery of beauty and appearance.

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Quirky and startling commercials now confidently direct the photo-shoot light towards those white hairs that nobody ever wanted to acknowledge up until now. The tongue-in-cheek commercial style is widely adopted, to the point of Coca-Cola signing off a commercial where two elderly ladies mess on their smartphones surfing the dating platform Tinder to check out senior potential partners. Down with the last taboos. Old is the new cool, and we are just at the very start. If old age had previously put up with the necessary, conventionally accepted corollary of becoming invisible, that will not be the case for longer more. Growing numerically stronger by the year, the large empty nesters cohort has another unspoken of arrow in its quiver: in times of recession, crisis and uncertainty, maturity and wisdom take precedence over sexiness and fads, pragmatism over aspirational dreams. Wrinkles don’t matter. A solid bank account does. To sink a final nail on the matter, a little known fact, yet solidly confirmed over repeated research efforts, is represented by the curve of happiness across the various age groups, from teenage years up until the ultra-seniors. Who is the happiest? According to all key studies administered and examined across the world, from Australia to Europe and USA, the happiest time of our lives seem to be, surprisingly, achieved after 60s. Happiness seems to draw, throughout the lifecycles, a sort of U curve: a peak in the teen age years and early twenties, a decline throughout thirties and forties, a marked dip in the fifties, and finally a positive inversion in the early sixties to finally achieve a new peak when approaching 70ies. The astonishing result documented widely and globally, taps into the UK Office For National Statistics (ONS) which conducted a seven year long research on the matter (ONS 2018). But the unexpected findings are confirmed in a spate of studies comprising seven extensive surveys, covering no less than 51 countries, involving 1,3 million people, all converging towards similar results and conclusions. This chart, (credit to Blachflower and Oswald 2017), summarises the results of all the surveys, proving, beyond any shadow of doubt and across such a varied sample of cultures and geographies, that life truly seem to test us in different ways at different times. The old age, seen from outside as the worst and most daunting leg of one’s life, looks quite the opposite when seen from the inside (Fig. 5.3).

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Fig. 5.3 Blanchflower and Oswald, The Shape of Happiness, 2017 Available at: https://www. weforum.org/agenda/2017/08/youll-probably-have-a-midlife-happiness-crisis-heres-why

Senior age represents, first and foremost for the majority of the middle class, a new phase of freedom: freedom from house mortgages, financial commitments and duties to raise and assist children. Empty nesters, young seniors and seniors enjoy, in most case, the privilege of good health, good energy, and freedom from the biggest constraints that sandwich the majority of the previous phases of adulthood. Plus they are by and large out of the rat race that constrains the majority for most of our lives. As a good friend approaching senior age once told me: “Now I can sit down and enjoy the sight of the others making all the mistakes”, she confided with a broad smile.

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References Online Publications: Organisation Site (Chap. 5.1) European Commission. 2018. Aging Report: policy challenges for ageing societies. https://ec. europa.eu/info/news/economy-finance/policy-implications-ageing-examined-new-report-2018may-25_en. Figure 1 United Nations WPP Germany Population probabilistic projection, medium variant. 2019. https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/POP/TOT/276. Eurostat, population structure and aging. 2018. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statisticsexplained/ index.php/Population_structure_and_ageing#Median_age_is_highest_in_Italy. ISTAT, comunicato ANSA. 2019. http://www.ansa.it/sito/notizie/cronaca/2019/07/03/istatitaliani-55-milioni-e-declino-demografico_5ea618c3-97a7-4617-8dfe-950ae733812f.html. Eurostat, Household Composition statistics. 2019, May. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statisticsexplained/index.php/Household_composition_statistics. United Nations, shaping our future together, Population. 2018. https://www.un.org/en/sections/ issues-depth/population/. Centro Studi Turistici Firenze, Silver Tourism, quoting European Commission. 2018. http:// centrostudituristicifirenze.it/blog/silver-tourism-nel-2030-in-europa-previsti-140-mln-di-turistiover-60/. Eurostats Share of different purposes in the total number of trips undertaken by EU residents. 2014. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=File:Share_of_ different_purposes_in_the_total_number_of_trips_undertaken_by_EU-residents,_EU-28,_ 2014_(%25)_new.png. Expedia research. 2016–2018. Multigenerational travel trends (see doc).

(Chap. 5.2) Bain & Co. financial report. 2018. The rise of old-preneurs. Barclays Business Banking. 2017. http://elitebusinessmagazine.co.uk/people/item/olderpreneurson-the-rise-as-over-55s-start-more-businesses-than-millennials. USA Census Bureau. 2017. Inflation adjusted age cohort 25 to 34 years, 1971 vs 2016. https:// www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2017/demo/p20-579.pdf.

(Chap. 5.3) The World bank Population data. 2019. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.URB.TOTL.IN. ZS. Eurostat, rising proportion of single persons households. 2018. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/ products-eurostat-news/-/DDN-20180706-1?inheritRedirect=true&redirect=%2Feurostat%2F. Figure 2 Eurostat proportion of single person households 2017 Eurostat, Marriage and Divorce Statistics. 2019. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Marriage_and_ divorce_statistics#Fewer_marriages.2C_more_divorces. Max Plank Institute, Springer. 2017. https://www.demogr.mpg.de/books/drm/013/bok%20978-3319-44667-7.pdf. Solotravel yearly survey. 2018. https://solotravelerworld.com/about/solo-travel-statistics-data/. https://www.phocuswire.com/Travel-booking-behavior-data-signals.

References

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Adventure Travel Association. 2018. https://www.adventuretravel.biz/research/20-adventuretrends-to-watch-for-2018/. Booking.com research. 2018. https://www.hospitalitynet.org/news/4088224.html. Wild Women Expedition. 2018. https://thepointsguy.com/guide/women-group-travel-trend/. https://wildwomenexpeditions.com/trips/cinque-terre-tuscany/.

(Chap. 5.4) Statista number of pet animals in Europe. 2018. https://www.statista.com/statistics/453880/petpopulation-europe-by-animal/.

(Chap. 5.5) ONS Office for National Statistics UK, quoted by The Guardian. 2019. https://www.theguardian. com/global/2019/feb/13/people-are-happiest-at-ages-of-16-and-70-in-uk-says-study. Figure 3 Blanchflower and Oswald, The Shape of Happiness. 2017. https://www.weforum.org/ agenda/2017/08/youll-probably-have-a-midlife-happiness-crisis-heres-why.

Books and Chapters: Book, Authored (Chap. 5.3) Bauman, Zigmunt. 2000. Liquid modernity. Polity Press.

Journals and Articles Journal: Scholarly Article (Chap. 5.2) Patterson, Ian, and Adela Balderas. 2018. Journal of Population Aging, Springer, 2018.

(Chap. 5.3) Google Phocuswright. 2017. The future of travel: new consumer behaviour and the technology giving it flight. www.thinkwithgoogle.com1121-future-of-travel-download. Science Daily, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, July 2017. Ievine, Hagla. 2017. Human reproduction study, significant ongoing decline in sperm counts of western men. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/07/170726110954.htm.

(Chap. 5.4) May, Theresa. 2018, Oct 14. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/oct/14/ loneliness-social-prescribing-theresa-may. Fortune, study finds that half of Americans especially young people feel lonely, May 2018. https:// fortune.com/2018/05/01/americans-lonely-cigna-study/.

Chapter 6

Climate Change and Its Impact on TT&H Industry

Abstract From having been culpably absent from the public debate, to now being the elephant in the room, the climate crisis we are collectively walking into risks becoming the most decisive megatrend in terms of changing the course of our history. No industry or dimension will be spared in what is shaping up to become a deep overhaul of our collective business model, its kpis and culture. Balancing the looming menaces and the newly emerging shoots of Green Economy, Travel and Tourism will be challenged like never before to take a long and hard look at how business is carried out. The chapter analyses some very likely outcomes of this context: from amenity migration to solidarity tourism, water contention and sustainable holidays. We then single out one touristic district, the Alps, already under the pressure of climate change, to analyze its adaptation measures.











Keywords Climate change Climate crisis Adaptation measures Climate change in travel and tourism Sustainable tourism The alpine chain adapting to climate change Climate change and tourism Tourism future




6.1







Climate Change and the Emperor’s New Clothes Paradigm

Climate Change is, beyond any reasonable doubt, one of the five megatrends that will dictate the shape and prescribe the strategic choices of our future world. Most likely, this will in fact, emerge to become the most salient one of the whole lot. An all-encompassing transformation, no land will be left unscathed, no industry or sector will be spared, no activity or consumer behaviour will remain unaffected. When it comes to CO2 emissions, Travel and Tourism, after having ramped up to mass-scale global movements, are unfortunately amongst the worst offenders: circulating cars account for 27% of total European CO2 emissions, while the airline emissions account globally for 2.5% of the total damage.

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 V. Boschetto Doorly, Megatrends Defining the Future of Tourism, Anticipation Science 6, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48626-6_6

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Relying on biodiversity and unspoiled landscapes, vulnerable heritage sites and intact ecosystems, predictable temperature and weather conditions, the tourism industry risks facing a challenging scenario, and not in a far distant future. We brought this upon ourselves; it is now imperative to find remedies. As the IPCC (Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change) fifth global conference pulled its curtains, in the early winter of 2018, the alarm bells on climate change acceleration went off on the four corners of the globe, public opinion finally awakening to a looming and grim reality. Within the span of a century, since the Anthropocene era started, our species’ painstaking industrial operations have driven the global temperature to an average increase of 1 °C, a misleadingly harmless figure that has, in fact, caused the melting of the Artic ice for the equivalent of twice the surface of the European continent (Wadhmans 2016). Many climatologists and scientists believe we have now irreparably entered a funnel of exponential (non linear) acceleration, (Bendell 2018) and we are in for a spiral of natural disasters we can no longer avert, but only prepare for. Although the scientific community has been regularly feeding alarming news to the media for decades, it somehow struggled to convey the gravity of the situation. Muffled by the political agenda of short-term gains and short term plans, negated by the powerful vested interests of global conglomerates and multinationals, the IPCC scientists and researchers had their own challenge in agreeing consensual statements, consensus that may be reached by diluting the message and delivering somehow edulcorated warnings. There is now emerging agreement, that the IPCC assessments have more than once been unduly conservative. Yet, the IPCC final report and executive summary of 2018, is plenty to send shivers down the readers’ spine. A multiplication of voices, from and within highly qualified scientific environments, are signalling that recent years’ weather patterns are pointing to an exponential acceleration, versus the linear modelling that they were previously envisaging. The meaning of “exponential” deserves to be spelled out: if a white slice of bread takes four minutes to turn from white to nicely golden, it will take two minutes to turn from golden to brown and one minute from brown to burned black. This, apparently, is what is happening to our planet, and we are fast shifting from golden to brown.

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If the situation is so dire, how is it possible for mankind to have disdainfully ignored for decades what is potentially set to become the Dooms day of our civilisation? Apart from the obvious reasons of our complacency and the narrow-minded profit-led propaganda of vested interests, a deeper motive can be found in how the human brain is wired: a cognitive bias so deeply ingrained in our neural system to prevent us from receiving “information” or “facts” that substantially diverge from what we already know and believe in. Our cognitive structure, once it has consolidated a set of beliefs and convictions, tends to seek repeated validation of the same set of notions that it already knows and believes in. This is commonly referred to as “confirmation bias”. We believe what we see, and, sometimes, even seeing is not believing, if what we see does not confirm what we already know or believe we know. Through the years, we have been served crushing evidence: 17 of the 18 warmest years in the 136 record have occurred since 2001, with the Artic recording a surprising +3.5 °C increase in 2016 since record began in 1900. Within the span of a few decades the increase in global mean temperatures has melted nearly one million square kilometres or 620.000 square miles of the Artic ice cap. Monitored by NASA since 1978, this represents more than the double the size of Continental Europe, thus revealing that same amount of extra soil or water surface to the sun. Besides losing surface ice, the remaining Artic sea ice coverage has lost, in the last 30 years, over 40% of its volumes diminishing in thickness from 3.1 metres on average to 1.8 metres. This melting, in turn, dramatically accelerates the overall ice dissolution, pouring millions of gallons of fresh water into the oceans (NASA 2019, World watch 2019). Extreme weather events are increasing in frequency and intensity everywhere on the globe, with the incidence of category 4 and 5 hurricanes increasing in recurrence respectively of 45% and 87% in continental United States in the last three decades (C2ES 2019). At the same time, deadly heat waves have tripled in frequency in the last decade alone. California has suffered, in the six years between 2011 and 2016, the worst drought in 1200 years, followed by three months of torrential rains in 2017 where it rained 228% more than average (NCA National Climate Assessment UN 2019). European summers are becoming familiar with lethal heat waves with leaps to extremely high temperatures ever earlier in the season and eerily prolonged into the autumn. While drought-triggered wildfires now repeatedly torch enormous areas of California and Australia, United Nations Intelligence estimates that by 2030 over 47% of the global population will be under severe water supply stress (UN Environment 2016).

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Yet, our cognitive bias, encouraged and seduced by the comfort of first world life standards, which allow us to purchase products with minimal marginal value manufactured on the other side of the globe leaving behind an insane transport footprint, have made us numb, deaf, blind to the multiplying evidence. It took a 16 years old Swedish teenager to climb on a pulpit at the Davos annual leaders’ meeting, and again step on the United Nations stage, to send the first real shockwave to the system. Her fiery address lucidly carved to incinerate the well-dressed and well-spoken audience, no prisoners taken. As the confident public reacted with awe and reappraisal, smirks or patronising comments, Greta Thunberg broke the ranks, unleashing a global reaction that now sees millions of citizens take to the streets as if awaken from a long and dangerous sleep. What we have witnessed here, I call “the Emperor’s new Clothes Paradigm”, so relevant for us, in the realm of futures and anticipation science, as it is a recurrent figure of history that we should all familiarise ourselves with the story. In the Hans Christian Andersen’s tale, the vain Emperor ordered new clothes from a jovial weaver who, bizarrely, decided to play a trick on him. The clothes are only visible to intelligent and high ranking people, so the weaver assured, and that is why this special fabric is so expensive; enough to lure the Emperor into the purchase. Shortly afterwards, the Emperor mounted on his horse, chest out and crown on, to make his way through the parade with cheering subjects all around. Nobody dared to say what they saw. In fact, nobody dared to see what they saw: a naked emperor would be unthinkable; it would not fit and suit the notion of the highest ranking person ruling the county. The crowds gasp and cheer, convincingly. Only a young boy, a child really, jumps out from the multitude, pointing the finger to the Emperor: the Emperor has no clothes! Suddenly the truth breaks through, piercing the air like shattered glass. Greta is that boy, climbing over the fence of the powerful shouting “our planet is burning!”. She dared see what could not be seen, and could not be named, although laid bare in front of us, naked evidence. L. Cohen would paraphrase “Where there is a crack, the light comes through”.

6.1 Climate Change and the Emperor’s New Clothes Paradigm

Universal Truth ♯ 6 Those who dare shatter the bias, often unveil a truth that was aching to be revealed.

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6.2

How Will Climate Change Affect the Travel Tourism and Hospitality Industry?

Each macro phenomenon is described with a choice of terms that tends to evolve with the evolving perception of the phenomenon itself. The power of semantics can succinctly convey a whole world of opinions, perceptions and emotions. The locution “Climate Change” will soon give way to “Climate Crisis” to better capture the growing sense of urgency that comes with the escalation of the climate fall out. At the leading edge, The Guardian newspaper’s editorial board has already endorsed this viewpoint. The Climate Crisis will affect regions and urban areas to differing degrees and in different ways accordingly to their location, latitude and morphology. It is therefore impossible to depict a comprehensive and homogeneous scenario of how tourist destinations, located in different parts of the world, will suffer and/or adapt to the mutating climate conditions. We will, however, extrapolate four situational trends that will affect several areas: – – – –

The phenomenon of “Amenity Migration”, instigated by climate change Extreme weather events and “Solidarity Tourism” Water contention The rise of Sustainable Holiday

Overall, temperatures will rise and will do so at a faster pace than in the past. The most affected area is the Northern Hemisphere, hence Europe, because of the larger landmass there located. In general, inland Continental areas will experience a higher degree of average temperature increase and more extreme median temperature during summers. Urban conglomerates and megacities in the continent will suffer the assault of long, interminable summers, marked by early onset and delayed endings of the hot season. Air quality will increasingly worsen, at least in the next decade, before technological solutions and electrification of transports will be ready to kick in and get implemented extensively. From stifling cities, the growing population of seniors, retirees and semi-retirees will seek refuge on hills, mountains and by the sea, shaping up a new lifestyle of semi-permanent living in amenity rich sites. A new phenomenon, that we call, “Amenity Migration” will usher the non-active or semi-active population towards mountain and coastal areas for sizable chunks of the year, seeking shelter from extreme temperature and high pollution.

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Amenity Migration

Amenity migration, in my views, will revive the old time habit of very long holidays when summers stretched idly for three uninterrupted months, bringing that bygone format to new purpose, new meaning and new formats. Amenity migration will not be for all, but will primarily involve those who have achieved financial independence and the over 50s empty nesters, free from family commitments and the school calendar. This very large and growing segment, to include young seniors, seniors and super elderly will, in my opinion, give rise to a brand new and extremely interesting phenomenon of counter migration from megacities and large urban centres in the highly populated, continental areas, to peripheral locations. These locations not infrequently have experienced a painful outbound migration that has hollowed them of their population over the past few decades. The target destinations for the amenity migration will tend to be across all latitudes: a. Areas and villages with agreeable urban structure, pleasant surrounding landscape and amenities to enjoy. Hills, mountains and seaside equally favoured. But also simple rural areas that have retained some potential and some natural assets and resources; b. At latitudes, altitudes or geo locations that protect them from climate extremes and heat waves; c. At reachable distances and connected by transport; d. Close to health care facilities; e. Where you can count on water supply. Water contention will unfortunately represent a serious issue for many countries, Europe not excluded, with Spain in the most vulnerable spot. The pattern of stay will be long and active. One, two, three, possibly six month presence throughout the year. Amenity migration is not ‘another way of holidaying”. It heralds a new format of living, a “part–time living” where part of the year is spent in cities, part in pleasant alternative locations. Active: our energetic and often entrepreneurial young seniors will not only revive and possibly resuscitate the local economy, but also engage with it, contributing to the local fabric of activities. The instinct to contribute and the need to keep busy is likely to generate a wave of new, small, locally grounded activities.

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Engagement could also be sought through volunteering to help local business and community. We could be right at the very start of this quiet and beneficial trend, one that could bring new life to areas that had been discarded in favour of the unanimous march towards the megacities. Most likely the trend will not receive mass media attention for some time, as it does not lend itself to draw the spotlight and does not command Instagrammability. First signs of this “back to land” counter march are being monitored, for example, by the Austrian ISCAR Institute for Interdisciplinary Mountain Research at OAW, Austria, and the Austrian Federal Institute for Rural Areas (AWI). Their studies on the Austrian side of the Alps found that, adding the international influx of economic permanent migration, these have turned around the migration-immigration balance to a positive balance for the latter, with the numbers of immigrants exceeding that of those emigrating. In-migration to the alpine convention areas is largely domestic (78–93%) with immigration from abroad being stronger in areas with high tourism intensity where a dynamic labour market promotes new arrivals (Bender and Kanitscheider 2012). The new settlers in the Alps are being nicknamed “new highlanders”, and bring with them pensions savings as well as an active mind-set and work experience. Whereas cities and city living is undoubtedly related to progress, innovation and productivity, not each and every phase of life must necessarily be devoted to income generation through daily commutes and long bain-marie in pollution. The future is urban, so the UN in its World Urbanization prospects 2018 maintains. No doubt, cities across the world are responsible for over 80% of the global Gross National Product, (United Nations, World Urbanization prospects 2018), but who says that an individual’s life can only find fulfillment into being part of the profit—generating machine? The amenity migration to peripheral regions may be, in fact, encouraged and facilitated by ground-breaking experiments instigated by the local municipalities of the so-called “peripheral lands”, such as the one taking place in several European countries. Across Italy, France, Greece, Germany and Spain a brave group of town and villages administrators, have decided to acquire the abandoned properties in areas that suffered the affront of de-population, and put them on the market for a symbolic price of “1 euro”. The unprecedented initiative, begun in the Italian island of Sardinia, is catching on like wild fire, with dozens of properties appearing on the market, through newly launched digital platforms, such as 1eurohouses.com. The market response is resounding, at times overwhelming, with several municipalities receiving thousand of emails of interest. Retirees, semi-retirees, investors, international tourists, emigrants who left the area decades and even generations ago are the potential candidates. The prospective buyer must commit to refurbishing the property within three years, and in some instances, to ensure presence for a number of months.

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Amenity migration, supported by government policies explicitly supporting the re-population of countryside, will hardly bulge to a mass phenomenon marking a paradigm shift in our civilization. It could though, represent a viable and sustainable way of healing, if not reverting, the dramatic depopulation that so many rural areas have suffered in recent decades. From our perspective, Amenity Migration is a new form of tourism mutating into a new life style concept.

6.2.2

Extreme Weather Events and Solidarity Tourism

Whereas continental cities are set to experience the highest increase in temperatures, islands and costal areas’ temperatures will do so to a lesser extent: half or even 1/3 when compared to the inland areas. However, coastal areas will be at risk of severe erosion to the point of disappearing, submerged by rising sea levels. Europe’s coastline stretches for over 100.000 km with many areas highly populated and developed. The UK is according to studies, set to be by far the worst affected, with projections indicating it will take the brunt of 22–28% of all flood related damages in Europe by 2100 followed by France, Italy and Norway. Coastline will be rendered incrementally vulnerable by a combination of rising sea levels due to ice melting in the Polar Cap, tidal surge and storms occurrence, which, is also increasing in frequency and intensity. The overall economic damage caused by coastal flooding is projected to grow from the current €1.25 billion a year to €961 billion a year by 2100. This represents a 75-fold increase (Carbon Brief organization 2019). Extreme weather events will impact coastal areas as well as inland regions harming the local tourist economy and possibly causing permanent loss of natural and man made assets. What will happen when high profile amenities, UNESCO World Heritage sites are ravaged by the fury of the elements? Well, such events are already happening and we will use the example of an unprecedented tempest that hit both a coastal area as well as a mountainous one in two highly geared tourism economies, and both UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The world-renowned area of Portofino, on the Ligurian coast in North of Italy, has recently made its acquaintance with the devastation of climate change, and so too the Dolomites, located north of Venice. Both are in the A-list census of UNESCO World heritage sites. Encased in a precious nest of Mediterranean scrub, extensively protected by land and by sea through a marine natural reserve, Portofino and the nearby coastal area of Liguria attract 15 million bed nights a year. The miniature jewel of Portofino and its 400 residents competes for visibility with the nearby Cinque Terre jotting out in the turquoise sea. The colourful joy of this landscape was brutalised by an extreme weather event in 2018.

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In between Saturday the 27th and Tuesday the 30th of October 2018, the north of Italy was hit by one of the most extreme and violent storms ever recorded over the peninsula. The depression, named Vaia, triggered furious Sirocco wind turbulence, raising seas with waves exceeding 10 m, and then sweeping over land with gusts at over 200 km/h. Pushing inland, it delivered its maximum impact on the eastern section of the Dolomites after having ravaged the Liguria coast. Within three days, the north of Italy was shaken by a fury that left everyone shocked, with media gasping for words. Vaia was a “depression of extremely rare depth” with an “explosive cyclogenesis” 978 hPa at sea level “one of the lowest and deepest depression values ever recorded in two centuries” (Nimbus 2018). The tempest broke several records: within 24 h, the national meteorological station’s instruments recorded 245.000 lightning. The coast of Liguria was devastated. Portofino and the nearby town of Santa Margherita Ligure left in a state of semi destruction, with beaches wrecked in havoc and infrastructure levelled. The world famous coastal road, featured in hundreds of thousands of pictures, simply disappeared, swallowed by the wrath of the sea. On the coast, out of 1300 bathing establishments, 400 were seriously damaged, 100 completely totalled; the final bill of damages and repairs for the Liguria coast in the hundreds of millions (Wikipedia 2018). On the other end of the tempest pathway, the Alpine district of the Dolomites was visited with the same rage, with different outcomes. This area, world renowned for its natural beauty and the vast and scenic ski area of the Dolomiti Superski, (450 ski plants, 1200 km ski slopes) with a population of approximately 1 mill residents generates over 8 mill tourist arrivals for a bed nights total of 34 million. Thanks to the high professional standards of the area, the TT&H industry here has recorded +30% growth since 2012. Climate crisis is also driving the boom, with summer occupancy now exceeding that of winter 60–40% (IDM ISSU 2018) (Camera di Commercio Belluno 2016). After the tempest had unleashed its destructive energy, the Dolomites were left with 28.000 ha of forests destroyed, for an estimate of 14 million trees and centenary trees fallen; 400 km of roads impassable or damaged. 1000 buildings damaged. The echo in the press was enormous. It would have been normal to expect it to spur an immediate avalanche of cancellations, and yes, some areas on the coast lost 25% of their bookings for the season. But apart from some of the coastal resorts in Liguria, a counterintuitive phenomenon took over: a spontaneous solidarity reaction from the public. The areas affected by the disaster witnessed a pouring of arrivals of people who would make themselves available to help clear debris and restore normality. The upsurge of solidarity took mind-blowing proportions on the Dolomites, where citizens from most part of the north of the country arrived in droves and turned up to the coordination of the Protezione Civile (Italian civic guard) and the Alpine troops (army corps) to volunteer their time and work.

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Innumerable “chainsaw use licenses” were issued on the spot by the local authorities, to allow the volunteers operate to chop up the fallen trees which, to be removed in full, will take five years of uninterrupted operations. Impossible to keep count of this unexpected human tsunami but the emergency coordinators estimated that over 10,000 volunteers spontaneously turned up within days in just one of the provinces affected. Solidarity Tourism is likely to emerge as an unexpected corollary of extreme weather events affecting tourist destinations, heritage sites, natural reserves and amenities of all kind that make up the national assets capital. Visitors, tourists, local and international, can react to extreme weather events that leave a tourism destination damaged or worse, on its knees by offering to join as volunteers in the aftermaths of events. They could also affirm their support by confirming or even booking holidays in the struck area. Sacrificing yes, comforts and accessibility to amenities, but bringing their economic solidarity to areas that are in need of it. In this specific case, incredibly, hardly any bookings at all were lost for the approaching ski seasons. Furthermore, in our case study research, we found that over 50% of the volunteer-visitors would have not been familiar with the area, thus allowing the experience to forge a new deep bond with this destination that will, no doubt, yield further visits. Heritage sites, landscape and landmarks, natural assets and cultural heritage are very dear to the heart of all those who have visited and those who live in proximity within the country. Human kind is a gregarious species, harbouring good feelings and an innate instinct to share and help beyond what is conventionally talked about. Amongst the “adaptation guidelines” that each destination should, by now, be working at and put in place, the extreme weather event running orders should also account for this. You never know where a marketing opportunity comes from.

6.2.3

Water Contention

Water is poised to become the next battlefield amongst countries and regions. Global authorities estimate that 47% of the world’s population will be suffering water stress by 2040. In the words of US Director of National Intelligence, M. Twain “Whisky is for drinking: water is for fighting over” (UN Environment 2016).

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Fig. 6.1 World Resources Institute, water stress by country 2040, Report 2015 available at: https://www.wri.org/blog/2015/08/ranking-world-s-most-water-stressedcountries-2040

If we consider how little water is, indeed, available to human consumption on the earth’s surface, the proportions are startling. 97.5% of H2O is contained in world’s oceans. Of the remaining 2.5%, more than 2/3 is encased in the ice packs, Antarctica, Greenland. The remaining 1/3, again, is in ground water. In short, only 0.4% of the globe’s fresh waters is readily available on the surface for human consumption (Fig. 6.1). In the ace of such limited availability, infrastructure building presents a big challenge with heavy bills for public finance. Water infrastructure development requires large investments and seems to suit only a farsighted approach to policymaking. Unfortunately, politics tend to act upon short-term gains that can be cashed in form of consensus at the next elections. Other contributing factors are conjuring up towards the perfect storm of world wide water contention: the exponential growth of the world’s population, pushing up water demand for human consumption; the increasing demand for agriculture needs to sustain the said population; the exponential increase in water usage by emerging countries, needing more to support their forming industries and their growing GDP. Also, the newly forming middle classes of Asia change their dietary styles in favour of the western standards of frequent meat consumption. At of today, 70% of water usage in agriculture is directed to cattle farming.

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The Tourism industry requires a special flexibility from local fresh water infrastructures, with tourist influx swelling the local population of resorts and holiday destinations (residents + visitors) and water consumption soaring by multiple folds in high season. As weather patterns become unpredictable, prolonged droughts become regular occurrences in many areas of our continent causing crop failing and falling overall agricultural yield, affecting biodiversity and bringing the bees colonies to point of collapse. In the last decade, droughts have affected 15–17% of European soils, their frequency and protraction becoming more severe in South Western and Central Europe. The European Environmental Agency projects “large increases in frequency, duration and severity of meteorological and hydrological droughts in most of Europe over the 21st century except for northern European regions. The greatest increase in drought conditions is projected for southern Europe where it would increase competition between different water users, such as agriculture, industry, tourism and households” (EPA 2017). In all four scenarios prepared on the subject by EPA, Spain, central and south of France, south of Italy and Greece are the first countries in line for water stress. Whereas the Scandinavian countries are safe and resourceful when it comes to the precious liquid, one that may in the future replace oil for its value, the vast majority of European mainland is showing worrying trends, hardly reversible (Fig. 6.2). The scenario of tourist resorts confronted with water shortages is not remote any longer. How will tourist destinations located around the Mediterranean amenities, under relentless scorching sun, fare without water? Which industry will the authorities-in-charge favour in case of water shortages in the region: essential agricultural production, supply to residents’ households or to the hotel’s swimming pool? TT&H industry needs to put the thinking cap on to prepare for a near future of water contention. Desalinisation, recycling, saving strategies and possible technological solutions need to be investigated before emergency strikes. Only a concerted effort of the entire community can prevent this issue from becoming insurmountable. Infrastructure takes time to be put in place. That’s also why future studies professionals must stimulate policymakers and opinion leaders to prepare in advance, before the future knocks on our doors, with an empty glass.

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Fig. 6.2 EPA European environmental agency, meteorological and hydrogeological droughts, 2017. Projected change in the frequency of meteorological droughts, 2017 available at: https:// www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/river-flowdrought-2/assessment

6.2.4

Sustainable Holidays, Trains and New Transport Modes

Climate Change and Crisis is one of those megatrends that develop slowly for a relatively long time, and then precipitate, suddenly. Under way for decades, invariably underplayed, conveniently glossed over, climate change has been, until recently, a matter of concern only for the Bo-Bo’s and tree-huggers-loversof-the-universe urbanite niche. When a book, laid on a table surface, gets slowly pushed over, one millimetre at a time towards the edge of the table without a noise, nobody notices its changing position, apart from the professionals specialised in the “dynamics of books falling

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off tables”. As it approaches the fall off point, the small number of experts start sending signals to the audience, which is, instead, rapturously intent in watching a movie on the conquest of Mars. Then, suddenly, the book falls with a loud bang. Now, the book has everyone’s attention but, alas, it’s now on the floor. Climate change is approaching that point, after which, everyone will swap the term “change” with “crisis”. Greta Thunberg has marked the beginning of the turning of the tide in terms of media attention. However, we can expect the topic to reach whole new heights of awareness, when truly extreme weather events will eventually hit densely populated and developed regions of the first world. So far we have experienced increasing temperamental weather manifestations, disrupted patterns, unseasonal summers, suffocating heat waves, wildfires and prolonged droughts followed by torrential rains. Unfortunately, the trajectory ahead points to a further acceleration of the severity of all of the above. Then, one day, the panic button will go off. Environmental themes will take over the citizens’ agenda and, more abruptly than one would expect, millions of people will be mobilised at once. Policy makers will be forced to act and, joining in a newly found cohesion of purpose, we will initiate a collective marathon to make up for the lost time. It will be in that precise moment that decades of sloppy behaviours will be scrutinised and reprimanded. Unstoppable consumption of goods, land and resources will suddenly be reconsidered and come under scrutiny. Consumption will be, de facto, re assessed, reorganised, re-invented in its very notion, abandoning without regret our narcissistic self-pity for the loss of unsustainable consumption models. The immense, inexplicable waste of resources and products that our lethargic society has accustomed us to, will come under fire; 7.3 tons of food gets wasted, unconsumed, every year in England; this corresponds to circa > 25% of food purchased (House of Commons 2017). And in hospitality, how many towels are unnecessarily washed in hotels? Millions. And how many croissants, rolls, fruit salads get binned every morning from the breakfast buffets? Why do we serve single portions that would feed a family? Why do we light up meeting rooms that are not in use? We should collectively adopt a different approach, educating our customers that, as they say in German, “Weniger ist mehr”, less is more. Display of unnecessary quantities and largesse, going forward, will only show a deep lack of awareness on where we stand on the climate crisis agenda. A most fascinating spectacle is the one we can expect to witness with regard to the change in consumers’ sentiments, priorities, and behaviours. Newly minted A-list of “desirable behaviours” will suddenly become fashionable, whilst at the same time, a number of travelling and holidaying patterns will be “out of fashion” and become object of public contempt.

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Do Europeans really need to travel 12–20 h go to exotic places to enjoy sunshine? Is the whole of Mediterranean not enough? Do we really need to take flights every second month to go places? Can we imagine a more “slow-paced” and localised type of travels to use our leisure time? Can we get there by train and then use a shared service to move around? On that D-Day, when the panic button will go off, a number of well-acquired lifestyles that we have foolishly adopted as hallmark of our success will swiftly go out of fashion. The marketing agencies will have to bin their profiling reports and write new ones. Infinite choices will be appropriately replaced with finite choices. Whatever, as far as possible, will become, available now, at a sustainable expense of resources; once off will become many times over. That will be enough thank you, will be a many times repeated leitmotif. Journey will explore lands nearby. By foot, bycicle, trains and public transport. Policy makers will finally roll out finally transformative solutions: how about free public transport? How about free train transport for students? How about incentives to holidaying locally, possibly even helping with productive activities during the stay? On the supply chain, how about attributing a CO2 emission score to each holiday proposition? How about making hospitality energy and water efficient? How about reducing portions? Each of us could travel with the personal AI assistant keeping count of our CO2 footprint, an addendum to the passport. We could amass credits that could be cashed in for government services. Most Western countries were educated decades ago on the value of water. Governments rolled out public awareness campaigns with the goals of leaving indelible imprint in all of us to refrain from wasteful habits. The same can happen with the CO2 emissions. And if we are thinking such measures to be over-the-top, we may soon not have a choice at all. Enrolment in organizations and networks actively working to clean up and restore the virginity of the planet could be promoted for real, increasing the personal credit rating. A global brainstorming will ignite, frantic, like a hammer looking for a nail, the common intelligence coming together with thousands of ideas to curb the impactful behaviours and reverse the collision course of the planet. Travel patterns and means will be debated in depth and at length.

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Although the adoption of a new, continent and sober lifestyles, in a way retro, clashes against all forces of globalisation (that fosters mass movement, infinite multiplications of air routes and destinations, land consumption to build brand new multi stellar resorts), we must not underestimate the “power of the herd”. When it sets into motion in one direction, it can dictate cataclysmic change. Technologies will evolve, hopefully in time, towards clean sources of energy. Innovations and human genius will find breakthroughs that will start reverting our course of collision in the consumption of the planet. Question is: will these solutions be found in time? Will they by adopted and implemented in sufficient vast scale before we have crossed the non return point? We possibly have a crucial mismatch that could decree our demise. Hence in the meantime something will have to give in; and that’s our entire production and consumption model. A much bigger discourse underpinning the whole argument of green revolution can only be dealt by scrutinising our economy macro model and the purpose of money, beyond the monetarist policies. Money and transactional value is a convenient fiction, the most potent ever created, and monetarist policymaking should radically reconsider its purpose and its mission. The world ahead demands a paradigm shift that is as much necessary as welcome. Our society’s free-rein dream, illusion of unrestrained incontinence will, sooner rather than later, come to a sudden, sobering dawn. A deep reset in consumers’ patterns, aspirational models and holidaymaking will loose nothing of the joys of life and the pleasure of tourism to our lifestyle, making those, in fact, only more meaningful.

6.3 6.3.1

A Case Study: The Alpine Chain’s Adaptation to Climate Change Alpine Tourism Economy

Given the wild diversity of environments, ecosystems and geography where tourist spots are located, it is self evident that climate change will affect each one differently. In some cases the effects will be mild and/or delayed, in others, they are already well underway, and mitigation/adaptation measures are being identified and implemented. One of the latter, experiencing visible and tangible modifications, is the majestic chain of the European Alps. We delve into this territory to examine how an economic ecosystem is affected by climate change and how the local tourism industry is in motion to prepare for the times to come.

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The Alps represent an outstanding feature within the European continental landscape, stretching for over 1.200 km, across eight countries and the highest mountain range system, with peaks of over 4000 mt. altitude such as Mont Blanc (4.810 mt) and the Matterhorn (4.478 mt). The Alpine chain counts 82 peaks higher that 4.000 mt., with the mean height being 2500 mt. Italy, Austria and France are the three countries with the most vast proportion of alpine territory, respectively 27, 28, 21%. The territory is commonly divided into eastern section and western section, taking a central point in the middle of the Swiss area as reference. The Dolomites belong to the eastern section, organized in two regional boundaries: Trentino Alto Adige (South Tyrol) and the Venetian side. This outstanding landscape represents a vital water reservoir for Europe: despite covering only 11% of the European area, the Alps supply 90% of drinking water, irrigation and hydroelectric power to the surrounding Europe lowlands. The European Environment Agency refers to the Alps as the “water towers of Europe” The city of Milan depends for about 80% of its water supply from the alpine origin (European Environment Agency 2017, 2009). Moulded by centuries of anthropic operations, the alpine social and demographic landscape underwent substantial changes in the XX century. Overall, the residing population more than doubled in the last 150 years (Alpine Convention E.U. 2014) However, the demographic trend was all but evenly spread, with areas witnessing dramatic depopulation and abandon, and others emerging as vibrant beacons for tourism and sports activities. By 2013, the resident population of the alpine districts summed up to 14.232.088 million people, on a 190.717 km2 territory, with an average population density of 7.6 inhabitants per sq. km. Unsurprisingly, this makes the Alps one of the less populated areas in continental Europe. However, compared to other mountainous systems, the Alps stand out at the top of the population density chart. Extremely rich in biodiversity, the region is home to more than 7,000 floral species and subspecies and thousands of animal species, a large family of creatures, now under threat because of climate change (BISE 2000). The Alpine region represents one of the oldest tourist regions in Europe and worldwide, and the largest recreational area in continental Europe. The first alpine “tourists” made their appearance at the end of XVIII century, many of them belonging to the English elites, descending the continent for their European Grand Tour, and then followed by the Romantic quest for grandeur and “horror” of the pioneers of alpine tourism. Hand in hand with the advent of railway, the second industrial revolution post WWII that further opened the region to mass tourism, the Alps have adapted to cater for bigger crowds, upgrading facilities and services, and specialising the hospitality network in family-orientated hotels and non-family orientated hotels.

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Today the Alpine system welcomes some 120 milliontourist arrivals delivering 386 million overnight stays in the region every year. Another 60 million day excursions must be added to the overall inbound flow, this data dates back to 2012 and should probably be accrued by circa 30% to 80 million day excursions. Circa 45% of all skiing days globally are taken in the Alps. Winter tourism accounts for 43% of all overnight stays, with 9.2% of Europeans being active skiers (48 million people) with a bigger share attributed to summer stays, 57% of overnights. Summers therefore, outweigh winter performance by a sizable distance. OECD estimates that the tourism sector accounts for 10–12% of labour income in the alpine region. Other sources point to 15% (BLS 2013). Being conveniently encased amongst five of the richest countries in the world, Germany, France, Italy, Switzerland and Austria, with high disposable income and propensity to take holidays, the vast territory has benefitted from sustained demand with strong increases posted in the last five years. In 2009 the Dolomites were co-opted by UNESCO as UNESCO World Heritage Site, to include in the perimeter 141.902 ha of mountainous chain, organized in 9 areas, encompassing 18 peaks above 3000 mt. a spectacular and majestic show of vertical walls, cliffs, and idyllic valleys. Characterised by the typical coral-pink colour of the Dolomites, due, indeed, to the marine coral and sediments make up of these rocks, these formations seem to be catching fire at sunset, granting the visitors some breath-taking memories. Their dramatic vertical and pale coloured peaks in a variety of distinctive sculptural forms is extraordinary in a global context. This property also contains an internationally important combination of earth science values. The quantity and concentration of highly varied limestone formations is extraordinary in a global context, whilst the superbly exposed geology provides an insight into the recovery of marine life in the Triassic period, after the greatest extinction event recorded in the history of life on Earth. The sublime, monumental and colourful landscapes of the Dolomites have also long attracted hosts of travellers and a history of scientific and artistic interpretations of its values. (UNESCO World Heritage site list)

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The Impact of Climate Change on the Alps: Double the Rate in Average Temperature Increase The global increase of temperature is affecting the alpine system at double the rate of the globa average increase itself.

Since the pre-industrial era, the Alps’ average temperature has increased by 2 °C versus 1 °C globally (European Environment Commission 2009). Winter 2015–2016 was the warmest winter on records, with December temperatures eerily reaching 20 °C on many ski-areas. The reason for the much higher increase of average temperatures on the Alpine ecosystem is twofold: (a) as temperature increase tends to be higher the further away from the sea mass area we move, the Alpine region is inland and does not benefit from the mitigating effect of sea mass; (b) the melting and disappearance of the iced surface of glaciers is instigating a negative biofeedback with higher levels of solar energy being absorbed by the dark soil surface. In a most recent study done with the ARPAV meteorological agency, the modelling adopted forecasts that the pace of temperature increase will be of 0.4 °C each decade, up until 2050, after which it will most likely jump to new speed and rate. In this scenario, the increase in temperatures in the alpine region is set to reach +2.4 °C by 2030, +2.8 °C by 2040, +3.2 by 2050. (ARPAV 2019). Beyond 2050 the modelling anticipates an even stronger acceleration of the increase, causing a true turmoil in the regional biodiversity as well as economic and societal dimension. Climate has changed and is changing rapidly on the Alps. In the western section the precipitation pattern is changing towards drier summers, with diminished precipitations, heavier and extreme rainfalls in spring and autumn. The milder winters are turning snowfalls to rain more frequently and at ever-higher altitudes. Ice and snow melting season is now 15 days early on average, when compared to pre-industrial level. Glaciers are disappearing at dramatic pace. Since the industrial revolution the alpine system has lost 50% of its official glaciers sites. Accordingly to ISTAT, the Italian Institute for Statistics, in 1850 glaciers covered circa 4,500 km2 of the Alps’ surface, this was reduced to 1.800 sq km in 2010, with an overall loss of 60% of iced surface and mass. The 2007 monitoring found that 99% of the alpine surviving glaciers are in regression (ISTAT 2017). On the Dolomites, there is one “official” glacier (fitting the measures and required attributes to set in the category) and 75 small glaciers. At ARPA Veneto, they expect to have lost them all by 2050 (ARPAV 2019) Already temperatures increase has shifted the “altitude line” that would guarantee sustainability and survival of the Dolomites glaciers system, higher than the mountain peaks themselves.

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Permafrost loss: The loss of underground permafrost destabilizes vast sections of surface soils, causing as a result, increased number of crumbling and collapse on the peaks. Although there is no statistical data gathered on the frequency and scale of collapses, anecdotal evidence points to a visible increase of such events. This poses a threat to many high-altitude hiking routes, in summer time, forcing the territory manager to change and redesign the hiking mapping of the area. Plus the increased number of debris flow is impacting on frequent road closures, especially in springtime. Biodiversity alterations: according to the European Environment Commission, an increase of over 3 °C in average temperature, projected for as close as 2050, would mean the extinction of circa 60% of mountain plant species a projection that takes makes any comment redundant. As of today the Alps have already recorded an average increase of 2 °C. (EEC 2019)

6.3.3

Mitigation, Adaptation, Transformative Changes Taking Place in the Tourism Economy

The Alpine ecosystem is undergoing a deep transformation, and so will the tourist economy. In this context, we can confidently project the following main trajectories of change: A new economy make up with diversified activities and cultivations that are, up until now, unknown to the Alps, will develop. Lowland entrepreneurs will start acquiring land and facilities on the mid ranging altitudes of both sides of the Alps. (Probability 80%) Time scale: Will gain momentum the next 10/20 years, reach peak and plateau within 30 years. Impact: • Growing value of alpine cultivatable land and infrastructure. • Influx of lowland entrepreneurs with dynamic mind-set that will impart positive stimulus to local thinking. • Growth of brand appeal of the targeted areas, where the production of selected, high quality agricultural products complements a strong branding for tourism purpose. • Increased supply of local food to residents and tourists. • Alteration of alpine biodiversity make up with lowland species colonising upward altitudes to the detriment of autochthonous ones.

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• Increased deforestation to reclaim cultivatable lands. • The very morphology of the pre-alpine and alpine land will naturally lend itself to smaller cultivated extensions, hence aiming for quality and origin. Most likely a boost in the direction of organic productions. • The owners and the districts with stringent anti pollution regulation, and vast amount of lands destined to organic agriculture will most likely see the value of these assets increase substantially. • Emergence of activities such as bee keeping to be deemed of high social value for the wider community. • Environmental impact of CO2 emissions for produce transport and use of chemicals and pesticides for agricultural use for the non-organic areas. • Water contention New Alpine Tourism: with longer summers, higher occupancy rate, sustained Year on Year (YOY) demand growth; shorter winter and ski seasons, increasingly more expensive to guarantee; expansion of diversified activities to cater for a new segments of clientele. (Probability: 85%) Time scale: The trend is underway, and is set to continue and grow in strength for the next two to three decades. Impacts: • Growing and over performing summer tourism seasons to the benefit of local businesses. • Increase savings collection from local banks branches; increase lending propensity to local businesses. Further expansion of infrastructure. • New influx of labour to cater for the increasing demand. Mostly international labourers. Demand for cheap accommodation in the outskirt of villages. • Diversification of all available tourist activity offers, with a focus on experiential activities of all kinds, cultural, entertainment, food related etc. • Increase in the range of soft- activities, to cater for a diversified clientele, connection between body-soul-nature, inspiring positive feelings of relaxation and reconnection with nature. • An increasing relative incidence of aging profile clientele, driven by the very demographic make up of continental European countries around the Alps. • Possible new business concepts of hospitality for long term stay (three to four months) for long term retired and semi retired guests. Amenity Migration and consequent development of part-time living schemes. • Increased request for real estate property from the lowlands’ frequent visitors. Increasing real estate prices. • Pressure on infrastructure and services to the population. • Augmented pressure on environment with CO2 emissions, car traffic, water consumption, refuse collection. The vast majority of alpine tourism reach their destination with individual motor access, with aggravating carbon footprint load.

6.3 A Case Study: The Alpine Chain’s Adaptation to Climate Change

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• Pressure on local policymakers to rezone areas to cater for more tourist buildings, infrastructures, amenities. Increased augmentation of soil consumption to supply more land for building purpose. • The increased pressure on alpine land may spill over into the research and identification of new areas suitable for brand new settlements, with large capital investment projects, led by international operators. The alpine Convention has already done a preliminary database of PSA (Potentially Suitable Areas). • Dilution of authenticity of alpine valleys, with local residents being outnumbered ten fold by numbers of incoming tourists. • Dilution of authenticity with temptation to standardize to cater for volumes, to the detriment of quality. • Water contention. Capital intensive, machine assisted winter ski seasons: The increasingly milder winters are already dictating heavy infrastructural investments to support the snow-cover. Operators are in the pursuit of higher altitudes ski season, moving ski infrastructure above 1,700 mt. the same goal drives increases of ski-areas extension with connections between neighbouring ski-areas. Steep capital investment in snowmaking facilities is becoming imperative such as: water basins, snow cannons, storages for equipment and materials. Snow guarantee becomes a capital-intensive exercise, requiring substantial funds and delivering thinner margins. In the longer run, the 360° snow-experience could be eroded, eventually disappearing. (Probability: > 70%). Time scale: The trend is in progress and set to continue for the foreseeable future, with sudden periods of acceleration in adaptation plans driven by increasing instability of snow precipitation. Impacts: • Increasing demand for capital funding from the ski areas management companies. • Increasing lobbying activity on policymakers to make public funds available to sustain the investment efforts for snowmaking; • Possible cost transfer to the public of the escalating costs of maintenance: steeper ski pass pricing. • Environmental impact of snow making infrastructure comes under fire from environmental protection organizations such as WWF and Greenpeace. Public challenges and debates ensue. • Thinning margins for ski-area business owners, who are forced to make artificial snow on a regular basis to guarantee the fruition of ski-areas. • Erosion of ski season length, with unpredictable rising of temperature, snow melting and resulting treacherous landslide conditions. Loss of about 2 weeks skiing season within the next 10–20 years.

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• Quest for alternative components of the ski holiday mix, with increase of cultural and folk offers (Christmas markets, local fairs, cultural events, food related events). Tapping the demand for health and well-being, new products to be engineered such as detox holidays, mindfulness and health retreats. • Destinations that have already developed a refined business culture of quality, such as South-Tyrol Alto Adige, will be on the winning side. • Increase in soft-activities like winter hiking, photography and cross-country skiing. • Entertainment and events targeted at the young audience of ski seasons, celebrity presence, shows etc. Overall, the snow-experience economy remains the core of the alpine winter product and replacing it, surrogating with alternative products, will be a challenging exercise. Artificial snowmaking will mitigate the volatility of the snow season, however, it will not be able to make up in full for the snow-experience as a holistic immersion. Alpine winter tourism is one of the first in line of collateral damage when it comes to global climate change. Because the Alps are recording a two-fold increase in temperatures as compared to the global average, the stakeholders in this ecosystem should be at the forefront of the climate change battle. However, PR rationale advises differently, and, understandably, “business as usual” is perceived as a more acceptable communication strategy.

6.4

Viewpoint on Climate Change

We have in the previous chapter outlined how climate change is impacting on one of the vastest, most visible and renowned tourist district in the world: the Alps. Their adaptation efforts, accurately monitored and magisterially driven by the local authorities, should inspire all other local policy makers. Each region and municipality is bound to prepare for the likely effects of climate change in their area, hoping for the best, but planning for the worst. Before we draw to a close on this megatrend, let us attempt a prognosis on what is most likely to become, the most salient megatrend of our time. To do so, we are going to enumerate the major forces that work in favour of positive outcome (positives) and the factors at play that, instead, are stacked against us (negatives). In its annual report, the IPPCC presents four future scenarios, from the most optimistic to the most negative. In these scenarios the main variables defining the alternative outcomes are: the use of fossil fuels (intensive and unabated or fast replaced by renewable sources), the population growth, global cooperation on the topic versus a fragmented and un-coordinated approach.

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Drawing and freely unfolding the argument from such an approach, we spell out what as of today appear to be the negatives (macro factors playing for a nefarious outcome) and the positives (macro factors playing in favour of a positive solution). In weighing one set against the other, we can gauge a more probable prognosis. Amongst the negative forces at play: • There is an overall global consensus on the fact that the increase in global temperature is driven by man-made activity. The fundamental mechanics of our economic growth are irreparably damaging the planet. This means that a globally ingrained economic model, adopted by all developed countries, is not sustainable. • There is overall consensus that we have already recorded a +1 °C in global average temperatures. This increase manifests itself in different ways and patterns according to geographical location but it is causing massive imbalances in the global ecosystem with great loss of biodiversity every day. • To reverse the process, global economies should have already put in place strategies and policies to reduce CO2 emissions by 47% in the next decade. On the contrary, we are still rowing in the opposite direction, with CO2 emissions increasing by 2% in 2017 and reaching an all time high in 2018 with a further increase of 2.7%. There is, hence, global consensus on the prognosis that we will forcibly see the global average temperature increase by 1.5 °C by 2030 (Carbon Brief 2018). • According to a group of climatologists and scientists, such as Jem Bendell, Director of Institute of Sustainability Cumbria University, the most recent data, covering the years 2013–2018 show an exponential progression of the climate change manifestation, both with negative progression of damages and extreme weather events. A leap from a linear progression to an exponential progression is, according to Prof. Bendell a highly probable sign that we are too late to correct the course of events (Bendell 2018). • Global population growth is not abating. In fact, Africa is experiencing a demographic bomb. The United Nations medium variant forecast projects a further increase of 2 billion people inhabiting the planet by 2050, bringing the total global population to 9.7 billion. Projections beyond that date speak of 11.2 billion by 2100. Africa is by far the fastest growing continent with half of the entire globe’s population rise expected to occur in this continent over the next few decades (United Nations 2018). It is estimated that, to protect a level of balance between global resource and population number, planet earth should not exceed 6 billion people. • The emerging Chinese and Indian economies are driving a substantial increase in resource consumption. EIA (US Energy Information and Administration) expects these two economies to double their current energy consumption, achieving >35% of the global energy demand by 2035. (EIA 2019).

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In parallel, China’s energy consumption is expected to keep soaring up until 2040, and even beyond that date, at 2050 its energy demand matching those of 2035 (The Oxford Institute for Energy Studies 2019). • The US major driver of resources consumptions and global greenhouse gas emissions, has expressed a political leadership that represents a negationist viewpoint on climate change, and having pulled out of the Paris agreement. The number one global economy, champion of free market capitalism, remains determined to keep its agenda focused on short-term economic gain, to the detriment of long term sustainability. • At the same time, its Russian counterpart is expressing an interest in exploiting oil and natural resources made accessible by the melting of ice in the northern latitudes of the continent, hence a climate change lead to some sort of singular economic win. • On a political governance level, it is evident that climate change being a global issue, requires a global solution. To work towards that end, we should see a global governance of the problem emerge rapidly, something we are very far from achieving. In fact, only few countries and their political leadership have shown a necessary level of awareness and taken the steps to curb emission and adopt environmental aware strategies. • On a political-economic level, the way first world’s economies are currently run is informed by a neo-liberal approach to economics, one that uses a country’s GDP as its main metrics. As any business manager knows, you get what you measure and that is exactly what we are getting. The current form of capitalism is one of growing inequality, where the excess value produced by society is syphoned off by a tiny segment of society. Oxfam report, Davos 2019, tells us that we have reached such a level of inequality that, as of today, 26 physical people own as much as the 50% of the poorest half of the global population (OXFAM 2019). • Extreme wealth inequality is not conducive to the “common good” partly because it may give the very wealthy elite a false sense of security. Moreover, the worst affected by climate crisis are going to be less developed countries that have not contributed to global warming (Climate Change inequality). Amongst the positive vector forces at play: • On the positive side, global awareness of a looming environmental apocalypse is growing by the year, across most countries of the first and second world. A quantum leap, in this sense, was marked in 2019 with unrest and demonstrations on climate change taking place worldwide. A good contribution in this direction will be given by the younger generations (Millennials and Generation Z) who come on stage with a different set of priorities and values, focused on balance and sustainability, coherently with a global landscape of oversupply of goods and zero marginal cost society (Rifkin 2014). • From a technological point of view, a multitude of research hotbeds are working painstakingly to find technological solutions to our woes’. They range from

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seaweed derived products possibly to replace plastics and pollution eating enzymes and paint; ocean combing machines to sieve out micro plastics from the waters. As human creativity and ingeniousness is boundless, we have a high probability of achieving several good solutions across a plethora of different problems and drivers of climate change. Our creative capabilities, nevertheless, can also tempt some stakeholders to seek shortcuts and fixes that risk causing more systemic damage, whilst only fixing a specific local issue. We are referring, for example, to the concept of climate manipulation, where China is leading experiments by bombarding the ionosphere with negative ions in order to provoke rainfalls to clear pollution over its megacities and irrigate its agriculture crops. A dangerous road, that leads the ecosystem to unchartered territory, in the context of the extremely complex and intertwined system of global climate. In conclusions, not only do the negatives outweigh the positives, but, most crucially, they outpace them. Whilst the public’s global awareness of our predicament will constantly grow, exerting pressure on the ruling class to take action, and while the technological fixes are being engineered in labs around the globe, these positive forces are circa 20 years behind time for what would be required to correct our collision course. We are dealing with a matter for which time is of the essence. The negatives are deeply ingrained factors in the make-up and the economic philosophy of our society. The negatives are structurally and systemically in place, whereas the positives are slowly gaining momentum in hotbeds and social strata here and there. The negatives appear to outpace the positives, leading us to an adverse outcome. The remedial thrust is out of sync with the actual time and pace needed to rectify the situation We are, therefore, most likely heading towards an era of climate disruption with sudden acceleration of damage already visible in the next 10 and 20 years. As the global climate is a supremely complex and intertwined net that holds and orchestrate a balance, once its balance has been tampered with, it will need to find seeking a new point of equilibrium, most likely undergoing point or multiple points of ruptures. An event(s) of catastrophic magnitude is not unlikely to happen within the next two decades in highly populated areas. If this does happen it could send shockwaves across global public opinion instigating wide spread panic. This catastrophe could act as the Twin Towers of climate change and will send the first world countries into a frenzy of remedy seeking.

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As for our industry, Travel Tourism and Hospitality are not only vulnerable to a vast number of impacts and damages caused by climate change, but we must acknowledge that our industry also sits on the defendant’s seat. Mass movements, air travel, overcrowding are all major drivers of CO2 emissions and environmental impact. Today, air travel alone consumes 5 million barrels of oil daily, creating about 2.5% of global emissions. Based on the ICAO International Civil Aviation Organisation data, aviation carbon emissions could grow seven fold over the next three decades. The exponential growth of air movements has determined an increase of 70% emissions in between 2005 and 2020 (ICAO 2019). Whilst our industry has copped on to the emerging topic of sustainability and corporate responsibility, this has triggered a hit and miss array of green-washing initiatives deployed by many businesses and operators. In an effort to tick the boxes of “sustainability’ most initiatives merely aim to please the customers with a feel good factor, in a misunderstood interpretation of marketing. In its “Sustainable Tourism 2040, a manifesto (Postma et al. 2013), EFTI describes a sound business approach to the topic, turning this lip service exercise into a true value-driving activity for the business. Marketing sustainability is, we read here, a matter of making choices: aiming for the ethical consumer, and turning existing consumers into ethical ones, integrating sustainability with existing buying motives. As it is widely recognised “that the tourism experience has a major influence on the personal values of the tourists (EFTI Manifesto 2040, Anderson 2007), the correct perspective to implement advocated here is not “the past and present that are projected on to the future, as in conventional forecasting, but the future that is projected onto the present”. There are outstanding examples of tourist destinations where sustainability has been a willing choice ingrained at the very core of district strategies. South-Tyrol (Alto Adige) is one: in this area, 95% of energy consumed comes from renewable sources, and 56% of businesses have been certified with an eco-label guaranteeing the eco-sustainability of their products (Rinnovabili.it 2015). Awarded by LegaAmbiente as the greenest territory in Italy, top of the chart in Europe, this district should become an example for all, drawing attention and business-to-business familiarization trips to learn how the magic was done. Sustainability is a deceptively candid demand that will dictate instead a true overhaul of our economic philosophy. Today, it is about making choices: a practice that, in a society that has not known scarcity or fear for a very long time, looks dangerously forgotten. It is well and truly time to abandon the collective intoxication of over supply and over consumption whose collateral damage should supposedly be fixed by magical technologies. In the last decades the narrative of all-fixing innovation and gizmos has blindly spellbound us: unfortunately this is not the case. The very core of our economic macro model needs to change: dramatically and quickly.

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References Online Publications: Organisation Site (Chap. 6.1) NASA. 2019. Available at: https://futurism.com/nasa-data-shows-just-how-much-ice-the-arctic-islosing worldwatch http://www.worldwatch.org/melting-earths-ice-cover-reaches-new-high. C2ES Center for Climate and Energy Solutions. 2019. Hurricanes and climate change. Available at: https://www.c2es.org/content/hurricanes-and-climate-change/. NCA National Climate Assessment UN. 2019. Available at: https://nca2014.globalchange.gov/ highlights/report-findings/extreme-weather. UN Environment. 2016. Half the world to face severe water stress by 2030, Paris/Nairobi. Available at: https://www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/press-release/half-world-facesevere-water-stress-2030-unless-water-use-decoupled.

(Chap. 6.2) United Nations, World Urbanization prospects. 2018. The 2018 revision, chapter: Introduction and policy implications, p. 3. Available at: https://population.un.org/wup/Publications/Files/ WUP2018-Report.pdf. Carbon Brief organization. 2019. coastal flooding in Europe could cost up to 1Tn by 2100. Available at: https://www.carbonbrief.org/coastal-flooding-in-europe-could-cost-up-to-onetrillion-euros-per-year-by-2100. Nimbus, L. Mercalli. 2018. President of Italian Metetereological Society Nimbus. Available at: http://www.nimbus.it/eventi/2018/181031TempestaVaia.htm. Wikipedia. 2018. Maltempo sulla Liguria, ottobre. Available at: https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Maltempo_sulla_Liguria_del_29-30_ottobre_2018. IDM ISSU.com economy. 2018. Available at: https://issuu.com/blsfilm/docs/south_tyrol._the_ economy_web; https://issuu.com/idm_suedtirol_altoadige/docs/broschu__re_ita_rz_issue/6? ff&e=26216104/50897233. Camera di Commercio Belluno. 2016. Available at: Camera di Commercio Belluno, Rapporto Turismo 2016. https://www.tb.camcom.gov.it/uploads/CCIAA/Bisogni/Pubblicazi/Studi/ Rapporto/2016/FOCUSTurismoBL2016.pdf. Figure 4 World Resources Institute. 2015. Water stress by country 2040, report. Available at: https://www.wri.org/blog/2015/08/ranking-world-s-most-water-stressed-countries-2040. Figure 5 EPA European Environmental Agency. 2017. Metereological and hydrogeological droughts. Available at: https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/river-flowdrought-2/assessment. House of Commons. 2017. Food waste in England, Parliament Publication, report 2016–2017. Available at: https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201617/cmselect/cmenvfru/429/429.pdf.

(Chap. 6.3) European Environment Agency. 2017. The Alps Europe’s cherished but endangered mountains, report 2009, 2017. Available at: https://www.eea.europa.eu/highlights/the-alps-europe2019scherished-but-endangered-mountains. Alpine Convention E.U. 2014. An EU strategy for the Alpine region. Available at: https://ec. europa.eu/regional_policy/en/policy/cooperation/macro-regional-strategies/alpine/.

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BISE, Biodiversity Information System Europe. 2000. The Alpine Region PDF. Available at: https://biodiversity.europa.eu/search?q=alps. Alp-net Association Tourism Partners from France, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, and Austria; organization site homepage statistics available at: homepage https://www.alp-net.eu. BLS Business Location South Tyrol, South Tyrl the economy, 2013. Available at: https://issuu. com/idm_suedtirol_altoadige/docs/broschu__re_ita_rz_issue/6?ff&e=26216104/50897233. UNESCO World Heritage site list, UNESCO, The Dolomites. https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1237. European Environment Commission. 2009. Regional climate report 2009; the Alps facing the challenge of changing water resources. PDF Available at: https://www.eea.europa.eu/ publications/alps-climate-change-and-adaptation-2009. ISTAT, Focus Acque, 2017 Available at: https://www.istat.it/it/archivio/198245.

(Chap. 6.4) Carbon Brief, analysis, fossil fuel emissions increasing in 2018 at fastest rate in seven years, 2018. Available at: https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-fossil-fuel-emissions-in-2018-increasing-atfastest-rate-for-seven-years. United Nations. 2018. shaping our future together, Population. Available at: https://www.un.org/ en/sections/issues-depth/population/. EIA—US Energy Information and Administration, International energy Outlook 2019. Available at: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=3130double. OXFAM. 2019. Report on wealth inequality. Available at: https://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/ pressreleases/2019-01-18/billionaire-fortunes-grew-25-billion-day-last-year-poorest-saw. ICAO International Civil Aviation organisation, adoption of CORSIA standards to curb carbon emissions, 2019. Available at: https://www.icao.int/environmental-protection/Documents/ EnvironmentalReports/2019/ENVReport2019_pg207-210.pdf#search=ICAO%20facts%20and %20figures%20adoption%20of%20CORSIA.

Dissertation (Chap. 6.1): Occasional Paper Bendell, Jem. 2018. Deep adaptation, a map fro navigating climate change, occasional paper. IFLAS Institute of leadership and Sustainability: University of Cumbria.

(Chap. 6.4) Postma, E. Spruyt, E. Cavagnaro. 2007. Sustainable Tourism 2040, EFTI 2013 EFTI Manifesto 2040, Anderson.

Books and Chapters: Book, Authored (Chap. 6.1) Peter Wadhmans. 2016. A farewell to ice: a report from the Artic. Oxford: Oxford university press.

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(Chap. 6.4) Jeremy Rifkin. 2014. The zero marginal cost society. St Martin’s press.

Journals and Articles: Journal (Chap. 6.2) Oliver Bender and Sigrun Kanitscheider New Immigration Into the European Alps Emerging Research Issues, Mountain Research and Development, Published By International Mountain Society Journal Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/274777226_New_ Immigration_Into_the_European_Alps_Emerging_Research_Issues. See also: Alpcon.org, Demographic changes in the Alps European Union 2014, http://www.alpconv.org/en/publications/ alpine/Documents/RSA5en.pdf?AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1.

On line Journals (Chap. 6.4) Rinnovabili.it. 2015. Il Trentino Alto Adige regina italiana della green economy. Available at: www.rinnovabili.it/green-economy/trentino-alto-adige-green-economy-666/.

University article (Chap. 6.4) The Oxford Institute for Energy studies. 2019. Glimpses of China’s energy future. https://www. oxfordenergy.org/wpcms/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Glimpses-of-Chinas-energy-future.pdf.

Interview (Chap. 6.3) Anselmo Cagnati, ARPAV Veneto. 2019. Interview.

Chapter 7

Globalisation: A Megatrend on Its Last Legs?

Abstract As overused and abused words, Globalisation has lost its true meaning whilst at the same time losing its appeal. We define what the meaning and effects of Globalisation have been on our countries and its legacies, both positive and negative. In Travel and Tourism we deal with the phenomena of over-tourism, polarization of wealth and luxury tourism, the consolidation of distribution channels with vertical integration as well as horizontal expansions.











Keywords Globalisation Over tourism Luxury tourism Wealth inequality Travel and tourism distribution channels Digital monopolies and oligopolies

7.1




Introduction

We could not consider our journey through megatrends complete, without delving into one that, unquestionably, has defined the very architecture, ideological and physical, that underpins our economic system. Globalisation is one of those words that, incessantly repeated, is taken for granted, left unexplained and conveniently wheeled out as a glossy lid over vast phenomena, apparently out of our control (and comprehension). We prefer instead to replenish this word with its legitimate meaning, filling a shell that has been hollowed out by over use. By Globalisation we mean the process of increasing interaction and integration amongst people, companies and governments worldwide. The enablers of globalisation throughout the 20th century, but with marked acceleration in the past thirty years have been: advancements in transportation, advancement in communications and the increased availability of vast, then immense capital financial resources.

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 V. Boschetto Doorly, Megatrends Defining the Future of Tourism, Anticipation Science 6, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48626-6_7

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Globalisation has boosted the circulation of ideas and know-how like never before in history. The ease and speed of communication has enabled an unprecedented dissemination of knowledge, from and to hotbeds, from and to peripheries. Post WWII and, especially in, after the fifties and sixties, globalisation has imparted a phenomenal acceleration to the growth of global GDP (Gross Domestic Product), dwarfing within a few decades, all the previous spans of history (Figs. 7.1 and 7.2). In GDP terms, globalisation was a startling success, boosting production worldwide, pulling many countries and entire continents out of poverty, and decreeing the winners and heroes on the global game board: USA, Europe, Japan and, more recently, China. By reducing trade barriers, developing transportation and infrastructure, accelerating communication and disseminating knowledge, mankind has reached a sort of “first maturity”. Globalisation has unlocked a worldwide, comprehensive, explosive growth that has allowed many countries to deploy their productive potential. Crucially, Globalization sweeping the earth in a turbine of communications and exchanges, physical and virtual, fostered in people a first-time in history awareness

Fig. 7.1 Angus Maddison, Real GDP per capita around the world (PPPadjusted) since 1000 (author Max Roser) Available at: https://ourworldindata.org/economic-growth

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Fig. 7.2 Our world in data, world GDP over the last two millennia, World Bank and Maddison (2017); available at: https://ourworldindata.org/economic-growth

of one, connected globe and global community. We have been awakened to the understanding of a one, sole worldwide collectivity. If not yet a brotherhood, at least acknowledged in its bodily and physical existence (Fig. 7.3). Globalisation has been a powerful overarching megatrend since WWII, accelerating and a mutating in nature over the last three decades. From an economic point of view it has expressed a form of capitalist expansion that has recruited most of the world to its economic model, asserting a philosophy based on: • • • • •

Integration of economies Levelling of countries regulations to international standards Abatement of trade barriers Free circulation of global finance in a free market of capital Free market led, unregulated economy.

Economists and observers broadly concur that the positives of globalisation have been plentiful. It has promoted the emancipation of poor countries, infusing enormous capital investments and giving rise to a burgeoning new middle class. The development of global transportation infrastructure has opened up access to the four corners of the world, paving the ground for further economic development and, incidentally, the Travel & Tourism industry.

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Fig. 7.3 World Bank, world development indicators database, 2017. Available at: https://www. visualcapitalist.com/74-trillion-global-economy-one-chart/

Circulation of ideas and know how has boosted innovation and, consequently, progress in all fields. The oversupply of goods, manufactured in cheap labour markets has flooded our first world’s markets, driving prices down, to the (apparent) advantage of the final consumer. Overall, as a society, we are more open, connected, tolerant of diversity and multicultural than ever before. However, this global overhaul did not come without pitfalls. A tightly connected and open world is also a much more vulnerable one. Tearing down boundaries and barriers favoured primarily multinationals and large corporations, allowing them to operate evenly on a global scale, together with the financial system, reaping the benefits of a global playfield where capital is shifted with the touch of a button. But the abatement of boundaries and protections, has also left the landscape open to large and devastatingly sudden waves of downturns, crashes and crisis, where the toxic culprits easily infect all of the now unguarded system.

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Globalisation has left us cruising on a vessel where all the security locks in between the ship’s sections have been removed. If the ship hits the rock and any point of its body gets breached, the entire volume of the vessel gets immediately flooded, no compartmental partitions in place any longer to insulate and protect the other sections of the ship. Whilst capital and goods are transported and moved around the globe, thanks to a robust and granular network of transport, conveniently delivering garlic cloves cultivated in China to the supermarkets in the UK and cheap polyester t-shirts fabricated in sweat shops in Vietnam to any European or north American department store, the same mobility can not be applied, alas, to human labour. Labour can not be transplanted by the millions. While multinationals can shop around for cheap labour anywhere in the world, counting on a fleet of approximately 60,000 cargo vessels delivering their goods to the end markets, workers live and work in one designated country. Globalisation has opened up an immense labour market to employers, fomenting unprecedented global competition amongst labourers. According to many economists and authors, such as Noam Chomsky, widely regarded as one of the most influential intellectuals of our time, the creation of systemic job insecurity was an intentional strategy designed by the elites. In recent years, the narrative of globalisation has come under mounting criticism and its many downsides documented extensively. “Up until 20 years ago globalisation was pitched as a strategy that would raise all boats in poor and rich countries alike. In Europe and the USA consumers would have their pick of inexpensive items made by people thousands of miles away whose pay was much lower than theirs. (…) There is no question that globalisation has been a good thing for many developing countries who now have access to global markets and export their cheap goods. Globalisation has also been good for multinational corporations and Wall Street. But globalisation has not been good for working people (blue and white collars) and has lead to continuing de industrialization of the USA and Europe.” (Mike Collins, Forbes 2015). Globalization was until recently considered the unquestionable bible of liberal economics philosophy, but its foundations lays over pillars that have come under mounting criticism for the distortions they invite. Amongst the main objections: • The global dimension favours large corporations, the only ones with financial muscle to bear the costs of operating on this scale. They tend to define the landscape of an industry, gradually pricing out or controlling small operators. • The transfer of plants and jobs to cheap labour countries has led to great loss of employment and stability in the western middle class. Millions of jobs have been lost, millions more reduced to an underpaid precariat.

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• To be fit for the global dimension, large corporations have gone through decades of mergers and acquisitions to achieve market consolidation in their industry. Out of this process, entire sections of our economies are now effectively controlled by semi-monopolies and oligopolies. Corporations are nowadays super-powers whose financial dimension and influencing force exceeds that of states. • The wealth generated has been captured by the top 1% of the population (shareholders and capital holders) creating an ever growing gulf of distance amongst have and have-not. • The increase in productivity triggered by technology advancements and globalisation has not translated into increased labour remuneration, which has stagnated and declined in the past 20 years. • The consumption of global resources and exploitation of the planet has caused climate change and crisis. The model, relying on infinite and relentless growth, is no longer sustainable. Coming to our industry, Travel, Tourism & Hospitality, how did globalisation influence and redefine its landscape and how will it evolve in the near future? Globalisation has left a deep mark on TT&H, both positive and negative, undoubtedly giving our industry many of the defining features that presently make up its structure and mechanics. We will examine three main effects of globalisation on TT&H industry: the onset and surge of mass movements, involving the phenomenon of over tourism and multiplication of destinations; the irresistible ascent of Luxury Tourism, unsurprising corollary of the polarisation of wealth; the consolidation of the digital distribution channels with the birth of platforms’ monopolies and oligopolies. Globalisation is a game for the giants, and even then, only a few can populate any given space. The dominion must be global as competition must be limited to a handful of players. The physical architecture of world’s economy and that of the TT&H industry as globalisation has consigned to us, will remain in place for the foreseeable future. Its game book must be known and familiar to our businesses. In the digital space of booking providers and supply chain, prepare to witness a clash of titans. However, as an overall economic philosophy underscoring the global business model, its days could be numbered, at least in the unbridled format we have experienced sofar.

7.1 Introduction

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Universal Truth ♯ 7 Mankind has evolved in self-awareness through history. From caring only for one’s cave and survival, to bonding allegiance to the landlord’ fief, to fighting for countries’ boundaries, to embracing multinational dimension. The next step forward is the deep comprehension of this one, sole human family at a global level.

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Mass Movement, Over-Tourism and Multiplication of Destinations. Have we Entered The Golden Age of Tourism or Have we Reached the Tipping Point?

We should start by acknowledging that globalisation has been a decisive sponsor in making the TT&H industry what it is today: a global, vigorous industry that represents a strategic contribution to countries’ GDP and their trade balance. The revenue generated by TT&H industry through I.T.A. (International Tourist Arrivals) gets, indeed, accounted for as part of the “export balance” within the national balance sheet as it draws international expenditure into the state’s boundaries. The advancement in transport have opened access to a proliferation of destinations, where large capital investments have often ignited the onset of a new tourism driven local economy. The innovation in communications and the World Wide Web have empowered millions of people to organise their holidaymaking without intermediation while in parallel forging a limitless, cloud-held common knowledge on destinations and hospitality providers through reviews and social media posts. The development of once third world countries has recruited hundreds of millions of new comers to the game of globe trotting and holidaymaking, multiplying the potential “origins of holidaymakers flow”. The numerical progression of I.T.A. volumes has been astounding and consistent for decades, reaching 1.4 billion in 2018 outperforming the overall average growth of the global economy and posting a +6% on the previous year. This figure is even more telling if put in perspective: the total of ITA in 1995 was 527 million or 1/3 of what we are recording today (UNWTO 2019). Undeterred by economic slowdown and uncertainty, undaunted by pandemic scares and social unrest, the moving mass of self-styled explorers is determined to trot around the extensive surface of our planet and take pictures of it its mesmerising wonders. Europe confirms itself as the most visited continent, standing at 713 million ITA, with Asia & Pacific coming second, at less than half the numbers of international arrivals, with 343 million ITA. The Americas record in the region of 217 million ITA, Africa 67 million and the Middle East 64 million. At this pace, Europe could be receiving 800 mill ITA by 2025 (UNWTO 2019). Little known fact, the Travel, Tourism & Hospitality industry as of today accounts for about 10% of the global GDP and for 1/11 of jobs. The Travel and Tourism industry employs 7 times more people than the automotive industry and 3 times more than the IT sector. (World Travel and Tourism Council 2017)

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Mass movements have unquestionably acted as an extraordinary tool that has familiarised ever vaster strata of the populations with different lands and cultures; mixing and mingling people, languages and context a great eye opener on diversity and multiculturalism. Each given point on the planet is by now reachable, physically and virtually. No diversity is unfamiliar and foreign enough to put us off a travel and a visit. We are more curious than afraid of one another. Many lands and regions, emerging from difficult pasts and delayed economic development, have had the chance of joining the show by the sheer appeal of their traditions, local agriculture and heritage. Spain, the fifth nation in the world for ITA, where 1 euro of every 7 of the national GDP is generated by the tourist economy; the region of Andalucia, in the sunny south, owes 26% of their regional GDP output to the tourism industry (Antonio and Lopez 2019). Nevertheless, the exhilarating show of global mass movement is meeting a dangerous tipping point; one that affects the first tier of high profile destinations. The ever growing ranks of international tourism are by and large mainly composed of new-comers; first time international travellers determined to tackle the inventory of desired destinations starting with the A-list of what the word considers “iconic and must-see” sites. Those are the eternally recurring names unmovable at the top, famed cities and world heritage sites towards which visitors have been flocking for centuries. Countries with tremendous population numbers, such as India and China, are entering the ranks of ITA, turning within a few years, from a small trickle of early explorers to colossal numbers even if, in relative terms, they still represent a tiny minority within their nation. From out of nowhere Chinese outbound trips have gone from 20 million in 2010 to 180 million in 2018 (China OTRI 2019). Boarding the intercontinental flights for the first time, all our new customers clutch the must-see list of sites and places to tick off. Predictably, the names are always the same. The A-list of these must-see destinations, counts, alas, a long roster of European sites. Europe has a crushing record of UNESCO World Heritage sites: Italy, 51, France 41, Spain 44, Germany 40, UK 29. When it comes to novice travelers, Europe is nothing less than the bull’s eye. (UNESCO World Heritage Sites) China, by comparison has 50. This automatically directs each emerging country’s newly formed travelling middle class’ appetite towards the usual suspects: Venice, Rome, Paris, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Prague, London and so on so forth. In these cities ITA overshadow the number of citizens in some cases with a 1–40 towering ratio; Venice, a point in case, where a population of 250.000 local residents

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(50.000 is taking into account the historic centre only) must cater for a yearly influx of 9.7 million tourists generating an estimated 25 million presences (bed nights). With one of the most fragile ecosystems in the world, a delicate lace of marble arches and decors mounted on thousand year old buildings sitting on stilts, Venice can be considered the symbolic outcry of over tourism in Europe. UNESCO has gone as far as earmarking it in the “red alert list” of heritage sites at risk of being irreparably damaged and forever lost. Venice also represents a specifically European epiphenomenon: that of small, sometimes minute locations, encompassing within their extra limited perimeter, heritage of immense beauty and appeal. The very high appeal of a site, hosted in a very small surface, often with extremely rigid and fragile urban structure, exacerbates the devastating impact of over tourism both for the recipient (location) and the visiting party. Crouched on mountains or tightly knitted in medieval historic centers; neatly aligned along a wonderful canal, the entire length of the promenade only stretching a kilometer; arranged around a square as large as a football pitch or less and yet, there, in that miniature space, nesting the leaning Tower of Pisa, or the famed Bruges canal; the Arena di Verona or the Chateaux de la Loire. Those spaces cannot be stretched or broadened in any way. Our industry will have to find a way of respecting and protecting these assets and stop forfeiting them to unmanaged crowds. These are our capital assets, not only is it our interest to conserve them, but it is our moral duty as mere custodians of a world heritage to keep them authentic and unspoiled for future generations. Europe, with its convulsive, glorious and brutal history, has been in the making for thousands of years, laying down one after another, multiple layers of ideas, concepts, innovation and cultural expression, all of which found their way into the production of a dizzying quantity of phantasmagoric, astonishing art and heritage, structures and lifestyles. Tangible, intangible or mixed, it has come together as a cornucopia of items capable to causing vertigo to the unfamiliar visitor. Over-tourism impacts on this delicate ecosystem of high profile yet often small districts in a variety of ways. At first, it causes all the local operators, working in the supply chain of the industry, to rub their hands in excitement. Then it calls for a wave of substantial investments, both from the part of local capital rich parties as well as external investors. These investments aim to capitalize on the gushing flow of incoming tourism hence they try to comply with the “esthetics and contents stereotypes” expected by the visitors. Often, the effort of investors is therefore directed to “ticking the box” and pleasing the crowd, renouncing to innovate or capture the diversity.

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Immediately there after, city center commercial rents go through the roof, ousting the smaller, family owned businesses that ensured authenticity, personable service, diversity and, incidentally, fostered a layer of micro and smaller businesses. Now, the multinationals of international brands pour in, one after the other eroding the identity of the location. We are fast reshaping the high appeal tourist destination to a complacent, flattened, stereo-typified reality where each relevant element of the local identity gets wrapped, priced and sold. The city does not live for itself any longer. It exists to cater and serve one-off passing crowds to whom it happily alienates, one piece at a time, what had made its fortune in the first place. Local residents become, at this stage, irrelevant, worse, a nuisance. They occupy precious space that could be easily put to passive income generation. The city center then gets Airbnb-fied. The local elites, owning investment capital, go shopping for real estate and secure every little nook and cranny that can be turned into an acceptable short term tourist rental. A well structured and detailed study by the Universita’ di Siena, (LADEST Romano and Capineri 2018) demonstrates how this mechanics feeds a further polarization of wealth, adding extra passive income to the pockets of the capital owners. In parallel, residential renters are driven out of the city centre, to peripheral areas, adding to the congestion of commuting traffic, while the centre gets turned into trolley bags dragging motorways, with droves of tourists checking in and out at any time of the day or night. The tourist experience of famed heritage sites becomes a sweaty stampede; uncomfortable, frantic, messy. The aura of magic has been stripped away, hardly a fragment surviving. What next? The reaction of these phenomena ties in with the vaster mega trend of De-Globalisation which will shape up, as we will shortly see, to impersonate a counter reaction to the un-restrained and apparently un-managed manifestation of liberal laissez-faire economy of the previous age of Globalisation. A wave of activism is gaining momentum, exhibiting its colours in many countries, under many hats, and challenging multiple topics. Within the over-tourism perimeter, Barcelona and Venice are leading the rebellion of local residents against over-tourism with numerous and vocal demonstrations taking place. Policy makers reluctantly react signing off the first generation of laws and local legislation to curb the congestion of visitors by clipping the Airbnb freedom to market. Regulatory boards around the world, are starting to introduce limiting or even stringent regulations aimed at stopping the hollowing of city centres and distortion of residential market by players likes Airbnb. Paris, Barcelona, Santa Monica (Ca) have introduced draconian regulations. With 60,000 listings, Paris has the second largest Airbnb market in the world. After a crackdown led by the city mayor Anne Hidalgo in 2018, it is now illegal to rent out a private residence beyond 120 days a year. The listings must be officially

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registered with the city authorities who issue a serial number by which each property is trackable—this also acts as a strong deterrent towards tax evasion. A similar approach in Barcelona, where rental income pays the highest tax band and the city instructed the digital platform to remove 2,577 listings that it found to be operating without a city-approved license, or face substantial fine. Berlin, Amsterdam and London followed; in Berlin owner-occupiers can, under certain conditions, rent out their own home without time restrictions and rent out second homes for up to 90 days each year. Amsterdam, London and Dublin have instead taken a cooperative approach with Airbnb, turning it into a revenue collector levying tourist tax and rental income tax on behalf of the state. In London homeowners can rent out their property for a max of three months a year. A legal confrontation is instead unfolding in New York, the largest Airbnb market, where the city authorities tried to curtail the short rental phenomenon by increasing red tape and demanding the hosts to report each month names and details of staying guests. After legal action, the law was blocked. Italy and its over congested high profile destinations cities, Venice, Florence, Rome, one that shines, for now, for absence of legislation and control. Overtourism is the perfect candidate for a Futures Scenario Envisioning exercise. It also serves the scope of Futures Studies to point out how strategically important it is that policy makers are made aware of their decisive influencing power on how the future unfolds. Over tourism was easy to foresee and, to some extent, to manage. It has been on the cards for a good decade, its drivers visible to all. Left unmanaged it has damaged, hollowed and distorted local economies and lifestyles of so many destinations. Yet, in-action seems to have been the strategic line of choice of most policy makers in the western world, numbed by the narrative of neo-liberal economics and magical money printing machines sitting in Washington (headquarters of FED) and Frankfurt (headquarters of ECB). The rest could be, it appeared, left to the invisible hand. Invisible, possibly, but very efficient at preying on the resources of many to the benefit of few. By many judged too complex to manage and too sensitive to cap, your author deems instead this is a classic “fig leaf” to cover vested interests and comfortable inertia. Overtourism can not be tolerated in the future and, I am sure, at some stage will, be curbed by capping the amount of hospitality. A low hanging, easy action, already in use, by the way, in the forward thinking region of Tirol. Plan forward the number of beds that can be available as a ratio to local residents. Limit the extent of rental platform penetration, increase tax levy and enforce tax evasion controls.

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As many visitor attractions do-not-allow more than a certain number of visitors in at any one time, there is no reason why overcrowded destinations could not implement a similar criteria. Issuing numbered access to the districts in dire straits because of overcrowding. Adjusting pricing to skim the market can also be a strategy, although intrinsically elitist, favouring the more affluent. On the soft side, marketing can contribute by putting in place concerted marketing efforts to spread the flows out, elsewhere towards alternative and less congested areas. Over and above all, a ratio locals-to-visitors should be identified and its limits set. A ratio space-to-bodies should be considered and implemented regimenting access to areas, clusters, roads and sites. Overtourism needs to be defined with a mathematical algorithm that factors in number of visitors, physical space available in a given district, number of residents population. Once established an acceptable ratio, access needs to be capped, fencing out, diluting and pacing the in excess visitors. As part of the de-globalisazion push back, that we will soon examine, over-tourism will most likely be blacklisted by a number of more locally-focused, less short-term profit-led administrators. Overall, deglobalisation is starting to express a deep, heartly felt demand to recover, protect and foster local identities. This spurring a number of positive/ negative consequences. In the variegated dimension of so called populism, walls are going up, symbolical and real. On the other side of the spectrum, the immense pressure of mass movements will unlock a new dimension of tourism, this time, an all round positive one: the phenomenon of the 2nd and 3rd tier destinations. By this we mean the development of attention and flows towards locations that, up until now, have been completely below the radar of tourism movement. Pushed by the sheer volume of numbers, driven by the formation of a vast layer of discerning customers who have already travelled extensively, the time for minor, secondary and yet unspoiled clusters is coming. What in the past would have been deemed unappealing and lacking a celebrity status will become interesting precisely because it lacks celebrity status. We will examine this trend in the de-globalisation chapter.

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Universal Truth ♯8 Globalisation has exponentially multiplied origins of flows as well as destinations of visits. No diversity is foreign enough to put us off a travel and a visit. We are more curious of one another than afraid of one another.

7.3 Polarisation of Wealth and the Irresistible …

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Polarisation of Wealth and the Irresistible Ascent of Luxury Tourism. Rent Me a City

Similar to climate change, polarization of wealth has silently crept into most first world societies for decades, before it came to wide public attention. Sated and reassured by the post WWII epic and prolonged economic boom, the middle, upper and even lower classes in Europe and North America have enjoyed the longest and most successful era of wealth creation and wealth distribution. Unlike in the past, western democracies seemed to have discovered the formula to lift entire populations’ living standards, distributing in a functional and civilized manner, the benefits of industrial and societal progress. For once, democracy was resting on a promise come true: social mobility. The promise of “social mobility” entails that citizens who work hard and play by the text book, will have a chance to improve the social status and conditions they were born into. Governments’ policies play in this respect a pivotal role, levelling barriers and creating a more even playfield for all: namely, supplying free education, free health care and, noteworthy, access to credit. All western societies prospered for half a century, during which wealth was not only created in abundance but, crucially, distributed across all social ranks. The architecture of that economic approach was, silently and progressively, dismantled since 1971, when President Nixon untied the Dollar printing machine from the Gold standard, opening the gates for limitless money printing and giving way to devious phenomena that will, in the following decades, undermine working class purchasing power and distort the entire system; a system and a game rulebook that had made the fortunes of the entire western world up until then. Later on, in the ‘90s, with a quantum leap of the financial system, morphing from a “service”, support industry to the real economy, into the very and only game capable of producing miraculous and fast gains to the privileged circles involved, the mutation was accomplished. Slowly but surely, societies began to split in two, divisive layers: the privileged, thin 1–5% at the top, and all the rest. The confident and law-abiding middle class, found themselves irresistibly sliding downwards. Thanks to taxation often disproportionately burdened onto this layer, no salary, single or jointed, is enough to live as well as the previous generation (Fig. 7.4). The widening gulf is symmetrically reflected on several dimensions. In the labour market, the median salary of the FTSE 100 CEOs is nowadays 117 times higher that the average pay in their companies. Back in 1973 the CEO of a major American company earned 23,7 times as much as the average salary in his company; by 2016 this ratio had jumped to 275,6. (UK, High Pay Centre 2019; Mogensen 2019)

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Fig. 7.4 T. Piketty, E. Saez, G. Zucman, Distributional National Accounts: Methgods and estimates for the United States Share of total household financial wealth—United States 1962– 2014. Published paper on Quarterly Journal of Economic, UC Berkley 2018, 133 (2): 553–609. Available at: http://gabriel-zucman.eu/usdina/

Fast forward to today, wealth polarisation has become a topic of high pitched debates, a bone of contention between opposing economic philosophies. While the philosophers debate, the FED and BCE keep printing a mind boggling quantity of liquidity, a mountain of virtual money that in over ten years of Quantitative Easing, has never reached the real economy of families and SMEs. Polarisation of wealth and impoverishment of middle classes are a main driver of the rebirth of social activism, and, inherently, of the megatrend we will explore in our last chapter, de-globalisation. Polarisation of wealth has progressed in quantum leaps in the last ten years, the global recession only feeding it and making it plumper. In 2010, 388 people (as in physical persons), owned as much as the 50% of the less rich part of the planet, corresponding to 3.5 billion people. In 2012 the number of super rich owning as much as the poorest part of the planet had reduced to 159. In 2015 that number had further shrunk to 62 people. Three years later, 2018 it only took to gather the 26 richest persons in the world, to amass wealth matching that of the 50% poorer part of world’s population.

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To render this graphically, a school bus with 26 people in it controls as much wealth as 3.8 billion people on the planet. If we were to include the whole of the richest 1% of the world population, their wealth is worth more that the remaining 99%. (Oxfam 2019). Oxfam reports, from which these data are extrapolated, have shocked public opinion in January, every year, presenting their findings at the Davos conference in Switzerland; a sobering moment, hastily dispelled by sparkling champagne cups and elegant babble. The segment of the super wealthy is technically called UHNWI or Ultra High net Worth Individuals. Financial institutions and professional investors consider UHNWI those with a net wealth of over $50 million. Accordingly to Credit Suisse Wealth Report 2018, there are 128,000 UHNWI in the world, as compared to 41,000 in 2000. Of these, 45,000 have at least $100 million dollars in net wealth, against 14,000 fifteen years ago. USA tops the chart with 63,000 UHNWI; Europe follows with 31,000. But Asia, with 26,000, will soon overtake Europe posting an increase of 9% a year (Credit Suisse 2018). The definition of “millionaire” instead, indicates an individual with a net wealth of over a million. The “net wealth” is the sum of the value of all financial and non-financial assets minus the outstanding debts/liabilities. If we focus on the top of the top, super-mega rich individuals owning an excess of $30 billion the USA counts 540 of them, Europe 489 and Asia 335 (China 251, India 84). Luxury, as a global Industry, is divided in 9 product segments, of which the top three, luxury cars, luxury travel & hospitality (TT&H) and personal luxury goods, account for >80% of the total luxury spend globally. The other categories including: fine arts, cruises, design furniture, fine foods, wines & spirits, yachts & jets). The LUXURY Goods market continues to grow YOY relentlessly, and the 12 years that will go down in history as the most dramatic recession since 1929, have not even remotely hindered this growth. (BAIN and Company, luxury report 2018). This introduction to polarised wealth was necessary in order to define the frame within which the TT&H industry operates. Our industry captures disposable income, fulfils the wide-spread desire to explore, enjoy and experiment. But also, like any good or service inscribed towards the top of the Maslow pyramid, it marks social status by the quality and exclusivity of its products. The mass flooded beaches of certain areas around the Mediterranean sea will never see the sparkling presence of UHNWI or celebrities.

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Tourism choices and destinations are organised by “degree of exclusivity”, and this degree has incommensurably widened and hardened in the past two decades, both in terms of physical distance as well as widening gulf in quality and selection of facilities and services offered. To understand the concept of Luxury and hence Luxury Tourism, we must grasp what makes a certain good/service/experience precious. The preciousness, value of items is defined by their scarcity. The more scarce an item is, the more value it bears. The more abundant the item is, the less value it bears. Luxury is therefore defined by gaining access to rare, unique sites, locations and experiences that make them exclusive. Exclusivity confirms the high status of the product and of its user/buyer. Luxury Tourism, one of the segments where luxury is organised and monitored, has experienced strong and constant growth in the last decade. The outlook is set to keep delivering astonishing results, with operators and research bodies in this space projecting the yearly value of the industry to reach $1,614 billion by 2026, growing at a CAGR of 7.9% during 2019–2026 (Allied Market Research 2019). In 2018, North America and Europe combined accounted for around 63% of the overall market revenue, with Italy and Germany topping the list of popularity in luxury travel. When it comes to cities favoured by millionaires and UHNWI, it is Paris that scoops the first prize, that unmovable icon of elegance and offering bountiful luxury shopping experiences. Asia, is, of course, showing a strong uptake of luxury travel, mirroring its economic success: the Asia Pacific region has invested greatly in infrastructure and standards in luxury tourist destination and is now reaping the benefits of such investment: in the next decade a CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) growth of 15.5% is projected for the area, including India. As new destinations keep emerging through infrastructure building and resort developments, they subsequently find access into the portfolio of choice for luxury travellers. The adventure and safari segment, for example, is growing consistently and takes a lion’s share, an appropriate pun, in the luxury market, accounting for about 43% of the by tour type in 2019, its popularity set to continue, with a projected, resounding growth of circa 7.3% CAGR in the next decade. The UHNWI, the top segment of luxury, not surprisingly are expected to generate the highest level of revenue for the luxury market, and, within this category, China is expected to play a leading role. Polarisation of wealth is magisterially represented in the luxury travel market. This trend shows no sign of abatin. In fact, all is in place to deliver a further acceleration. The luxury travel market is projected to be the fastest growing segment in the industry worldwide.

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So what is this market made of? How do the detainers of immense wealth, wealth beyond computation indeed, keep themselves interested and satisfied? How far into uniqueness, exclusivity, exoticism and unattainble standards can the industry deliver? Looking back only a couple of generations, the choices and consumption patterns of the highest segments of societies seem now limited if not irremediably naif. Distance between classes was relatively modest, and those boundaries were routinely and loosely breached. We have now stretched this divide to a gulf and its’ boundaries have become, simply put, impassible. Exclusive ship expeditions, unique safari adventures, helicopter transport from point A to B. Champagne sets and crystal glasses delivered on the snowed peaks of Alpine celebrity mountains. Private events with storytelling in royal castles and chateaux. Personal Michelin star chef following the customers throughout their journeys. Personal exhibition of orchestras or famed musicians. Imagination is the only limit here, as long as all and everything is connoted by the defining key words of luxury tourism: unique; exclusive; customised to the most minute detail. This wording, indeed, is repeated incessantly across all luxury operators’ sites: bespoke, tailor made, unique and uniqueness, authenticity and, interestingly, “experiences” and “experiential” two words that recurr with hammer like determination. Ownership of goods of all kind and nature is a given. Access to that exclusive experience is what the segment is now after. “one-of-a-kind experience; “inspirational experiences”; “freedom to experience” “your personal genius assistant to secure breath-taking experiences”. The marketing content promise intimacy, soft touch but super expertise in the assistance, exclusive locations that point towards sparsely populated environments. All to create “memorable experiences” that get to the core of one’s feeling and deeply connect with one’s inner self, dear friends and close family, and the vast universe; but distanced from the “commoners”. After all, what is the difference between “High Price” and “Priceless”, as one operator correctly points out? Money is not an issue. Delivering memorable experiences with high emotional value is the endevour of tourism providers here. You may be taken aback by the relevant position occupied within this arena by the category “culinary experiences”. However, one must bear in mind those will be held in magical settings, assisted by celebrity chefs drawing from exclusive recipes books. Divided in three potential spend bands, Absolute Luxury, Aspiring Luxury and Accessible Luxury, the average spend per holiday goes from around $7000 per person to several millions per event, with the age band 51–69 representing the biggest group. Renting out villas will do for the lowest band, accessible luxury. But at the top of the chart, we have totally different expressions of spending patterns. UHNWI need to rent out entire islands, entire resorts, entire sections of the city, with their iconic landmarks within. We step out of the delicate intimacy of “priceless” experience

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charged with intimacy and emotional value, to take a glimse of the other side of the spectrum: rent me a city. The organization of private events to celebrate occasions is, indeed, the most widespread and expensive form of shared socialization. Renting out normal event venues, albeit at the top end of the market, would not be an appropriate representation of UHNWI’s social status, when measured against the scale of wealth they have ammassed. A new format of events venue had to be contrived, one that entails renting out entire portions of cities/entire areas, islands, heritage sites, to fulfill ones’ desire for exclusivity. The most in-demand destinations have started compiling full blown price lists: Indian and Chinese billionaries are routinely renting out parts of Florence, Venice, Rome, Paris. Each event pours back into the city’s economy over 10 million euro, but the public debate is not sedate. You can have Pontevecchio in Florence, all to yourself, for the light sum of €120,000; a steal, if you think about it, considering that it must then be ringfenced to keep the crowds out and face the citizens’ rage. A smallish private event can be arranged right under the famous glass pyramid in the Louvre for as little as €36,000. It will instead take $15 million to buy a private island in Florida (Terra’s Key) 15 acres “to go under the radar” and cut contacts with the outer world. Prices for such properties usually remain undisclosed, unless you can prove you are seriously interested. In the extreme search for exclusivity, the class divide will deepen, a divide that may get tainted, at some stage in the future, with overt confrontation. Luxury, in areas and locations, may start resembling the not so golden cage of indian reserves. And when the earth exploration is exhausted, when all exclusive retreat places are allocated, well, the moon must be next, right? Elon Musk announced some time ago his first leisure travel to the moon scheduled for 2018 and further rescheduled for 2023. A purpose built vessel, SpaceX, would fly its first passenger, Japanese billionarie Yusaku Maezawa, and a second tourist (place still vacant) to an orbiting return journey to the silver satellite. The ticket to the moon comes at a non disclosed price and at customers’ own risk. Space travel for leisure purpose has been floated about for a handful of years now, although still allegedly far from implementation. However it is a telling sign of how far the polarization of wealth has gripped our society and will not recoil for some time, given the phenomenal machine of globalisation underpinning it. Space travel captures people’s imagination, prodding debate and disconcert. Yet another sign of mankind’s insatiable curiosity and genius, or a Zeitgeist marker of our vain glory and narcissism? Up to the reader to form an opinion.

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Universal Truth ♯ 9 The monetary value of things is a measure of their scarcity. But “scarcity” can be artificially created by setting up high price for a specific item.

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Distribution Channels and More: A Capitalism of Platforms’ Monopolies

As explained in the introduction, megatrends define the overarching architecture around which societies take shape, adapt and express their vitality. Undoubtedly, the economic philosophy and consequent productive system adopted at any given time, plays a decisive role in determining the forms and models society is expected to abide by. From rural economies to the mercantile age, (with merchants sailing across seas and knitting the first layer of modern trade); to proto-industrial and industrial revolution, with the first rush to urbanization and the formation of European bourgeoisie and proletariat; to the second industrial revolution, with a capitalism tailored for the middle and upper class, fostering a robust fabric of Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SME). At each passage, communities and societies have adhered to the economic and productive structures coming together around them. We seem to have now entered an era connoted by a global dimension that forcibly demands companies to achieve colossal dimensions in order to survive in a global world. It requires the global space to be solely occupied by global giants that can control the vast majority of global resources and the global market; giants granted unrestrained jurisdiction and freedom to pick and choose in order to assert their dominance to boost revenues while embellishing the figurative countries’ GDP. Or does it? The past twenty years have been moulded by an all-engulfing wave of mergers and acquisitions that has consigned to our time a global market defined by extreme consolidation. By “consolidation” economists indicate a specific industry/market where an ecosystem of many players has been shrunk to a handful of players by sheer strength of mergers, acquisitions or casualties driven by aggressive competition. In order to envisage and anticipate what the future holds, it is essential to understand how the present has been shaped up. In order to predict the future for one specific industry we need to understand the wider context within which the industry inevitably operates. This is why the comprehension of megatrends is required to take a broad and holistic approach within which we can then identify the specific industry trends. It is a bit like taking in a whole massive fresco, stretching across an entire wall of a long ball room, depicting a intricate battle with clash of spears and dynamic movement. Only in the second instance can we focus on a section or a specific character and read his behaviour and, possibly, the likely outcome of the battle. Globalisation has paved the way for an unprecedented consolidation within all industries, including Travel and Tourism; a consolidation that has effectively brought the whole of distribution channels of goods and services under the control of a handful of players.

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The ideological legitimation of monopolies and oligopolies postulates the following: no protection trade barriers means global scale confrontation with competition; global competition entails the need to develop new products and services all the time, requiring strong investment in Research and Development that only gigantic corporations can afford; to move production operations at ease, tapping into cheap labour markets, huge financial power is equally required; the same financial muscle is also necessary to bear onerous legal fees to protect patents and IP (Intellectual Property). Nowadays the top 10% of Big Pharma companies control 65% of the drugs market; the top two software operating systems Windows and Mac, control 97% of their global market; in the Agrichem sector, the top two companies, Monsanto (now Bayer) & Dupont control 68% of all the genetic management, patents holding, sale and distribution of seeds that make up the vastest amount of agriculture (ex. corn). In the digital sphere, Google controls 80% of the world’s desktop search and 95% of mobile search. Facebook and its family brands (Instagram, Whatsapp etc.) control 88% of all the social media exchanges, conversations and postings. For those who were present at the onset of the internet, this state of things will appear to be quite a paradox, when measured against the expectations it raised. Back then, it was anticipated that the World Wide Web, decisive enabler of globalisation, would open access and democratise entry to distribution channels, skipping all the rigidity and limits of physical distribution systems, making it viable for small companies to reach out to global markets. That is, indeed the case, as long as one goes through the only two shopping malls left available. Amazon (owning 47% of the entire USA e-commerce revenue) and Ali Baba, 56% of e-commerce market share in China. These are the numbers, give or take, where we can now also ascribe to the TT&H industry, with the arena of on line accommodation bookings clotted around a handful of players within a decade since its buoyant inception. The emergence of the Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) with immense disruptive power, fast consolidated around two global heavyweights: Bookings Holdings and Expedia. The first, including umbrella brands such as Booking.com, Kayak, Priceline, combined with the second, Expedia including its umbrella of brands Expedia.com Trivago, Hotels.com, Homeaway etc., to boast a market capitalisation of over $100bn. Booking.com handles 65% of travel bookings in Europe. With Expedia, far down, at 12.6%. Coming from a different angle, Tripadvisor set off to conquer the dimension of Consumer Generated Content (CGC) in peer to peer reviews on accommodations. In 2018 it generated approximately 730 million user reviews and opinions covering 8 million listings for restaurants, hotels, vacation rentals and attractions. With only

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3,366 employees worldwide it generates 1.62bn$ revenue and dominates the TT&H peer to peer reviews market (Statista 2019). Created in 2000, it started as a consumers’ watchdog and branded itself as “World’s most trusted travel site”. Interestingly, a few years later, the words “honest” and “trusted” were removed from the branding. Within 10/15 years since inception, the astonishing digital world of Travel and Tourism, seemed to have reached its definitive, consolidated shape around a handful of behemoth: airlines, capitalising on their relatively small number had escaped the poaching of their bookings from OTAs. Accommodation booking had to go through Booking.com or Expedia. Private lodging accommodation would command the newly born and immediately global Airbnb. To acquire peer-to-peer assessment on any establishment, you would look at Tripdvisor. But in a dimension where the only rule is disruption, that was a false impression. We are about to enter the final stage of consolidation. Prepare to watch a clash of Titans. But before we get to the likely future of platform monopolies, let’s dwell a moment on outlining their business model. A digital platform offers an intermediation infrastructure where services, goods or contents are portrayed for the users to buy, sell or use. The explosive rate of development of digital platforms relies on two defining features: this new business model works and expands globally not thanks to a huge labour force making it happen remotely. On the contrary, its exponential acceleration in acquiring market share is explained by the fact that the onus of populating the platforms’ contents and managing their transactions is pushed onto the users/members themselves. Hence, having identified a platform concept that seems to be occupying an interesting gap in the market, it’s the very end-users themselves who, working at it from the four corners of the globe, upload content, details, profiles, manage transactions etc. making the platform powerful and rich nearly overnight. Think about Airbnb: from launch to becoming the biggest private accommodation provider in the world with over 6 million listings in over 191 countries around the globe in less than a decade. And Instagram? 95 million photos and videos are uploaded every day, actively involving 73% of young internet users in the United States. Over 50 billion photos have been uploaded on Instagram. This company has been around only eight years and has reached a company market evaluation of $102 billion. Not a major employer though: with an estimated 5,200 employees it offers one of the highest per head count revenue in businesses. The second condition that gives legs to the digital platforms to raise and acquire market domination in a short span of time is the phenomenal round of seed funding and expansion funding secured by venture capitalists and investment funds. This

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liquidity has been unleashed due to rock bottom low interest rate encouraging a ‘chase the unicorn” that will most likely soon show its fundamental flaws. The size of investment funding has broken all records in the history of finance in recent years. These investments are meant to support the launch of digital platforms to finance their non-profit making elements until a massive amount of users data is acquired and market dominance achieved. Another defining element of digital platforms is their dwarf size as “employers” within our economies: in the UK only 2% of the workforce is employed by tech companies versus three times as much employed in manufacturing. Nick Srnicek, lecturer at City University and author of “Platform Capitalism” (Srnicek 2016), categorizes five kinds of platforms, one of which, he calls “lean platforms”, such as Uber and Airbnb. These type of platforms acquire a domineering position over a market without effectively owning any physical asset. Uber calls itself “the biggest taxi company in the world” without owning fleet of cars. Airbnb calls itself “the biggest accommodation provider in the world” without owning any hotels or real estate. So what is the next evolution of the Travel & Tourism Industry platform monopolies? The most likely evolution for the coming 5–10 years will unfold along three pathways: – Expansion of business via diversification of core business into adjacent (and non directly adjacent) areas; – Vertical integration of software’s and integration of services until each platform achieves the likely shape of a one-stop shop. – Confrontation, competition, head on head war amongst the few remaining travel providers or ultimate mergers amongst them. The first pathway of future development rests on the axiom that, in order to keep attracting advertising and remain competitive, the platforms must constantly broaden their sources of data harvesting. Only through further and further expansion into other business segments, to recruit new customers and engross the big data mining can this crucialmission be fulfilled. Big data mining on customers is the essential raw material for ever more extended and accurate customer profiling though algorithmic and A.I. power; in its turn, customer profiling is the essential fuel to attract advertising. Revenue of platforms such as Google and Facebook come almost entirely, from advertising. We will then witness a sort of rizomic, tentacular expansion of digital platforms into adjacent and not adjacent businesses and industries; Google, for example, after having extensively diversified into all technology related business, is investing in the development of autonomous vehicles and even pharmaceuticals; all activities feeding into the one main basket of central intelligence management.

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Secondly, all the main Travel & Tourism digital platforms, will now crucially push the boat out to integrate within and under their wing, as many other travel related services as possible. Namely and firstly: connection transports, public or private, in and out one’s destination; food related activities and experiences; local activities and experiences: all items belonging to the travel value chain, all bookable and all driving vertical integration of the space. The ultimate integration will be the dominant game in town in the next five- to ten years. In other words, the likes of Booking.com, Tripadvisors, Expedia, Airbnb, but also challenged by other, very threatening new entries on the perimeter of T&T, namely Amazon, and Google itself, will now aim at neck-breaking speed to become a all-comprehensive, one- stop-shop to organise your holiday or business travel. A more advanced example of integration in this sense, is the chinese owned and operated WeChat, which offers through one single app multiple and diverse services: from booking a taxi to making payments; ordering food or dealing with the government offices. Finally, the third pathway of the second wave of disruption about to come entails, by force of expansion and integration the imminent battle for ultimate domination. To introduce this last point, let’s examine for a moment the life cycle of Tripadvisor, a telling sign of times to come. Up to five years ago Tripadvisor was the unquestionable first port of call to gain evaluation on a hotel or a restaurant. David turned Goliath, Tripadvisor was the perfect point in case of a monopoly exploiting a dominant position to the full. Having washed its hands of any “vetting” of reviews duty, (thus relinquishing from the responsibility of ensuring the veridicity of the same), and refusing to impose identity disclosure on reviewers, Tripadvisor was possibly the first platform to unleash an astonishing, bordering on disquieting, desire of the crowds to turn into critics/judges/journalists giving lots of their time away for free to populate a third party digital property with their opinions. Millions of hotel and establishments’ owners would spend entire evenings scouting Tripadvisor reviews, in an anxiety fraught exercise, to appease disgruntled customers, real or fake, and pursue an altogether impossible chimera of impeccable digital reputation; a newly minted job on top of their already demanding daily tasks. It felt like this state of things was definitive. And yet, after having discovered the market of travel peer-to-peer reviews and risen to control the space, Tripadvisor has reached its boundary when it stepped into Google’s voracious expansion strategies. Google has decided that it could easily acquire leadership over this arena and so it did. Within five years, Google has gone from virtually absent to handling now a whopping 37% of all the travel reviews, having increased by 309% in 2017 and by 114% in 2018; Google is now followed by Booking.com, with 31% of the market. In opposing symmetry, Tripadvisor has lost 10% of its market share in just 2018 and is now reduced to a meagre 12% of the travel reviews market. (Hospitalitynet 2019)

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The omnipotent Google enjoys an unrivalled and unchallenged position to harvest reviews: with its Maps software and geo-location data, it can promptly solicit reviews on any given establishment, hotel, retail or service outlet you have walked into and where you have carried out a task or a transaction. Beside having the upper hand as owner of the most comprehensive big data in the world, and tagging our movements with a mind- boggling accuracy of 2 m, Google Reviews come with a great advantage: they are not anonymous, their reviewer’s identify linked to the Google profile, an element that adds greater credibility to the content. The bumpy and eventful lifecycle of Tripadvisor, gone from controlling the majority of reviews worldwide to only 12% in 2018 unveils the very core of the platforms’ monopolies business model. One that I call the Highlander Paradigm: only one will survive. This company went from playing the role of almighty, feared judge of all hotels around the globe to being elbowed out into a “supporting actor” role within a handful of years. This may well and truly give us a sharp insight into the future of platform monopolies: one of complete, vertical and horizontal integration, involving even the big players, until only one (or a cartel of integrated 5) stands and serves mankind as a monolithic entity that we will conveniently contact from one entry point. If we are entering an era of digital platform monopolies, we should ask ourselves: what are the limits and risks of this globally adopted business model? What is the likely future and evolution of this format? The biggest and most damaging crashes in history have almost unmistakably been caused by excessive concentration of power. From the 1929 crisis to XIX century totalitarian regimes, when society creates extreme asymmetries and imbalances you know it’s not going to end well. Not by coincidence, the first body of anti-trust laws date back to nearly a century ago for the USA as if it had been a primary concern of the legislator to organise a frame around this delicate issue. Maybe again not by coincidence, that very same body of laws have remained unchanged, making them unsuited to capture the complexity, speed and nature of our time. The main source of law in Europe is much younger, dating from the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (2007). As we know from recent current affairs scandals, the most powerful digital platforms’ history is laden with privacy violations. This is no coincidence, given that “data” is the very primary resource and asset for these firms. 89% of Google’s

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revenue comes from advertising; 96% of Facebook revenue comes from advertising. Hence the extraction of elaboration of personal data constitutes the very essence of these business models, intrinsically driven to push the boundaries of our privacy in all possible manners in order to extrapolate and aggregate more data. Over to an efficient AI algorithm then, to match profiles with advertisement and advertisers. This logic explains, as aforementioned, why the mammoths of this digital capitalism stretch and expand to all sorts of business and industries, entering sectors that look completely unrelated to their core business. To widen the data capturing net. The future of digital platform monopolies is promising us some serious shake ups. We will see the endgame for non profitable unicorns; supported by investment funds and venture capitalists who aggressively ploughed in money beyond figures we could even read, platforms that haven’t reached profitability despite unspeakable injections of capitals received, will face unforgiving demise. High profile cases will fall in a most probably unavoidable QE crunch, instigated not by intentional choice, by uncontrollable circumstances. When the tide goes out, as W. Buffet famously puts it, you will discover who has been swimming naked. We will also witness a further acceleration of power gaining amongst the top players. Once a platform achieves a semi-monopolistic position securing dominance in a given arena, it is then in the best condition to sprawl its control over adjacent and coherent multiple services that strengthen its appeal with the end-customer. Once a firm controls the distribution channel, virtually any other product or service can be displayed, turning in additional revenue. The ultimate monopoly: as the big Facebook, Google, Amazon, Netflix, Apple and in our world, Booking.com, Airbnb, Trivago etc., keep siphoning in data, expanding their catchment area, adding more and more integrated services to their core business, they haven’t met a friction point amongst them sofar. However, this point will soon be reached and the outcome will be war or else the creation of a soft cartel with not so soft allotments and distribution of realms and pastures. The end game could be the formation of a one monolithic monopoly. A digital Leviathan: all—knowing, all serving all supplying. “In whose hands” is a question that will most likely not be allowed to be asked. We may be able to access this omni-scient and omni-serving entity by a one, simple entry point. Our wearable, the multiple connection to the web in our household or office. We will be recognised, assisted, fed and instructed. The ultimate dream of convenience. Digital platform monopolies and the development of an outer entity, would bear the magical appeal of unsurpassable convenience for the end user. Imagine toying with the idea of a journey, any journey, and having your voice activated “genius in the lamp” coming up with suggestions, information offers. Comparing them for you. Offering hyper personalised content to your tastes, your likes, your past history of purchase. Then following on with all logistics arrangements, no items excluded: flights, point to point transports, accommodation, foods, activities, experiences. Promptly sending you reminders and details on your most convenient reception screen. Of course the same “genius in the lamp” will also look

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after the socialization element of your holiday, creating and distributing content to the vast audience of family and friends. However, we must not be mistaken in thinking that this business model is a benign form of capitalism, invented to fullfill our wildest wish. It most definitely is an economic proposition with laser sharp economic targets.

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Universal Truth ♯ 10 In the past, those who controlled the product controlled the market. Now, those who control the distribution channels control both the product and the market.

References

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References Online Publications: Organisation Site (Chap. 7.1) Fig. 6 Maddison, Angus. Real GDP per capita around the world (PPPadjusted) since 1000 (author Max Roser). https://ourworldindata.org/economic-growth. Fig 7 Our World in Data, World GDP over the last two millennia, World Bank & Maddison. (2017). https://ourworldindata.org/economic-growth. Fig. 8 World Bank. (2017). world development indicators database. https://www.visualcapitalist. com/74-trillion-global-economy-one-chart/. OXFAM. (2019). Five shocking facts about extreme wealth inequality. https://www.oxfam.org/en/ 5-shocking-facts-about-extreme-global-inequality-and-how-even-it.

(Chap. 7.2) UNWTO International Tourism Highlights. (2019). International tourism continues to outpace the global economy. https://www.e-unwto.org/doi/pdf/10.18111/9789284421152. World Travel & Tourism Council, tourism supports 1 in 10 jobs (2017). https://www.wttc.org/ about/media-centre/press-releases/press-releases/2017/tourism-supports-1-in-10-jobsoutpacing-global-economy-for-6th-consecutive-year-wttc/. CHINA Outbound Tourism Research Institute, OTRI, 180 million outbound chinese trips in 2019. https://china-outbound.com/2018/12/19/180-million-chinese-outbound-trips-in-2019/. UNESCO World Heritage Sites list 2019. https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/.

(Chap. 7.3) UK, High Pay Centre. (2019). CREDIT SUISSE, wealth report 7, 2018. https://citywire.co.uk/wealth-manager/news/creditsuisse-wealth-report-7-insights-into-the-uhnw-boom/a1167139. BAIN & Company, luxury report (2018). https://www.bain.com/about/media-center/pressreleases/2018/bain-spring-luxury-report-2018/. Allied Market Research, UK, Report. (2019). https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/press-release/ luxury-travel-market.html.

(Chap. 7.4) STATISTA. (2019). Tripadvisor Statistcs and facts. https://www.statista.com/topics/3443/ tripadvisor/.

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Dissertation: Occasional Paper (Chap. 7.2) LADEST labratorio dati economici, storici, territoriali, A. Romano, C. Capineri , l’airificazione delle citta’, Airbnb e la produzione di ineguaglianza, 2018. https://www.che-fare.com/ airificazione-citta-airbnb-ineguaglianza-studio/.

Books and Chapters (Chap. 7.4) Srnicek, Nick. (2016). Platfrom capitalism, polity

Journals and Articles (Chap. 7.1) Collins, Mike., Forbes. (2015). The pros and cons of globalisation. https://www.forbes.com/sites/ mikecollins/2015/05/06/the-pros-and-cons-of-globalization/#38b6b53accce.

(Chap. 7.3) Fig. 9 Piketty, T., E. Saez, and G. Zucman. (2018). Distributional national accounts: Methgods and estimates for the United States share of total household financial wealth—United States 1962–2014. The Quarterly Journal of Economic, (UC Berkley) 133 (2): 553–609. http:// gabriel-zucman.eu/usdina/. Mogensen, Klaus. (2019). CIFS Copenhagen, Scenario magazine 2019, quoting EPI Economic Policy Institute, historic figures for wages & productivity, Scenario magazine.

(Chap. 7.2) Antonio, Jose., Munez Lopez, Analistas Económicos de Andalucía, survey on Andalucian tourism. (2019). http://www.surinenglish.com/20131220/news/costasol-malaga/tourism-with-manybenefits-201312201037.html, University article.

(Chap. 7.4) Hospitalitynet, Daniel E. Craig. (2019). Why Google’s rating might just be your most important quality metrics. https://www.hospitalitynet.org/opinion/4094027.html.

Chapter 8

De-Globalisation: A Newly Born Megatrend

Abstract The seeds of the next-to-come, still in formation megatrend, De-Globalisation, are mostly to be found in the deep asymmetries and distortions caused by the age of globalization. A quest for a “new order” has started, albeit underneath the iron tight infrastructure (in the economic term) of globalization. The author expects a deep re-assessment of consumer behavior and macro economic model, an overhaul imposed not by our farsighted wisdom, but, rather, by the circumstances themselves. We examine three angles that are likely to gain traction in the next decade of tourism industry: the geographical spreading out of the tourists’ movements, the digital detox and rehab holidays, activism lead tourism.







Keywords De-Globalisation Green Economy Over-tourism and micro tourism Slow tourism Experiential tourism Digital detox Detox holidays Responsible tourism Activism and tourism Tourism futures




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Introduction: The Day Santa Claus was Kidnapped

De-globalisation is the most recent and last megatrend we will examine in this book. Fresh on the scene, like many other debuts it can appear unruly and messy, inelegant and often gross in its manifestations; de-globalisation has, though, profound motivations which lead us to believe, it is here to stay. It will gradually evolve from the disorderly onset of a megatrend in its infancy, to a more cohesive and recognisable structure. However, it will not relinquish its mutinous nature, as this megatrend takes shape from the lacerations and damages left on the ground by the previous era of globalisation. For all its wonders and achievements, globalisation has generated far too many asymmetries, enforcing business models built on the unsustainable exploitation of resources and equally unsustainable cleptocracy of wealth by two stakeholders: multinationals and the top 1% of the population.

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 V. Boschetto Doorly, Megatrends Defining the Future of Tourism, Anticipation Science 6, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48626-6_8

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To dispel doubts straight away: we do not believe that de-globalisation will lay a dark wing over the world, taking away the great advantages of global communications, fast and efficient transports and the opportunity to put to work unused resources thanks to sharing economy platforms. Globalisation will leave us with three main, long lasting legacies: • A global communications network that enables dissemination and cross fertilisation of knowledge, thus promoting infinite innovation (communications infrastructure); • A global transport network that opens access to infinite destinations bringing the sap of cultural, political and economic exchange (transport infrastructure). • A newly achieved self-awareness on the global dimension of our community. Mankind has evolved from caring for just one’s cave, to caring for ones’ village, to contesting for one’s fief and county, to fighting for one’s countries if not empires. In its latest evolution, since WWII, people have been educated to rally around multi-states, supra-national identities and conglomerates. Thanks to global communications and the rise of the climate crisis agenda, we are now being educated to the global scale of our numerous and varied family, totalling 7 billion members. The subliminal awareness of our entirety as a species, is, simply put, unprecedented in history (emotional infrastructure). De-globalisation is conventionally described as a “phase” in the victorious march of global progress and GDP growth, when, following crisis and crashes unmistakably caused by unbridled capitalism, countries recoil into a self-medicating period of inward looking and regrouping. These phases are characterised by: raising of trade barriers; enforcement of regulatory frameworks around banking and financial systems; public initiatives aimed at fostering self-sufficiency and consequent decline in international trade. In politics de-globalisation manifests itself with isolationism and a promise to the electorate to prioritise the domestic agenda over any other theme. Trump’s “America First” will come to everyone’s mind. As a response to a widely perceived impression of chaos and lack of control on a nation’s management and destiny, people react with angry demands for security, reclaim of national control over national issues, push back on foreign national immigration and resurgence of local identities and traditions. By conventional terms, the media label for this is “populism” overlooking the fact that democracies are precisely based on the sentiment and votes of the people. From the worrying resurgence of parties carrying the DNA of the extreme right all across Europe, to social unrest of different matrix, we must not forget that these unwelcome and upsetting upsurge of activism are the direct consequences of brutal mismanagement of the public space by the ruling elites. Was this not the case, we should remind ourselves that people, when well managed, are otherwise happy with panem et circensem, plus booking holidays.

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Despite former historic examples of de-globalisation (post 1929 crisis) the strengthening of the next de-globalisation phase is not solely underpinned by financial crashes (2007 and possibly the next one), but by two arguments that command the attention of the entire global audience. The first, affecting all of the developed world’s middle class: wealth inequality. The second rests a case of “life or death”: climate crisis. Globalisation was built on a production model that allowed multinationals to transplant their operations at ease in order to tap into cheap labour available in poor countries. Besides bringing vast productive areas in the USA and Europe to the brink of collapse, hollowing entire regions of their productive DNA, this global productive model relies on a monstrous network of transports that ship around our planet goods often of negligible or non existent marginal value that justify their transport only because of the immense volumes involved. In this supply-chain model, water sourced in Ireland gets consumed in Central Asia while in the USA they drink water sourced in Italy. In London we buy garlic grown in China and asparagus grown in Peru’; in Madrid, cheap t-shirts manufactured in Pakistan. Large sections of manufacturing system have been dismantled to their very foundation to make room for multinational transplants without questions asked; many countries now would not be able to buy a car or a television unless they were imported. Seen from a sustainability point of view, this shape and format of international trade does not make any sense. Seen from the western labour force point of view, challenged to compete with ever cheaper labour, does not make any sense either. Seen from the future, a desirable one, one that fosters circular economy, production and consumption by proxy and, yes, a great strive for self-sufficiency both in energy production and strategic goods and services production, this shape and format of wild international trade does not make the slightest sense, were it not for the benefit of large corporations’ deep pockets. Under the escalating climate crisis, this point, once a sacred bolster of globalisation, will come under fire. Of course international trade will not be stamped out, but hard questions will be asked such as “do we really want to buy a clove of garlic that could have been cultivated within a kilometre radius and instead has been transported in temperature controlled containers from north of China, having travelled 10,000 miles and now reaches our table with the whopping carbon footprint of …”? The International Transport Forum (ITF) estimates that trade-related freight transport currently accounts for circa 30% of all transport related Co2 emissions and more than 7% of global emissions. In their own words “with globalisation and international production process (…) supply chains have become longer and more complex as logistics networks link more and more economic centres across oceans and continents”.

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Needless to say, the economy of impatience fostered by e-commerce drives “more frequent and smaller freight shipments and, as a result, to less full containers, more empty runs and increased demand for rapid, energy-intensive transport such as air freight. As freight transport—whether by air, land or sea—relies heavily on fossil fuel for propulsion and is still a long way from being able to switch to cleaner energy sources, it is one of the hardest sectors to decarbonise.” (ITF, Global Footprint of Global Trade 2019). The same organisation forecasts that these numbers are projected to (tragically) increase four-fold by 2050, should we not swiftly change our way of conducting business. This knot will come to a crunch, willing or not, clashing with the agenda of necessary climate crisis mitigation measures. It will hook onto the growing awareness of consumers’ carbon footprint; a radical as much as an abrupt change of sentiment and behaviours could be in the cards. The second deep driver of the de-globalisation agenda is the widely observable and observed impoverishment of middle and upper middle classes. After 20– 30 years of roaring globalisation the centre and bulk of our western societies, incidentally the main supporting architrave of democracy and by far the main contributors to countries’ government’s revenues, have been eroded and gnawed to the very core. Despite trumpeted up GDP growth and dazzling technological advancements, not only is the middle class no better off, but in fact, it has lost substantial ground both in relative terms (purchasing power compared to 30 years ago) and in absolute terms (shares of wealth detained as percentage of overall wealth). Social mobility, on which the social contract promise of our society is built, is jammed in its fundamental mechanics and has been for a long time. We are running on a treadmill, only to skid backwards. To rub salt into the wounds, a rampant celebrities culture, inspired by extreme polarisation of wealth is constantly showcased on social media and popular tv programmes. The 1% at the top live in a parallel universe, where billionaires who have amassed personal wealth in excess of $100 billion feel entitled to confute and push back on the introduction of a wealth tax that would impoverish them to a meagre $98billion, displaying a degree of arrogance that beggars belief. In the meantime, life expectancy in the USA is, shockingly, falling for the first time since the early 1960s. Other super wealthy, instead, are coming to the realisation that such inequalities are leading us into a “war zone” as in the words of multi billionaire Ray Dalio. (Billionaire R. Dalio, CNBC interview Nov 2019).

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Warren Buffet was possibly the first one to break the ranks with something that, at the time, resembled a true coming out, when he famously declared, a few years ago, that “a system where I pay less taxes than my secretary can not be right.” Billionaire Ray Dalio, worth $19bn, has published a book where he predicts a very troubled future indeed if we not amend the illusion of trickle down economy. By “trickle down economy” neo-liberal economists refer to an approach to managing monetary and fiscal policies where the riches are favourite and should pay the least possible taxes and receive as much financial support as possible as their wealth will irresistibly generate wealth for everybody else, therefore “trickling down” to enrich all social strata. The trickle down economy paradigm has been disproved by evidence and studies. It simply does not work to redistribute wealth. As we have seen, capital has infinite levers to keep accumulating profits without letting the vast middle class to join in and partake the benefits. Dalio fears a dramatic paradigm shift in the world, where the poor will rise and march to get at the riches. He points the finger against a monetary policy that has flushed the pockets of virtual investors with virtual money leading, in a perfect alignment, to monumental investments in “dreams” and “billboard companies” regardless of their real earnings. This distorted mechanic detracts resources from the real economy, one that has to make the P&L stack up. There is something disquieting when the very beneficiaries of an economic philosophy come out with dire concerns about the very hands that feed them. Yet, hearing multi billionaires issue alarming statements and calling for somebody to stop and amend the system, is kind of reassuring: maybe, they have a well qualified bunch of futurists on their payroll as advisors, something each government should do. The future of a planet now connected from the four corners and at tipping point of resources exploitation can only be built on “smart togetherness”, Dalio again, or succumb. Although I am not sure we mean the same thing and through similar means, we concur that a necessary transformation must be undertaken with collective effort. On Christmas 2019, the famed London department stores Harrods restricted access to the much visited Santa Claus Grotto to the children of families who had spent at least £2000 in the store. As one may well derive, this brash decision spells out a corporate statement: we stand and cater for the very rich. The move can be easily justified by the quality of the named Grotto: studded in Swarovski crystals, something the poor and middle class children would not have had the taste to appreciate.

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Unsurprisingly, the initiative spurred immediate controversy and, to make things worse, the company allowed a raffle to permit other children to visit, though, it limited places to a minuscule minority. In a world where even Santa Claus becomes the prerogative of the top 1% of society, things have gone seriously sour. In futures studies we talk about “seeds of futures” and “weak signals”. How did Santa get kidnapped?

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Universal Truth ♯ 11 It is a law of physics that asymmetries will, sooner or later, instigate the system to seek a new point of equilibrium. The new point of equilibrium tends to be as profoundly different from the previous status, as profoundly deep as the asymmetries were.

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De-Globalisation in Travel and Tourism: The Great Spill Over and the Quiet Charme of the Less Famous

As we have examined in the introduction, de-globalisation takes shape as a reaction to the imbalances and fractures created by globalisation. Many of its first phase expressions will therefore bear the DNA of a reversal of sentiments, desires and behaviours. Similar to a mutiny happening on a vessel sailing east, the mutinied crew will, first of all, make a u-turn and manoeuvre the ship to sail west. We will consider here three likely phenomena that will take place within the Travel and Tourism Industry, phenomena that we will aggregate under three macro-trends umbrella: • The Great Spill-Over: the Age of the less Famous; • Digital Detox and Body Rehab holidays; • Climate Crisis Activism tourism. Starting with the first macro-trend, this will be fostered by the conjunction of two factors: the constant global increase of International Tourists Arrivals that will keep putting enormous pressure on the 1st tier, famous destinations and, secondly, the ever increasing numbers of discerning travellers who have already visited the above mentioned 1st tier, A-List of celebrity destinations and are open to expand their views. These two factors will create a vast shift of attention towards alternatives, any alternative indeed. Take the example of Italy, a country that ranks n. 5 in the global chart of ITA, within its boundaries the 1st tier circuit includes: Venice, Rome, Florence, Milan, Verona, Bologna, Pisa, Turin and Genova; this top group alone captures 84 million bed nights out of 113 million total. That is circa 75% of the total arrivals and their business (CTS rapporto sul turismo italiano 2018). Over-tourism and mass sieges to “celebrity destinations” that feature in the must-see lists of international tourism new adepts, will instigate the research of alternative places to explore by many other holidaymakers, especially the seasoned ones, the discerning and the frequent travellers. This does not mean that the number of visitors to the 1st tier sites will fall. Pressure will keep mounting and will need to be managed, before it’s too late. The growing numbers of ITA, in their upwards trajectory, will keep coming in droves, knocking on the city doors of the same 1st tier destinations. The resulting squeeze will finally reach the ears of the policymakers for them to intervene, hopefully before any long procrastination has caused the hollowing of cities and gutting their identity. The increasing overall movements and the coming on the scene of the travelnative generations, for whom regular and continuous movements are part of their normal lifestyle, will drive a great “spill-over”, spreading visits and exploration gradually everywhere-else that has at least a minimal appeal or feature.

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The time of the 2nd and even 3rd tier destinations, those that would have played up until now minor or irrelevant roles in the map of tourism movements, is coming. Provincial towns, unspoiled clusters of lands, peripheral regions where the atmosphere feels now that of incumbent abandonment, will have the chance, in the next two decades, of a newly found raison d’etre and economic opportunity. Best positioned to tap into this macro-trend will be those towns, areas and regions that have managed to guard their integrity, in environment and culture; areas that have managed to keep their traditions and authenticity alive as this is an element that will next hold a disproportionate clout; regions that are ready to invest in order to capitalise on the new opportunity in the right fashion, empowering the elements of their identity without vilifying or fire selling their assets. The macro-trend of micro-tourism, tourism of minor and secondary destinations, will allow 2nd and 3rd tier destinations to sing their song on a bigger stage and to gain attention for the right reasons. A concerted strategy as an overall destination should be one of the first concern of the local policymakers and private operators jointly. Media attention, from all sources, digital as well as traditional, will not be in shortage. Hungry for new sources of inspiration and motivated to celebrate anything new that happens, the shift of attention will be rapidly picked up and dialled up by the aforementioned media. In an era where everything seemed to have been discovered and everything seems to have been already said, boredom is constantly threatening, ready to ambush the first world clientele and must be defeated at all costs. Micro tourism will target, as a quieter and more thoughtful type of patronage, all areas reachable by domestic-proximity with the use of car and public transport alike. Look around any major city in your country, superimpose a 3 h journey radius north, south, east and west and you will have marked the perimeter of likely movements of micro-tourism in your area. If your region/area/village has something to say, well, the time is coming. Get ready to say it beautifully, professionally and spontaneously. In European countries, the first sign of this macro-trend can be identified in the sudden interest for the “Borghi (It) Burg (Ger) Bourg (Fr) Villages (En) Villa (Sp)”. The “Borghi” trend belongs to the micro-tourism macro-trend as it identifies a specific category that falls under the wing of away-from-the-madding-crowds. With a disputed etymological origin amongst German, Latin and French, by “Burg-Borgo-Bourg” we indicate a hamlet or a village of limited size, often connoted by a tightly knitted community, an identifiable identity through history and a picturesque appearance. A capping of population number at 5000 souls has been established in Italy in order for a village to be formally considered a “Borgo” and be registered in the

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official record (www.borghipiubelliditalia.it). 5637 borghi are listed there, accounting for 70% of the number of all anthropic settlements; with their municipal boundaries they account for 54% of the national territory. These statistics alone should make us reflect upon how strategically important this dimension is for a country that aims at sustainable development models, models that keep well in mind the multifaceted reality of territories, whose mission and focus can not be entirely eclipsed by the mega-cities. Often originating in the Middle age, the Burg-Borgo-Bourg are characterised by the presence of a church, a square, a municipality and are entitled to host weekly markets where the, once plentiful, artisan and farmers would display the locally produced foods and manufactured artefacts. The vast majority of Burg-Borgo-Bourg throughout Europe and elsewhere have been menaced of depopulation and abandonment because of the magnetic pull of cities and megacities on the young and active populations. The conventional and still predominant image of the Burg-Bourg-Village is one of tortuous roads, meandering through mini-maze historic centres, perched on top of a hill, bracing themselves behind fortified walls awaiting the next galloping army to attack with a clash of halberds and shields. A few scattered shops selling essentials, elderly villagers sitting outside the local bistro or attending their orchards; a handful of lively days throughout the years, marked by celebrations or events that call back families originally from the area who emigrated to big cities; many more days sunken in the solitude and oblivion, wind sweeping through the silent stone walls. Slowly but surely, this scenario is changing. The scenic and picturesque scene of our forgotten countryside peripheries will most likely experience a positive turnaround. The forces driving this inversion and prompting the great “spill-over” are multiple. On the quantitative and hard-facts side we have: – pressure of over-tourism on the 1st tier destinations; – increase of overall movements, by travel-native generations, who travel and move on a frequent base; – coming on stage of travel-native generations who have done and seen the must see famous destinations and want to explore further afield beyond the conventional; – the input of policy makers, who, seeking solutions to halt and revert the dramatic depopulation of lands and peripheral villages, have initiated far-sighted policies to reclaim these assets and then flog them on the market at super advantageous prices to lure in new settlers (see the 1€ properties phenomenon across Italy, France, Spain, Greece, Germany etc.) – climate change and intense heat waves instigating senior citizens to part-time living in more sustainable environments away from the megacities (Amenity Migration and Part-time-Living).

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On the qualitative and motivational side, we should point again to a “back to land” silent march that covers the route once walked during the migration from country side to cities, in the opposite direction, from cities to countryside. Active populations, having experienced the thrills as much as the limits of city living, reconsider their stakes and decide to bet on the inverse model: moving back to their origins, bringing with them the newly acquired skills in order to inject new life into once abandoned areas. It’s a newly born phenomenon and, as we mentioned in the climate change chapter, one that has not been studied yet. However, it has ground to strengthen and become relevant, especially if supported by visionary and positive experiments such as that one of the Tuscan Region. The Tuscan region, a powerful and resourceful administrative body in central Italy, in order to protect the iconic countryside from abandonment, is buying back lands from the hands of uninterested heirs (or lack of). It then tenders them out at minimal prices to willing entrepreneurs who wish to settle and invest there. The business owners receive further support with training activities and their start-ups can qualify for a plump round of funding to set up their agricultural business. In parallel, the same Region has established the first “bank of autochthonous seeds”, a real caveau, with controlled temperature and conditions, where precious autochthonous seeds, never contaminated by genetic crossing, are conserved. To keep their genetics alive and fresh, allotments of these seeds are routinely given to selected organic farms in the region to be seeded and cultivated. The consequent new seeds production is acquired to replenish the caveau stocks. The nature of Travel Tourism and Hospitality industry, is such that it requires a concerted team effort from all the stakeholders involved, policymakers, local municipalities, accommodation providers and retailers, transport and amenity managements, agri-food and artisanal sectors all concurring to creating a full experience, rich in stimuli and enriching in value for the guest, an industry that is so inherently based on cooperation that possibly no other sector can rival it in its all-embracing nature. This nature and defining trait comes to light in a clear cut manner when dealing with situations that call for explicit, intentional intervention. Such is the case of the spill-over phase of tourism, and the opportunity to instigate a rebirth of countryside that, if well managed, it could seep new life to vast areas of our countries. Such rebirth that can only stem from a well thought out, conducive, multi partner strategy. In 2017 the Italian government announced the “year of Borghi”, a smart move, especially because it underpinned a marketing plan to concoct a new product line aggregating this reality within a concept and a brand, away from the well known 1st tier destinations. The plan was framed by the creation of an official list of “Borghi”, to which, thanks to a collaboration with the Touring Club Italia, an orange flag marking quality was assigned. 227 “Borghi” are recognised for beauty, heritage, quality of management and maintenance. The launch of a national competition to nominate

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the winning locality once a year, supported by a well engineered and informative national TV program is receiving great attention from the public. In 2018 the Borghi received 22.8 million arrivals and 95.8 million bed-nights, 57% of which is estimated to come from foreign visitors. These seem to be the early adopters of the alternative offer, having increased their presence within this circuit by 31% in between 2010 and 2018 (CTS Rapporto Turismo Italia 2018). The fruit is ripening fast and needs its digital alter-ego to promote its newly born concept and draw the visitors attention and bookings. The super active and proactive behemoth of digital platforms, Airbnb, is already on the case. The company leapt without hesitation at the opportunity of bagging another concept, another product to market globally. Promptly branded “Airbnb, Italian Villages”, the new collection of mini-trophy-destinations was created, wrapped up and showcased on the global virtual market of destinations. Hundreds of unique mini-towns, micro-worlds invented and stitched together in the most unusual and eccentric spots, suddenly featured under Brian Chemsky’s tentacular company. Invented in Italy, built in Italy, embellished, nourished, fought for in Italy: sold by Californian Inc. The promptness of the Leviathan of digital was such that it has even forerun the self-awareness of the products themselves, not yet fully cognisant of being a “new concept” and already pouched, labelled and flogged on the market. We should seriously reflect upon this vaguely disquieting, fact. How is it possible that a global aspiring-monopolistic digital platform, controlling the vast majority of the private rentals market, was on the “new concept” before the very products making up the concept had themselves realised their appeal? Why do European born destinations and sites, bred and stratified through millennia of history and heritage, let digital platforms that have risen to a disproportionate level of global market control, skim the cream of promoting them internationally? Why can’t the products unite and jointly communicate themselves digitally, via nationally owned OTAs platforms? Otherwise the result of thousands of year old art and culture will end up enriching Silicon Valley companies through transactions commissions. It is an open question, and an ideological one, for the “European way” of going about business, consumers and societies. From a futurist’s standpoint, we can pose

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the challenge of questioning the monopolistic structure we have witnessed arising from the hyper-globalisation phase, and demand that Europe starts organising its own digital showcase windows. The conquest of the space in digital marketing is built fast, given that, once the “vessel” is hatched, it is the self-populating effort of the destinations and the hosts that fill out the empty vessel, propelling it, within a blink, to global relevance. Et voila’ a new concept of tourism is born. As Margethe Vestager puts it: “markets, when left to themselves, slip into being a sort of private property of big businesses and cartels” (TED Talk New York 2017). Tourism would welcome a European third way to reclaim control over our own digital marketing, even through a new law frame designed to break these monopolies and promote nationally owned digital marketing platforms. The 2nd and 3rd tier destinations will gain traction and, with their very happening, mark the beginning of one of many counter-trends. It may not be one that will galvanise the stock markets nor one that is heralded by the word “disruption”. On the contrary, it is one that speaks about balance; about engagement with locals; about re-birth of local communities. It’s the captivation of the small, sometimes tiny. It’s the soothing pleasure of less choice, but more highly curated. It’s the refreshing feeling of human-sized thrills. It’s de-globalisation.

8.3

Digital Detox and the Forgotten Body

The human body has evolved through 2.8 million years of environmental challenges and genetic crossbreeding in order to achieve an ever fitter conformation and make the most of planet earth and its natural habitat. We are built to move, run and hunt; to bend and to climb, to stretch and to sprint. Our core body temperature is kept constant through remarkable degree of external temperature excursions thanks to a sophisticated thermostat system located in the hypothalamus. We still prepare for winter growing fuller hair and we dilate blood vessels and activate sweat glands in a finely tuned balancing act that keeps the delicate internal organs perfectly intact in extreme heat. Our five senses guide us to smell rain coming, detect different biodiversity around, hear noise and danger approaching from the distance, loading the adrenaline shot to prepare for the fight. Our hand skeleton structure includes 27 bones to equip us with the ultimate versatility and flexibility of movement. To harvest, gather, cut, pull, grip, make infinite gestures. Our eyes have specialised magnificently, through no less that 120 million photoreceptor cells rods and 6 million photoreceptors cones located in the retina, to capture sunlight and convert it into signals that activate a mindboggling sequence of biological reactions.

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When light strikes the retina, signals are sent to the brain to initiate a formidable cascade of reactions involving all the major systems in the body, circulatory, neurological, endocrine. Exposure to sunlight regulates our circadian cycle, a fascinating internal clock that sets the pace for a vast number of bodily tasks to take place across the day and the night. We function thanks to an extremely complex and intricate machine that scientists are still investigating in all its aspects, only to lead to more astounding discoveries. Incidentally, all the above investigations are carried out with the most noble of our organs, the one in command. The black box that also originated the famed technologies that have now surpassed their creator and at which the same self marvels, taken aback by their mechanistic perfection. At the very top of the echelon, a final and so far irremediably elusive dimension, one that lays at the very core of our existence and remains steadily at large, the ultimate mystery of our species, that of consciousness; the element that no Artificial Intelligence can emulate or replace. Little did we know, when we set off to evolve our wondrous bodily apparatus, that million of years of evolutionary history coagulated in our strength, skills and adaptability, instinct and ratio, all this advanced equipment will be made redundant within a handful of years since technological revolution and mass urbanisation? All our brainpower will look obsolete and faulty, outclassed by the victorious march of Artificial Intelligence. Our 650 muscles shrivelling and declining, confined within the artificial space of urban landscape, kept alive by a newly devised legion of invented activities that serve no other purpose than, indeed, reminding the bodily apparatus to stay alive. By 2050, 70% of the global population will be living in urban context, cities and megacities that make up the engine room of an estimated 80% of the global GDP. Undoubtedly, the urban contexts will become increasingly smarter: sensors fitted in buildings will track power usage automatically cutting energy consumption; driverless cars and transports will coordinate their movements and allocate vehicles accordingly to predictive movements. Roof top farming will gain traction, possibly become common place, Paris is currently creating the biggest urban farming in the world (Paris Expo Porte de Versailles); London has targeted the city’s underground to put to use WWI extensive tunnels and shelters to set up urban farming totally invulnerable to climate and its fluctuations; Wearables and body sensors will constantly relay back our vital parameters, including personal response to stimuli and excitement levels, to let us know how we perform and how we feel, in case we were unsure. Loneliness will be medicated by a new generation of on line virtual connections, bridging distances and blurring the boundaries between physical and virtual reality. Hopefully breakthrough innovations will abate pollution with air cleaning technologies and for sure, plastics will be a thing of the past.

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Nonetheless, for all these wonders, we will be dealing with a million year old evolved body that is plonked in a completely unsuitable environment for its shape and features. All the tasks it was prepared to perform, useless. Our arms won’t be moving but light weight technologies and our eye retina will engage with varying forms of visual stimuli, none of which involves a wild field covered in biodiversity with bees buzzing and whizzing around. We are entering a transitional phase where the mismatch between our body and brain features and the external artificial environment will cause a wide discrepancy posing a challenge that will manifest itself in may ways. At mental health level, we should ask scientists and ourselves a few questions before we uncritically consign our cognitive capability to intensive use of technologies. The first spate of neuroscience studies indicate that the constant use of GPS powered orienteering applications, flawlessly guiding us to any destination point, is denting our innate orienteering sense, that, like all senses, needs to be trained to be kept functioning. Even more so, we should question the impact of immersive technologies and social media pressure on the development of self-identity on the young ones. Prof. J. M. Twenge’s (San Diego University), twenty years of hard fact collection and extensive analysis on the impact on the brain functions of extensive use of digital connectivity and compulsive use of smartphone, depicts an alarming picture. An American teenager checks his phone an average of 80 times a day, spending an average of 2.15 h exchanging messages, 30 min on video chat, and 2 h surfing internet, for a total of 6 h a day engaged in virtual activities. In parallel, all the physical activities are axed: study, sports, parish, meeting in reality, having a boyfriend or girlfriend, attending parties or any form of real life social activities (Twenge, IGen 2017). In opposing symmetry, the statistics show a direct correlation (directly proportional) between the hours spent on virtual activity, and the spike in depression, feeling of loneliness, and incidence of suicide amongst young adults. The technological revolution we have set off proceeds at a tumultuous pace, a world apart from the geologically slow pace of human evolution. Face to face with our mechanical creations, we risk looking like Neanderthal in front of Sapiens, the paradox here being, it was the Neanderthal who created the Sapiens. The dazzling world we have fabricated risks tampering our mind-body balance of health and stability. That’s not to even mention the impact of ubiquitous EMF pollution on our neurological and endocrine system, a topic that has yet to detonate the public’s attention. A branch of futurists around the globe, but mainly in the United States, are promoting the old strategy of “if you can’t beat it, join it”, in its most literal terms.

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They suggest that the way out of this impasse, would be that to lace our neurological system with technologies and software that can enhance its performance, conferring at least a segment of the AI operating power to the human brain. The man-machine hybridisation is advocated by a group of technology evangelists called “Trans Humanists” and neural lacing is their main avenue of research. They are more numerous than one may think and more powerful that one may suspect. Their view point holds that mankind has always embraced innovation adopting any device that would improve its performance. I beg to differ: between engineering machines and devices that support our work and overall community progress and systems that one by one, deplete our cognitive abilities inviting us to surrender overall control, there is quite a difference. We should pause and reflect. Averting the risk of getting derailed in a debate that would lead us far, and is anyhow well worth holding publicly and extensively, we want here, to simply point out how the interplay digitisation- and urbanisation is challenging our very delicate well-being balance. No doubt a cornucopia of man-made solutions will colonise our cities, In fact, I wonder why nobody has yet thought, for example, about a sunlight-mimicking light fitted urban café’, where patrons can top up on precious VitD3 in a 10 min break. However, TT&H is already equipped to run to the rescue of our poor Homo Sapiens body, fitted in a cyber Borg exoskeleton. Travel Tourism and Hospitality sector will up the game within full the perimeter of “wellbeing” concept; this to include any and all segments of spend, any and all type of destinations. A first trajectory of development will be found in the “Digital Detox” concepts. As the intensive use of technologies and connectivity turns into an addiction pandemic, where the neuroplasticity of the brain becomes dependent on the dopamine release we get every time we connect and receive a new message or stimuli, the demand for a holidays format that intentionally aims to break this new form of tech-burnout will escalate. We refer to hotels to be equipped with EMF insulated bedrooms, (can be done with specifically manufactured wallpaper); function of switching off wi-fi systems at night time or whenever you like (Villa Stephanie, Baden Baden, Germany). Detox package where smartphones and technologies are surrendered at reception at the beginning of the stay and retrieved at the end; in the meantime the guest receives a tree-planting kit and a humble board game (Westin Hotel Dublin). Digital detox boot camps for young ones are starting to appear across the United States. They range from campsites for students that prohibit mobile phones access; no wi-fi is available and the effort is all around offering communal activities to help young ones reconnect with one another in real physical reality. Courses vary from foraging herbs to archery, kayaking and campfires. Digital Detox retreats (digitaldetox.org) allow you to “disconnect to reconnect”, and they replace the “always on” occupation with activities such as writing, movement, yoga, analogue art and mindfulness. This network explicitly prohibits “professional networking, work talk, clocks and FOMO” (fear of missing out).

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Silent retreats also feature in the selection of options; an ancient practice to restore grounding and self-balance. Left alone with your inner self, is an equivalent of fasting for the body, a fasting for the mind that allows the clock to be reset on a clean slate. Often coupled with Yoga, the first sizable group of propositions are emerging in Europe as well as Asia and USA. From three days up to two weeks, budget or luxury, you can keep quiet for a few hours a day or the full time. Digital Detox concept can be spelled out and implemented at various different levels. From the flexible and non capital intensive arrangements to diminish the impact of EMF pollution on guests; to holidays formats that aim at a full immersion in nature and conviviality; gently but firmly setting up boundaries not to be breached by technologies. Within this arena, we find the extreme concept of “Fake Prisons” a niche trend in South Korea. Fake Prisons are establishments effectively run like prisons, where burned out managers, professionals or students, book themselves in. On checking in, their clothes, personal belongings and of course any device that would connect them to the web, are relinquished. For one or two weeks, they are treated like in-mates, with a lot of silence, broken by outdoor activities. Thousands of willing and paying customers booked themselves into the fake prisons last year, giving substance to what can be considered a perfect example of a Zeitgeist trend. The rediscovery of void-time can be a trauma at the beginning: fumbling around in the dark, without all those lovely distractions to deliver constant shots of elsewhere-ness. Simply there, in that space, in that precise moment; the rediscovery of boredom, in all its destabilising power, majestic in its opening a brand new, immense space where our imagination can finally come alive. And, once launched into a ride on the prairie of nothing, having animated it with infinite figments and figures of imagination, reconnected with the now and the me, a full return back to grounded, content, me. A second trajectory of concepts can be identified along the lines of reawakening the senses and body rehab. The forgotten body and the withering senses pledge to be exposed to stimuli and environments for which they were actually designed. Year by year, the forgotten body forgets, what the purpose of its limbs and its five senses was. The forgotten body will need to re-learn the basics. This trajectory configures a huge repertoire of choices encompassing the most varied array of approaches and propositions. Many resorts and retreats are on a march to rediscover and propose to guests all possible versions of activities involving hand making of things and participations to real life operations. Inspired by local traditions, the guests will be offered to engage in baskets making or candles making; from participation into harvests to oil pressing; from herb foraging to wood carving. The forgotten forelimbs awaken to mobilise their delicate and powerful structure to produce something actually tangible, an action that seems to have an immense positive effect on our mood. Food tasting and cookery classes are hardly worth mentioning, an immense landscape of discoveries and pleasures of which we are only scratching the surface. For all the multiplication of food TV programs, celebrity chefs and cookery books gifted to friends and relatives, food preparation seems to be an art in decline,

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especially in the Anglophone belt, where the superior pressure of convenience food distribution has granularly penetrated the scene. Food is a powerful bridge, that not only gives great sensorial pleasure to the body, but reconnects us with our land, our origins through its tastes and formulas. A real biochemical alchemy that can not be underestimated. Food scouting and food preparation was, until fifty years ago, a crucially important skill lack of which would jeopardise survival. We have now lost any recollection of the hardship of procuring food. Kids living in urban context wouldn’t be able to recognise the taste of honey, would have no idea how milk is obtained nor what a tomato plant looks like. Food preparation, in its natural context, is a favourite of most southern Europe experiential holiday concepts. Sun kissed landscape, balmy nights and the smell of freshly tilled soil delight the millions of guests, who pack their bags with a doubt buzzing in their heads: is this how were meant to be living? We thought that nature was dangerous and city living would protect us from the vagaries of climate. However, we are abdicating part of our humanity to the altar of efficiency and productivity for the convenience and the thrill of neon lights; productivity for whom and for what? Yes, rural living is tough and the romantic aura would be easily dispelled by cold winter nights and prolonged silences. However, there is a growing sense that a more virtuous model of living existed in the past. Proof is in the number of slick urbanites who flock to rural retreats looking for an answer. The format of urban living, pressurised by work and the always-on syndrome, can steel away even more precious elements of people’s wellbeing. Besides losing the ability to use the hands to do stuff, many lose their ability to fall asleep. Sleep deprivation seems to be provoking a modern blight brought about by blue lights and screen exposure. In the United States, it is reported that 1/3 of the population now sleeps less than the minimum recommended 7 h a night. The 7 h rule has been defined on the basis of over 5000 scientific studies. Sleep deprivation is associated with increased risks of ailments and severe pathologies, leading to shorter lifespan. Sleep deprivation also impairs emotional intelligence, as it appears that sleep deprived people overemphasize negative emotions and risk misinterpreting facial expression (Belenky et al. 2003). So we now need to re-learn to sleep, crucially to reset the circadian cycle activated and controlled by exposure to sunlight, physical movement, beneficial bodily exertion. TT&H industry are on the case, the company “Sleep with Six Senses” has recently introduced a program designed with sleep experts to re-condition enrolling guests and re-appease them with healthy sleeping patterns. The Sleep-Holiday program is available at multiple locations (Portugal, Cambodia, Vietnam, Switzerland amongst others); in their formats, daily activities are coupled with deep relaxation yoga, followed by the inescapable massages, optimal bedding and, regrettably, sleep tracking devices. The firm “California Dreaming” sets instead a minimum of 6 nights stay to up to four weeks stay in their 16 rustic cottages in the Santa Monica Mountains. Days

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begin at the crack of dawn, when guests are immediately hurled outdoor with a 4 to 5 h hike in the wilderness. You can see how this incredibly banal, basic action, automatically creates the perfectly natural pre-conditions for the guest to be looking forward to an early and restorative sleep: get physically tired! Afternoon includes relaxation, chat by the pool. The days draw to a close with organic light dinners and cooking lessons. No TV set, and elusive cell phone reception. As the once natural and normal act of sleeping needs to be re learned by many, so does the once normal ability to laugh. Unsurprisingly, the diminished real-life exchange, real life socialisation and the overall tendency to manage relationships remotely, the spontaneous get together and have a laugh with friends, can easily become a hard to get thing. The evanescent and volatile life of cities where one has displaced oneself, puts us in contact with many people, but not with those we are really familiar and friendly with. The ability to laugh, and the possibility of reaping all the surprising benefits with it associated, is the next in line spontaneous act now needing an intentionally re-engineered rehab intervention. It’s a laughing-yoga holiday that comes to the rescue. Laughing yoga trained doctors, hold sessions where they lead participants into unlocking the inner child, let themselves go, stripping away the iron vest of awareness that work and professional persona lay on all of us. Appropriately presented as “exhilarating” these retreats offer “laughter therapy” mingled with meditation, hikes and wellness. The Healthcare holiday portal (thehealthcareholiday.com) offers laughter yoga retreats in Bali. By practicing this type of yoga (Hasya Yoga), participants enjoy the benefits of laughing even if it is not spontaneous. Apparently voluntarily induced (fake laughter) works equally well to trigger the endorphins response of the body. Fake it if you can’t make it. But one does not need to go as far as Bali to learn to laugh. Another laughter guru who held sessions in Ireland, uses Gibberish (invented language) to provoke the participants who have to respond in the same nonsense language and make fun of themselves. It does sound childish, and in fact, it is. That is the whole purpose of it: reawakening the spontaneity that our micro managed lives seem to be losing at every step. Now that we have re-learned to use the hands, the palate and the legs; we have found the pathways to a normal sleeping patterns and we have reacquainted ourselves with the sound of laughter, we need to address the most awkward of all: social skills. Breaking into spontaneous conversations; getting to meet and gain insights into people; hold a straight look; using real facial expressions to engage and knit the

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dialogue. Bear the simple physical presence of another human being beside us, without being embarrassed by the tangibility of this presence. Not behind a screen, not behind a message; here, in body, flesh, with a corporeal energetic aura and all those imperceptible and yet paramount micro signals that we are innately geared to produce: much more difficult and ambivalent to interpret than emojis. The experience of a close physical presence can be embarrassing and uncomfortable for generations grown up behind screens and used to unfolding virtual friendships. So it’s now time to relearn to be with our fellow mates, shake hands, smile, break into small talk, introduce each other, discuss a topic. Within the Norn facilities (Norn.co) a Millennial members’ club that offers co-hosing locations in London, Berlin, Barcelona and San Francisco, with 50 more locations on the cards, housemates are invited to attend in person, meticulously arranged philosophical debates. Under the coordination of the founder, Travis Hollingsworth, Norn are experimenting with 30 different formats of engagement, with the common purpose of promoting real life, physical encounters amongst the guests. The start-up taps into the emerging craving for community of Millennials forced to relocate through cities and countries to accommodate work opportunities and employers’ requests. Relocating constantly, this newly formed transient crowd risks losing any anchor and sense of belonging, renouncing to make real life friends. Human beings are a gregarious species. Surrogate and remote forms of socialisation trick us into believing we are sorted, but that is far from the truth. A famous and poignant experiment where a primate chimpanzee and puppy was given all of the comforts and food required but could not be touched by the mother, tragically died within weeks. We are not that far from those primates, even if we have invented Artificial Intelligence. The last trajectory of digital detox and bodily rehab we are going to mention is a niche one, in embryonic state, and yet an exquisite mini-example of Zeitgeist manifestation. It alludes to the juxtaposition between on-line travelling and on-life travelling. In its conception, on-life travelling is a way of travelling that rejects and renounces to all or most internet found information, suggestions, directions and appraisals. In the on-life travelling, one does not use GPS to get to places: the traveller uses instinct and orienteering sense; at most, asks for directions. He does not use social media platforms to receive recommendations on where to stop to eat. Instead, he goes by instinct and does not necessarily aim for the most appealing one. In fact, in a celebration of ordinary and mainstream, the traveller quietly and non-judgmentally receives and consumes the food served. No social media reviews are to be issued, this practice is considered a narcissistic and presumptuous exercise that insults the hard work of the establishments and their staff. Such an exercise of continence and consideration could not come but from the very considerate ancient civilization of the Far East, Japan.

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The on-life travelling has currently found its hero in the Japanese character Goro Inogashira in Koduku no Gurume (Solitary Gourmet), a now popular manga comic where the solitary traveller moves around unremarkable urban landscape to consume unremarkable food that suits unpretentious clients. The comic strip revolves around food, consumed in utter solitude but not solitarily, as the protagonist tunes into the conversations around him. Goro Inogashira explores cities on foot, does not own a smartphone and selects his next eatery by instinct, something, he claims, that can only be trained by using it without artificial aids. In his trial and errors saga, the manga celebrates the virtue of modesty, thankfulness, and simple enjoyment of the ordinary. Something we should all gracefully learn. Similar to this mini-trend, that one of meandering, the option of leaving from a departure point without knowing where the traveller will end. Rambling about and letting circumstances and instinct lead, the only rule being that of letting events take the lead, deciding on the moment, absorbing reality around without bias. The Digital Detox and Body Rehab can be considered, as a whole, a macro-trend, comprising multiple trends. This macro-trend refers to an area of reaction to globalisation, innovations, re-locations, urbanisations all of which, conjure up to imposing on our human ecosystem an unbearable pressure. The mind is stretched to the limit as it receives and processes extreme amounts of information, leading to congestion, fatigue, burnout. GTD Get Things Done, often feels a strife. On the other extreme, the body is left unused, abandoned, forgotten. Digital Detox & Body Rehab, in all its forms and fashions, aims at flushing out the mind while springing the body into action. The Travel Tourism & Hospitality industry has a new playfield to occupy, one that intertwines and merges tourism with rehab, in formulas where basic skills are re-learned, and the guest reconnects with his human nature, inherently slow, complex, and a bit mystical. Within this macro trend, all the trends defined by activities, experiences, wellbeing retreats, reconnection with nature, with people and with one self merge together under one roof. So we have come full circle. 2000 years onwards, then 2000 years backwards: to the magisterial teaching of the Roman Empire, which invented the concept of “SPA”, Salus per Aquam, meaning “health by water”, and that colonised no land without building arenas and theatres for entertainment, sports facilities for physical training and thermal baths for deep wellbeing. Two thousand years on, we will be forced to re-discover what was already well known: Mens Sana in Corpore sano: a healthy mind is in a healthy body.

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The Age of Opinions: Responsible Tourism, Activism and Boycott Tourism De-globalisation is fostering a new era marked, amongst others, by a resurgent wide-spread activism. After decades of unobstructed execution of the globalisation agenda, a convergence of factors brought communities to a new nexus of awareness, dissent and ultimately, reaction. Economist and Nobel Prize J. Stiglitz calls this “the rebirth of History”.

Everywhere we are witnessing public opinions re-surfacing after a long absence, coagulating in multiple and often opposing political sentiments: right, far right, isolationist, sovereignist, populist, nationalist, left, far left, staunch integrationist, feminist, civil rights and climate change led activism. From the Hong-Kong’s protests, to the French Gilets Jaunes, marching each Saturday for over a year and reaching a peak of 280,000 protesters on the streets at any one time; to Extinction Rebellion global environmental movement active in New York and Australia, UK and all of Europe, promoting civil disobedience and counting up to now 1000 militants arrested. The “Sardines” movement in Italy, instead, are opposing the emerging consensus of the far right. There, the initiative of four people was able to mobilise 10,000 people in one day to mark their opposition to the far right rally that had been organised in the same town; to separatists movements in Catalonia that have mobilised up to one million people on the streets at one given movement, to the UK departing the EU on a quest to regain “control” over its affairs. People are shaking up the comfortable cloak of bystanders’ inertia that had defined the previous age; even Millennials’ legendary apathy seems to be crumbling. We are entering a new age of opinions, not just expressed, but put into action. Three pre-conditions are enabling this upsurge of militancy. The first of these, what we have called the “Global Emotional Infrastructure” legacy of globalisation, has conferred to vast strata of populations an unprecedented awareness of the worldwide dimension of the community we all belong to. This awareness, once acquired, will not go away and will work as an ingrained knowledge that lots of issues are now global and can only be addressed with global common sense.

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Secondly, two full generations of internet natives have been trained by a decade long use of social media to make their voice heard. They are fully cognisant of their influencing power and fully competent in the use of the whole digital device. Thirdly, the imbalances and damages caused by globalisation, when governments relinquished their control and regulating power in favour of the hegemony of unbridled free markets, have left a large portion of the population with a bitter sense of mistrust in governments and authorities in general; the next instinctive step being to take matters in ones’ own hands. The rise of all themes ethical, concerning civil rights as well as animal welfare, political correctness and morality may have started as an easy sell to a very well sated and relaxed society, where parents support siblings until age 30 and where the right colour Bluetooth ear cuffs can be ordered on Amazon Prime. Nonetheless, a number of factors are conjuring up urging people to substantiate the values and objectives they assert with concrete actions. Concrete actions will need to be taken to avert climate catastrophe, and this will represent a true paradigm shift in our society. Responsible travel, ethical travel, sustainable travel are growing themes from the demand side, where one the longest standing and most credible operator Responsible Travel (responsibletravel.com) is showing a spike in growth on business turnover of 27% in one year, 2018, as well as from the supply chain. With demand for all things ethical in clear growth, Tour Operators, Travel and Transports companies, Hospitality and destination management companies, will now frantically multiply their stance and oath taking in favour of neutral carbon emission projects and rowing towards forms of variegated “responsibility” and “sustainability”. We can expect in the next 3 to 5 years to see and hear a cacophony of “me too” in this space. There is a deep brand-alignment, if the definition can be legitimate, between de-globalisation and the emergence of a robust, global long life cycle trend of activism, an alignment that captures the very zeitgeist of this megatrend. The nature and essence of a post-scarcity society, that could deliver well-being for all and access to most opportunities though universal income, a society where products are manufactured through automation and people aren’t required to work to justify their existence (Mogensen, Scenario 15 2019). The evolved and progressed society spurs the consequent growth of increased sensitivity to all things ethical, where a strongly empowered consumer can direct his/her purchases ethically. But even more crucially, the now emerging dimension of a flat, global, not by accident leaderless and boundaries-less social media connected community now counts billion of individuals. This global, virtual community craves to take shape around theme-led communities, niche communities, cause led communities. It strives to give its alliance and loyalty not to brands any longer, but to a common cause, a roof that is then incorporated in one’s personal ID profiling guaranteeing a sense of belonging to like-minded people.

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This newly formed VI° power, one of digitally connected populations, now supersedes the famously identified V° power, that one of the mass media, epitomised by the Sidney Lumet film of 1976. The globally connected population has theoretically the power of rallying and mobilising millions of people just by initiating a digital thread. The speed at which such mobilisation can happen and the scale and number of people that it can involve is an absolute novelty in history. Such power is only just coming to self-awareness and, in due time, will learn to use its influence. In the muffled age of globalisation, tests on the “viral” force of the web were profusely carried out on commercial ads, celebrity videos, and infinite kittens jumping from the top of closets. But these generations are entering a much more mature stage, and with maturity, different agendas typically kick in. All the ingredients are in place for a new age of opinions and actions: preconditions, actors, motives, means, purpose. These opinions will find their way to expression also in the tourism realm, with countries, destinations and even single facilities scrutinised through the lenses of acceptable standards of morality, responsibility and sustainability.

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When it comes to tourism and activism, we can identify three degrees in the scale of intensity, actions and consequences: 1. general ethical attitude towards the major themes typically informing the ethical awareness sphere: human rights violations (children exploitation, women rights, LGBT rights), animal welfare concerns, environmental pollution concerns, terrorism support concerns, political concerns such as totalitarian regimes and breach of democracy. The ethical consumer, alert and sensitive to all the aforementioned topics, travels using the journey experience to gain insights into diverse realities whilst at the same time, spreading awareness at micro level in his/her encounters with the local communities. Questioning, for example, the local guide in Morocco, on why he is saving money to buy a second wife; or preferring the aluminium flask to carry around water instead of the disposable plastic bottle. He will avoid visiting an attraction where bears are caged and showcased like toys and he/she will make an effort to stay in accommodation owned by local families instead of large corporations and to buy local arts and crafts instead of diving into the shopping mall. 2. We can establish a second tier of activism that falls within a more pronounced hostility. In this second instance, travellers deliberately avoid travelling to a certain destination on the escort of well weighed political or non political resentment for that particular country. A nation state that openly dislikes and even persecutes homosexual orientation will no doubt loose the majority of the LGBT travelling community. Political hostility between two countries can also automatically trigger a degree of drop in International Tourist Arrivals from the two countries, in a reciprocal showdown of resentment. 3. At a third level, we can identify the deliberate and organised “call to boycott” the tourist visitations of a specific country. In this case, we would have recognised official organisations the likes of NGOs, active in the specific area that are under criticism (environment, human rights etc.) to call for the market to boycott visits to the offending country. The tour operating industry could also effectively initiate such boycott actions, however this is unlikely to happen, as obviously it is not in the interests of the operators to curtail their own business and nullify the investments done in developing tours in the specific country. We are aware of only one deliberate boycott initiative, directed toward the Myanmar (Burma) state, a ban that lasted over ten years, based on the fact that all hospitality and tourism facilities of the country were in the hands of the totalitarian regime.

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Tourism, as a global industry, controls 10% of the global GDP, hence it holds an immense influencing potential on how state matters are dealt with. This power has not yet become apparent to the moving mass of international tourists who don’t necessarily have self-awareness as a whole consumers body. It is likely, though, that this awareness will grow and a debate will arise revolving around what is the most likely strategy to impose pressure on a target country to enact fair change. With the growing numbers of responsible tourists, the arguments are currently divided between those opposing the boycott route and those embracing the hard line. On the one hand, if we were to extrapolate and scrutinise each country’s mishaps, cruelties and shortcomings, there would be few of them left to visit. Japan slaughters whales, China boils dogs, UK hunts foxes. Half of the Far East countries are rife with sweat shop labour; in many parts of Africa underage girls are sold off by their own families to get married, Spaniards insists in bullfighting practices and so on so forth. On the other hand boycotting destinations ends up hurting the poor and working part of the population most dependants on tourist arrivals to earn their livelihood. The alternative argument is more generically pitched on the logic that the core proposition of tourism is about promoting cultural exchange and reciprocal knowledge, hence helping through international cross exchange to emancipate the less advanced countries. On the hard liner side, conversely, one solid argument stands out: the sheer power of numbers. The financial losses that a successful and widespread boycott could deliver, damaging the GDP of the target country is hard to doubt. A compelling enough cause, involving an entire governments’ harmful behaviour, could mobilise global crowds and justify a blanket boycott of visits to a country. The call to boycott comes with an immediate damage of the target country’s international reputation, tarnishing the standing of the government within the multinational community. Diplomacy would automatically be under pressure to use its levers and manage the reputation crisis. The age of activism will most likely involve the Travel and Tourism industry as a lever of first choice to make global opinions heard and to impose change on political agendas. A recent and well documented study conducted for the Annals of Tourism Research (1) has found that 146 boycotts happened in the tourism industry in between 1948 to 2015: crucially, more than 90% of them took place in between 2003 and 2015, an unequivocal sign of increasing people’s propensity to mobilisation and militancy. Quionley et al. (2018).

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In the seven case studies examined in detail, the boycotting actions were perpetrated by Chinese tourists deliberately withholding visits to the specific target countries, namely Japan, Philippines, Maldives, Malaysia, Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan. Elaborating a sophisticated logarithm with projections of seasonality adjusted, focusing on each origin of arrivals, the study was able to gauge the weight of the exogenous shock of the boycott. The drop in Chinese visitors’ arrivals to the target countries had been visible and nearly immediate, with a specific spike of impact when the boycott was animated by “political animosity”. In that case, the drop in visits was down a whopping 63.6% in the following 12 months (Quionley et al. 2018). If tourism really is what is says it is, a vehicle of reciprocal knowledge, bias eroding and champion of cultural exchange, we must be close to the cusp of a wide spread realisation of its numerical force, directly impacting on the country’s P&L as well as on their international reputation. Yes, ghastly living conditions, inequality, persecutions of ethnic minorities, totalitarian regimes checking green shoots of democracy, environmental misuses and plain brutality of all nature, have always been, despicably, with us. The issue is that, today everything can be unveiled, documented and communicated globally in a fraction of a second. The web and all the digital bells and whistles that have come with it, may soar to a powerful, global tool capable of exerting direct and targeted pressure to promote responsible and respectful co-existing, on a global scale. Tourism, with its newly found technological means, can truly become an instrument of change. Imagine a future where the boycott on tourism visits welds with consumers’ boycotting products manufactured in the same country. That would exert a pressure truly difficult to ignore.

References Online Publications: Organisation Site (Chap. 8.1) ITF. (2019). Global Footprint of Global Trade. https://www.itf-oecd.org/sites/default/files/docs/ cop-pdf-06.pdf.

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(Chap. 8.2) CTS. (2018). Rapporto sul turismo Italiano. https://www.iriss.cnr.it/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/ Estratto-XXII-Rapporto-sul-Turismo-Italiano-edizione-17-18.pdf.

(Chap. 8.4) Quionley Yu, Richard McManus, Dorothy A. Yen, Xyang Li (2018).

Books and Chapters Book, Authored (Chap. 8.3) Twenge, J. M. (2017). IGen, Atria books. Belenky, G., et al. (2003). Patterns of performance degradation and restoration during sleep restriction and subsequent recovery: A sleep dose-response study. Journal of Sleep Research, 12 (1): 1–12.

Journals and Articles: Journal (Chap. 8.4) Mogensen, K. (2019). Scenario 15.

Online Journals (Chap.) Conference and Talks (Chap. 8.2) Vestager, M. (2017). TED Talk New York.

Chapter 9

Conclusions and Envisioning Exercise

Abstract In this concluding chapter, the five megatrends are arranged in chronological order according to their respective lifecycle. In the envisioning exercise, we imagine a journey experience sometimes in the late 2030s. Keywords Megatrends


Trends
The future of tourism

The five megatrends we have examined here will keep shaping the world and that of our industry’s foreseeable future. Nevertheless, these overarching mega-structures find themselves in different stages in their long lifecycles: two of them in the growth phase, (Technological Revolution and Demographic Shift); one at the onset of a visible acceleration, (Climate Change); another one (Globalisation) running out of steam in its present format (decline), and about to be replaced by the youngest one De-Globalisation, which is instead, in its formation years. Technological revolution is in full swing and has ahead some major legs still to cover and promises to fulfil: Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things, smart cities, autonomous and sustainable transportation, decisive and urgent solutions to mitigate climate change. Demographic decline in Europe and other countries, is also on the way upwards with the next two decades expected to deliver most visible effects of the aging societies; an “under the surface” structural change that will manifest all its impact demanding multiple adjustments across the board, to all industries and sectors. Climate Change instead, is possibly the most salient one, at the beginning of a steep acceleration curve. Its reality will not only take precedence over any other priority and any other megatrends, but, in fact, will dictate the agenda of the others. Technology’s and innovations attention will be directed to this priority; Globalisation will be further weakened by the colliding agendas; De-Globalisation strategies and body of theories will be in vast part prescribed by it. Globalisation will wane, leaving a legacy of global communications infrastructure, global transportations infrastructure, and, most importantly, global emotional infrastructure; the last one, crucial to shape up a worldwide awareness © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 V. Boschetto Doorly, Megatrends Defining the Future of Tourism, Anticipation Science 6, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48626-6_9

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on common goals and common priorities, such as saving the planet and saving our species. Megatrends Lifecycles For the rest, globalisation will most likely pave the way to a multicentre world, where three different entities (Europe, USA and China) will operate with diverging visions, enacting different choices and, possibly, adopting not so collaborative dashboards (Fig. 9.1). Regionalism, with its renewed focus on the territories, their identities, their specifics and their people, will replace globalisation’s thrust to standardise and

Fig. 9.1 Megatrends lifecycles

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flatten. Travel and Tourism will find solace in a trend that dials up the specifics that make the bulk of its distinctive contents and, ultimately, the product itself. The transition between Globalisation and De-Globalisation will be most likely marked by two decades of necessary, much feared and yet unavoidable, economic de-growth. The green industrial revolution is not only not ready to produce same or similar levels of GDP but the very core of the relentless GDP growth collides with the imperative necessity to curb CO2 emissions at full speed. The now growing awareness of the climate change dramatic predicament, that is already manifesting with streets demonstrations and protests has not yet realised that the very business model of our economic system is at fault. Our very own habit as shopaholic consumers is at fault. Proof is that we have entered 2020 with the echo of the record sale of Black Friday 2019, when in one day sales in USA saw a record of $7,4billion on line sales, all of which, necessarily generated home deliveries, transport emissions, traffic congestions, and tons of wrapping and packages. Your author suspects this may be one of the last swan songs. Tourism, travels and explorations of all kind will keep occupying a special place in everybody’s heart. An innate and unsuppressible instinct to push the boundaries of the known and of the comfortable will drive our industry until the end of times. However, it is in this complex context that the industry will find its new formats. Technology advancements will make our information seeking and holiday “anticipation phase” much easier and definitely more rewarding. Bookings process will witness a final push towards ultimate integration of all elements and items of the journey, with digital purveyor giants in raw competition to win over each other. Speech recognition will allow us to interact with omniscient cloud from multiple touch points just with the use of the voice, and in natural language. The fruition of the holiday experience will become increasing experiential, with contents and dimensions of the most varied nature constantly unlocked for engagement. ITA will keep growing globally, but it is likely that their growth will be hampered by CO2 emissions awareness and possible enacting of limiting law frames and regulations; sustainable travelling will become a centrepiece of the future. Volunteerism tourism, activism and opinionated tourism will complement the picture. Tourism will grow in the public eye as a very precious industry indeed, one that leverages the national assets and treasures, is not subject to falling into foreign hands, can not be transplanted; it underscores local heritage, identities and traditions. It calls for the territories, with all their stakeholders, to come together to contribute to this multifaceted industry. The Tourism industry is inherently aligned with the emerging trend of de-globalisation. Tourism has a bright future. Without the ambition of having covered all the magnitude of the topics, your author hopes you found in this work a good mix of stimuli, insights and some provocations, whilst anchoring our industry in the broader context. Thank you for sharing this journey within the journey.

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We want to strive and stretch our minds to think our future out, hopefully a desirable one. We concur with J. Stiglitz, (J. Stiglitz, the end f neoliberalism and the rebirth of history, 2019) in his conviction that the new era forebears the rebirth of history, and with it, the need to make choices, take a stance, make a difference. Can the future be foreseen? Better, it can be built. Envisioning Exercise It’s a raw spring day sometime in the late 2030s. The wind blows erratically, in a haphazard of directions, north, east, south and west, with sudden bursts and whirls followed by eerie drops to the ground, as if exhausted. One of those temperamental days in late March, where winter summons its residual energies to demonstrate a vigour that has no more, and spring is cracking through the, now frail shell, with its chilly white light, promise of a maturity that is yet to come. Europe looks like a busy lab where formulas have been discovered, and others are on the way. A full decade of social unrest has finally made it to the airconditioned offices of the ruling authorities, and radical reforms have been implemented. The “European third way” is now a well formed body of theories, animated by a vision of European leadership in the pursuit of a balanced capitalism that creates wealth whilst distributing it. A whole new sets of metrics have been adopted in the early 2030s, after the GDP growth index was aggregated to other, more relevant indicators for a society of the third millennium: poverty index, Gini index on wealth inequality, females activity index, degree of education of population, volunteering index, CO2 emissions index and overall mitigation and reversion of climate change impact measures. The financial and banking systems have been radically reformed with a return to the separation between commercial banks and retail banks. A great number of obscure and self-serving financial products that led to the most devastating financial crash in history have been outlawed. Derivatives, shorting and betting on the ruin of countries and the system itself have been also banned. The European Banking Union is de facto accomplished, but banks don’t even faintly resemble their operations of twenty years before. “Access to credit” for the European citizens is another assessment parameter now included in the aggregate basket of indicators that has replaced the old GDP and a part of the banking system is ran precisely with the scope of promoting entrepreneurship through credit and microcredit. Education, free health care and access to credit have been deemed the three major indicators of democracy and stability as the most significant variables capable of ensuring a more level playfield and more social mobility. Rolf lays on the bed, caught between restorative boredom and a meditative state. His work project with InterLab GmbH has been complete, and now he is, yet again, free to roam, waiting for the next opportunity while the European Universal Cover (EUC) supports his temporary unemployment while offering social activities of volunteering and constant up-skilling training. Whilst GDP has been falling for over a decade before stabilising, work precariat is amply taken care of thanks to the EUC cover. The money tree, once sole prerogative of the tight financial system,

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ruled by impaired monetarism policies, has been revealed for what it truly is: a money tree. Rolf rolls out of the bedroom, while Alicia, the A.I. personal assistant, chirps the morning stats, facts and the news: how many hours he has slept, the calorie intake of the previous day, his heart rate, his financial status and outstanding communications. Alicia adopts a more serious tone of voice and updates on the newly posted volunteering projects of the day: one on the lower course of river Danube, hit by severe flooding in recent days, another one on the Rhine basin. The Elbe basin as well is vulnerable, and the call to volunteers there is preventive. Abroad it’s the Cumbria region in England calling for help. However, with the UK now outside of the EU the European Union does not subsidise the volunteering travel expenses to this destination as it does for all the other EU countries. Nevertheless, each volunteering undertaking gets you an accreditation in the personal CO2 credits. Each individual now has a CO2 tracking that is mentioned on his/her identity documents. The CO2 credits gets cumulated every day, accordingly to the movements and transports habits, the activities undertaken, the shopping patterns, the recycling rating, the household energy consumption and of course, the holiday types. Each action is registered by Alicia and transformed into a improvement or a depletion of the CO2 credits. This assessment matrix was concocted by a mixed panel of climatologists, scientists, green activists and European politicians in 2031 and has ever since been rolled out across all European population after a simultaneous, on line referendum across all member states had been approved by hundreds of millions of voters. European democracies are evolving towards a new democratic format, one that contemplates forms of direct democracy as part of the running of the Union. Online held opinion polls and referendum are routinely held amongst the EU citizens. Some with binding force, others with consultative value, signalling the overall majority positions and opinions. CO2 individual credits system was approved with binding force and implemented the following year, 2032. Volunteering in any area that is affected by climate change effects and extreme events is one the activities that earns you CO2 credits; these can then be “spent” on a holiday abroad involving more CO2 impact. Rolf decides for Cumbria, even that this choice will not entitle him to have travel expenses paid, but it will still grant him a good number of CO2 credits. Alicia had recently shown him a great feature on Cumbria, its distinctive lands and lakes. Moreover, the region has recently become trendy for an open-to-the-public futuristic facility where seaweeds are farmed and harvested to supply the plastic replacement industry with raw materials. Rolf is a bio-chemistry engineer and could unite the volunteering activity on the flooded area with a candidature to the centre for a next work appointment plus a bleisure extra holiday time visiting the area. Rolf has set up his personal assistant Alicia with the voice and the personality of his late grand mother, a down to earth but very caring lady from the southern region Bavaria, where she lived until 90 in the outskirts of Augsburg, actively attending local community until the very end. Her personal characteristics having

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been prudence and wisdom, aversion to risk and level headedness, Rolf’s AI assistance takes a cautious and frugal approach to advise on how Rolf conducts his matters. Alicia aggregates and interprets all of Rolf’s lifestyles, purchases, interests and behaviours. She can suggest and inform on holiday opportunities matching his inclinations, with transport and accommodation latest offers and matching them with government’s led agenda on CO2 emissions. Whilst holiday as a structured concept has become much more liquid, varied and blurred in its calendar dates and activity boundaries, travelling and exploring other areas preserves that delightful aura made of anticipation and thrill that it has always had; an undiminished appeal of adventure that pulls us out of our comfort zone. “Updates on Cumbria and things to do and see in Cumbria” Rolf voice instructs Alicia. The artificial intelligence powered personal assistant now scans the cloud and within a less than a minute she has assembled all that there is to know at this very point in time on the area: a general profile of the region, economic dimension, social and historic brief; state of the climate change impact in the area, and aggregate index of performance. She then projects a sequence of short videos updating on the last news, images and clips on attractions and itinerary. The clips are selected accordingly to Rolf’s interests and come in a selection of lengths that can be defaulted accordingly to the context. 2 min length while having breakfasts, up to 30 min length if watching with friends. Alicia asks for possible departure and return dates, so that she can organise costs, tickets, itinerary supplying all the suggestions matching Rolf’s tastes and preferences and selecting the best offers available on transport and accommodations. The booking engines remain elusively divided in a global duopoly, one in the East and one in the West. Like several other purveyors of digital services, travel & transports, holidays, accommodations & experiences and so on, the market is sharply divided between two separate spheres: west and east. Unlike what was preconized at the beginning of the XXI century, globalisation had ran its course by the early 2020s. The political and ideological choices adopted by the east, unapologetically setting up a technologically advanced totalitarian state based on citizens control, turning to be unpalatable for the western democracies. The world had started drifting in three directions and had developed to be multicentre rather than fully integrated and flattened. However, the digital providers of tourism products, to include accommodations, destinations, experiences and local transports had been broken down into countryspecific platforms, where 90% of the commissions margins are now to be computed and taxed into each country of reference, while 10% can be still be attributed to the parent company. Rolf now inputs the term of his volunteering assignment, one week he reckons and asks Alicia to get all information on the flooding and the authority in charge of operations. Alicia confirms the data, the location, the operations underway and the meeting point for volunteers.

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She then proceeds to show Rolf the amount of CO2 credits that the initiative would earn him. The journey would come at 2,500 euro and would contribute to 289 CO2 credits for Rolf. Alicia now offers the evaluation on personal finance management: the outlay is wise and acceptable as a spend ratio of Rolf’s personal financial cash flow, as it does not dent the overall recommended ratio between necessities and disposable income spend. As he finishes his breakfast, he arranges an appointment with Catherine and Leo. He is going to meet Catherine in person, at their favourite Arcade café’ downtown. There they will engage in a sophisticated VR experience involving paragliding and on line gaming with Leo, who is sitting on the other side of the world. They will select Cumbria as a backdrop context of the game and they will launch the paraglide from the highest peak on the Cumbria hills. They will then engage in a video relayed conference with the operations squad in the area, for a tutorial on preparations and advised equipment. Catherine is just starting to volunteer and needs a good induction. All tutorials are available on VR. Mixed reality and extended reality formats can be better experienced at the arcade café’, fully equipped with the latest technology. This was also a politically led decision. When it came to implementing 5G infrastructure European populations got alerted to the health impacts of this technology and a rejection upheaval ensued. Confronted with the option of being left behind in the race of technological advancements, the EU had decided to limit the 5G infrastructures to selected nexuses, scattered around the country, avoiding to involve the vast and granular space of households. The Arcade Café’ sits in one of these nexus and it is a great meeting spot for maximum connectivity. Urban landscape has dramatically changed since the 2020s. During that decade, the relentless progress of E-Commerce has brought great numbers of brick and mortar retailers to the floor, including high profile casualties amongst multiples and department stores chains. The city centres have gone through a decline that looked unstoppable, with more and more closures hollowing the streets of their lively aspect. At first, high streets got taken over by the usual known global multinational brands. Berlin center had the same retailers brands as Barcelona, as well as Manchester and Belfast, Warsaw and Athens. The food and drink retails took over vast sections of the premises left empty, until when saturation reached an impossible-to-sustain competition levels and closures started hitting them as well. Nothing else seemed to survive the overpowering e-commerce advancement. By mid 2020s, the e-commerce giant Astragon had taken over the supply of every necessity and desires of house-holds, colonizing lands with fully automated fulfilment warehouses and with low paid drivers frantically covering the infamous “last mile” (from warehouse to delivery point) to deliver the most menial of items within the 24 h. A swimming cap for the swimming pool could be summoned and received as a matter of urgency, on par with diabetes life saving drug, within 12 h from ordering. No brick and mortar retail could compete. But something changed in the second half of that decade. More than a change, an abrupt and massive shift of sentiment among consumers; a spectacular overturn

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that within a couple of years, drove a u-turn that nearly capsized the entire ecommerce business model. The melting of the last glacier on the Alps, coupled with a tempest the power of a hurricane force 5 over South of France that destroyed great part of Nice, followed by, two years later, such a terrible drought in Spain that the hotels in Costa del Sol had to be closed for the entire season for lack of water supply, had thrown the public and the authorities into an absolute frenzy in search of CO2 emissions offenders and rapid solutions to curb them. At that stage, the public had already reached for the emergency exit in a metaphorical stampede. But the last straw came with the damage, judged as “irreversible” by experts caused by a grand style experiment on climate manipulation. The state controlled economy of the Shinag state, stretching to the east, had initiated a multiple and concerted bombardment of ionosphere with a never tested before particles mix in a desperate attempt to avert a catastrophic crops failure in its north provinces. The experiment had led to such disruption on weather patterns and developed a magnetic disturbances on the earth surfaces that 50% of the entire bees colonies had been wiped out, risking a global dooms day for pollination with consequent food chain collapse. Thousands of floral species had been lost as a consequence in a season alone. Enraged and terrified, the public was by now ready to reconsider the very core of the production-consumption model. Biting the bullet that had always laid at the center of the de-globalisation dough: the necessary adoption of an orderly degrowth economic model. E-commerce’s lid was lifted, to find out the ugly truth that the business model that had minted the richest man on earth, was a rotten one, relying on an insane consumption of resources and production of massive green house emissions with silly transports running around the world to deliver the likes of swimming pool swim caps. As it happens, the hero had been turned into the villain in a matter of a blink and declared official enemy of the people. E-commerce had been suddenly branded as one of leading cause of CO2 emissions and marked for public wrath. From a stellar growth that had gone on for three decades, Astragon witnessed a severe repeal of its status. By 2034 customers ordering on line had to fill out a form where they would selfassess and self-declare a. that the item under order is indeed necessary b. that is not available anywhere in a radium of xx kilometre within the physical reality that could be reached on foot or with neutral C2 emissions transport. In the meantime Astragon had prepared a global strategy to enter the Travel and Tourism space, directly challenging the handful of behemoth already controlling the space. However, the timing could not have been worse, as the platform had been branded as the iconic pinnacle of hyper-consumerism and the company’s brand did not transfer well onto the holiday business, by now connoted with all things ethical and sustainable. Astragon endured a humiliating defeat and had to retrench.

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In the meantime, urban landscape had been gutted by e-commerce, leading to a decline in premises rates. A concept that emerged in those years, to capitalise on the plentiful premises vacated, had been that of experiential venues, mixing entertainment, food, immersive technologies, training and up-skilling sessions, travel and holidays pre-experiences. In these “experiential arcades”, some of the few nexus fitted with 5G infrastructure, customers can find the latest in technologies equipment allowing them to carry out a multiple number of tasks. Rolf can meet up here with his career tutor, for an overview of advised up-skilling sessions. He can meet with friends, to enjoy edu-tainment immersive reality. Or, like today, meet up with a friend to plan a holiday. While engaging in interactive visually rewarding summaries of a destination, the customer can interact with a virtual tour agent, ask questions and select a number of pre-experiences on the potential holiday destination: food, sports, visits, local life… Alicia, back home, would be kept fully abreast and would activate alerts to capture best offers coming up on the destination experienced. The journey to Cumbria begins. With public transport rendered free to most citizens, up until the high speed connections linking countries and vast distances. Rolf only brings a couple of essentials; he will rent out appropriate clothes and equipment once on site. The era of luggage dragging in and out trains, flights and footpaths is long gone. In the mid 20ies reports from green activism organisations had pointed the finger to an unsuspected reality: the clothing industry was one of the main global drivers of CO2 emissions. Fast fashion, exploded just before the turn of the millennium, had invaded and inundated consumers’ wardrobes. By 2014 a European citizens possessed 60% more clothes than in 2000. Incredibly, the researches found, over 20 mil tons of hardly used clothes ends up in the rubbish dump each year in the USA. Crucially, in order to cater for fast fashion, these garments are made up of 72% of synthetic fibres which, when washed, released micro plastic particles that were responsible of 30% of marine pollution. (C. Boggon, EKOenergia 2019). The remedy was crystal clear. Fast fashion had to be curbed. Less clothes, better quality, natural fibres cultivated organically, and, importantly, used until their natural life end. And to accommodate all travel and holiday needs at different latitudes and environmental conditions? On site clothing rentals in busy travel and holiday spots had been set up in the late 2020 by a start-up that, you guessed, in 5 years had become the newest of the Unicorns; the new breed of Unicorns ride for the common good.

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Universal Truth ♯12 “I am a part of all that I have met.” Alfred Tennyson

Appendix The Predictable Unpredictability of Futures: Covid-19 Pandemic 2020

As we go to print, Covid-19 pandemic has turned the world on its head exposing the globalized economy in all its fragility. A new book should be dedicated to this experience and its impact on the Travel Tourism and Hospitality industry. Not a task for this work, dedicated to megatrends. The pandemic, in futurist terms, can be classed as a black-swan. A black swan, as we all have read somewhere at some stage, is a highly unlikely event that bears deep and vast consequences impacting several dimensions, on a global scale. From a professional-futurist point of view, the pandemic has supplied a bounty of observations, unfolding before our very own eyes a global-scale social experiment that has tested us under multiple opposites: denial and over reaction, solidarity and lack of, wisdom and hysteria. It has revealed the cultural DNA of countries, people and relationships, asserting the primate of public health over profit or vice versa, the primate of inclusivity and protection of the vulnerable till the last stance versus the all-in approach, in acceptance of some sort of natural selection of Darwinian reminiscence. For Travel and Tourism industry, the pandemic represents the near obliteration of a full year of activity and revenue, something that has no precedent in the modern and contemporary history. An industry, TT&H, that has tripled in volumes and revenue in 25 years, recording 527 million International Tourist Movements (I.T.A.) in 1995 and reaching over 1.5 trillion I.T.A in 2019, this extremely resilient economy had never experienced a set back of even remotely this magnitude. If we look back at the performance of the last two decades, it took the financial crisis of 2007–2008 to find a decline of 5.4% in global movements. Shortly lived, by the way, as the following year we were already posting new growth. As per the previous SARS pandemic in 2002, this only managed to shake the year’s movements by a faint −0.4%.

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 V. Boschetto Doorly, Megatrends Defining the Future of Tourism, Anticipation Science 6, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48626-6

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This time, UNWTO foresees global loss in revenue ranging in between 20 and 30%, wiping out the total by $300–$400 trillion. For some countries, this will most likely represent an optimistic and conservative figure. Nations that heavily rely on tourism, such as Spain, whose GDP draws 16% from the sector, are facing an absolute catastrophe. However, the damages are not going to be distributed evenly. The main losers are set to be high profile (first tier) destinations that are mostly geared towards International Tourists Arrivals. Our must-do destinations, culture and heritage sites, typically crowded and typically visited in the “first holiday abroad” for emerging countries are going to contemplate very empty streets this year. Mass-destinations and low-budget destinations are second in line for the battering. People worldwide are stricken with fear of proximity with other similes and the lack of personal control over this variable, when immersed in a crowded space, will act as powerful deterrent for the bookings. This will not fade easily nor swiftly. Moreover, the virus is here to stay, possibly to mutate and even make vaccination ineffective. This new lifestyle, separated, distanced and weary of one another, is set to last possibly for a couple of years. Next in line, the typical destinations for third-age holidaymakers. Specifically targeted by the ravages of this illness, not only are they scared to death of being infected, but most likely this age cohort will be officially asked by the authorities to self-isolate themselves (cocooning) for a much longer period than all the other age groups. The impact on the industry will be protracted for at least two years and the recovery painful. The consumption patterns, in many sectors, are also set to become an unexpected fatality of the crisis. These, in my opinion, risk to remain depressed and struggling for longer than many expect, as a consequence of two factors: the economic crisis that ensues a global lock-down of economies, that will shrink countries’ GDP of magnitudes never seen since WWII. People’s disposable incomes will suffer. Low paid workers will loose jobs. Free lances will be decimated. The damage will be directly proportional to the lack of effective intervention of policy makers. If there was a moment for the deployment of a Keynesian economy approach this would be now. Moreover, on the psychological side, vast sections of society have been forced to adopt a super-restricted regime of consumption, with the corollary surprise that, to some extent, this can actually be implemented without major suffering: we are still alive, warm and fed. This collective experience, coupled with the long and deeply acquired sense of uncertainty, will drive a degree of re-evaluation of personal consumption patterns. Maybe we are really getting closer to a more balanced consumption, where “less is more”. I call it the “soap-bar-economy”: it lasts longer, can be used in multiple situations and does not involve binning a plastic bottle at the end of each use. Tourism and Hospitality have a lot of scope to start thinking from this viewpoint. The pandemic will no doubt accelerate the forging of the De-Globalization megatrend, previously described. Indeed, this experience will promote proxy-tourism, closer to home and within the domestic boundaries.

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It will, or it is likely to promote a wiser and slower consumption, bringing the focus on the “do I really need this” reflection, that, besides individual needs, brings the wider global well being into the equation. Interestingly, the pandemic has exposed the brutal fragility and, could we dare saying, nonsensical nature of the global supply chain. Too many strategic supplies have been outsourced elsewhere, for no other gains than (supposedly) cheaper products and the profit of multi national industries. Supply chain is likely to be addressed with new eyes, now. The very definition of what is to be considered “strategic” should also evolve. The rise of a more locally supplied, geared and managed form of economy, usually referred to as “circular” economy, has probably found its evidence and validation on a grand scale. In this context, we refer to the chapter of de-globalization as the megatrend that most draws fuel from this global event. As we speak, the wheels and cylinders of this and all megatrends here described are in motion. You can hear their humming and puffing, underground. Then, every now and then, the energy of the telluric push gets released in one big bolt: and we get all suddenly awoken. We prefer to try to stay awake all the time. At the end of the day, it better suits the evolved nature of human beings: that of imagination, that irresistibly leads to the anticipation and engagement with the future in the making.