Tourism`s prolific and exponential growth - including its recovery since the COVID shutdown – buoyed the investment community. With hotels in many regions having experienced an upsurge in occupancies and airlines close to capacity, investor intentions were upbeat.

How quickly things shifted, with tourism on the decline in areas affected by war and all its unanticipated consequences (e.g. Dubai and throughout the Middle East)…and with the shifting costs of strategy necessitating a profound orchestration of validation.

In local areas riding the domestic tourism boom, visitor counts, occupancies and revenues are on the rebound. With operating costs rising, though, margins may be shrinking and liquidity disappearing. The investment climate and operating environment will remain fractious until civil disruptions cease and destination stewardship becomes a more serious priority…oh the ever-present whims, frictions, and challenges that skew discussions and complicate decisions.

National tourism agencies and organizations, like the World Bank and UNWTO, provide some country-by-country guidance but that advice tends to be far too general. Investors need to undertake more thorough, contextual research particularly as unsettling climatic (heat waves and wildfires), socio-economic and geo-political upheavals, trade wars and oil shock affect the viability of investments and put a damper on travel and tourism.

As this WTTC report highlights, investors are (supposed to be) vigilant when examining locational and market segment opportunities as well as the presence of any existing or potentially destabilizing factors. But it`s always the inviting incentives - “...smart taxation, travel facilitation policies, diversification, innovation, use of digital technology, the integration of health and hygiene protocols, effective communication, and the importance of a skilled and trained workforce” - that seem to grab their attention, attract, entice and help close the deal. Incentives not deceitfully but carefully and conscientiously conceived…but to accomplish what if, in the process, destinations and cities lose out on the economic development plot?

With optionality open to investors, due diligence in evaluating competing prospects and projects can be intense, becoming more serious in the age of AI. Investors may expect the world in terms of giveaways and forgiveness regarding taxes, duties, etc., but they also abhor instability and uncertainties and are wary of unanticipated events that could undermine expectations for optimum short-to long-term return (ROIs) on investments.

In seeking, revitalizing, or responding to investment proposals, destination leaders – politicians, mayors, planners, tourism officials, economic planners, entrepreneurs – often do not know how best to evaluate options, probabilities, trade-offs, or make deals with developers and investment communities. Such shortcomings are evident when tourism’s purpose is ill-defined or few attempts are made to focus on “strategic centering” (based on mission, customer, technology, friction erasure, or national ecosystems).

As such, community leaders may be ill-equipped to negotiate, particularly when so few are well-versed in all aspects of tourism’s vicissitudes and the upsides or downsides of its value creation/capture opportunities, whether for organizations, guests, communities and their citizens, or as related to the three market (commercial, capital and cultural) theory of value creation.

When the ways in which tourism is supposed to serve community are in question, so are the ways in which to promote tourism investment and take advantage of federal or regional place-based programs. Disconcerting as well are the ways in which tourism influences a community`s functional transformation, particularly when it fails to

· enhance and protect a community’s social and cultural value

· embrace and protect local culture and the natural environment

· reflect certain just economy principles and norms

· be in-line with a community’s articulated priorities and determinants for desired progress and

· be reflected in every intricacy associated with place or destination brand positioning.

In their capacity as decision-makers, it’s essential that community leaders and DMOs elevate their own value and be better informed on the current state of, and prospects for, tourism within their hyper-local regions and expansive prospects for hyper locality. Knowledge that may be available from local government sources, ministries of tourism, educational institutes (with tourism research capabilities), consultants, NGOS, and on occasion from international banks (e.g. the World Bank - Tourism Watch, Tourism for Development - the Inter-American Development Bank and their publications, IDB Invest and IDB Lab programs).

Other familiar sources of information include the UNWTO`s publications (e.g. Evaluating Tourist Projects), as well as the OECD`s papers and publications, and Destination Canada’s, Tourism Destination Development Toolkit. Beware though, it is not that tourism statistics can be quite unreliable, but that all these reports rarely reflect the needs and priorities of specific communities that desire to become and remain memorable destinations.

Perhaps this is the reason why many local, regional or national banks remain reticent about making (sizable) loans for hospitality and tourism projects or to entrepreneurs. Unless you are a major, branded corporation, preferentially international, it is difficult to obtain adequate financing. So, what do the financial institutions consider and know that destination leaders don’t? The quick answer:

· Too many leaders and managers are starry-eyed (infected with `hopium`), aren`t adequately agile, financially astute, and have not prepared or understood the need for a detailed business case for any project, too often based on false predictability.

· Existing tourism infrastructures may be insufficient, inadequate or out-of-date…and, depending on the locale, may require significant government or Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and other factors that drive economic success.

· Feasibility studies may not fully reflect current and longer-term realities, with projections for growth rarely based on best- to worst-case scenarios, and/or neglectful of the robustness and diversity of a community’s entire economy.

· The demand for tourism projects – convention centers, performing arts centers, hotels, restaurants – may be too seasonal, cyclical, competitive or unstable.

· The maturity of the local and regional tourism cluster may be lacking or insubstantial.

· Fixed and rapidly escalating variable operating costs may not be fully considered.

· Locations, designs, layouts, functionalities and technologies easily become out-dated.

· Too many projects are not adequately prepared to compete for customers’ sustained engagement and loyalty.

· There may be inadequate leeway or agility to keep up with concepts, trends, changing requirements and tastes of patrons, as facilities can morph into `white elephants` and marketing subdued by the stealth takeover from “choice architectures”.

· Inflation, travel costs, and restrictions to limit inventories of hotel rooms and Airbnb rentals, for example, are escalating prices to a point that market demand in some segments is likely to soften or dissolve.

· Growth is being stymied because there isn`t alignment in the C-suite. Marketers need to drive customer-centric growth

· Few understand the concept of friction and how it determines operational and project outcomes.

· Destination branding may be ill-conceived…too focused on image rather than reality

· There may be ongoing workforce shortages and concerns about long-term labor access, not to mention adequate customer service training

Without delving into the issues associated with the viability of tourism clusters, my introduction to the world of tourism development began as a youngster growing up in the Bahamas (typical of the insularity experienced by Small Island States) where my father operated various tourism-dependent enterprises, including an interior design studio.

Suffice to say, his experiences and stories left me with a certain disdain for the shenanigans, fraud and bribery, well-recorded in these fragments of history from the Bahamas which paint a ‘wicked’ picture of the development process: The hucksters (posing as leaders) involved; the privileges they demand; the gradual erosion of local cultures (how places shape our identity); the takeover of the most attractive coastlines, beaches, and natural resources (a problem in many developing nations); the laying of waste and a dwindling of morale, all of which I have come across, and face-to-face with in many well-known destinations, including Atlantic City, a recent trip to Mexico and Spain`s Costa Brava (the place in which my father finally retired).

Real estate, especially in sunbelt, recreational, culturally rich and historic locales, is considered the most attractive, magnetic of assets especially for the laundering of illicit gains or for exploitation (from the mafia). A precarious and sad state for communities-as-destinations as they prospect for investment, pine for “nothing but the best” and say they are prepared for all eventualities, until confronted with geo-political upheavals

As Immanuel Kant quipped: “Avoid participating in the creation of a tragedy.” Yet that is what happens when there is no scenario planning, a lack of trustworthiness, a disregard for guardrails, and when the rules, regulations and bylaws associated with planning, construction, design and business operations are bypassed or flagrantly ignored, making a mockery of planning and rules-based democracies.

Now is the time to see the past for what it was and

Imagine the future for what it could be.

****************

Part 2 of this article will follow shortly

Leaders grow the most not from their wins and victories but from their desire and ability to overcome their worst moments. Knowing that they must react and adapt faster than the moment demands, it has been said that they cannot afford to wait for clarity. But is that correct, if not fundamentally misleading?

For eons managers have sought certainty and control…though that’s not realistic in complex systems and environments that are constantly evolving and changing. We need something better to orient our leadership towards. Whereas certainty is about knowing the right answers and what the outcomes will be, clarity is about connecting to what matters, choosing intentionally, and being in alignment as we take the next step forward.

When we chase certainty, we have tendencies to get stuck in analysis paralysis, leading to self-doubt, delays, waste, and re-work. And, even if we allow ourselves to think with certainty that we know what is right, and rush into decisions without considering ideas and inputs of others, it is less likely that innovative ideas will emerge or be allowed to emerge. The same old, same old won’t cut it today!

So, imagine being told, “we cannot wait for clarity” …that we should not bother about connecting to what matters…that it is not necessary to be intentional in our choices…that there is not a need to create alignment as we take the next step. Really?

The outcomes are well-known: Possibilities of failure intensify. Tourism`s externalities take their revenge. Futile attempts are made to rectify downward trajectories. More appropriate lifecycle policies are ignored.

We will never know everything up front, but by having clarity we are far more likely to determine and appreciate what is transpiring…what is in the best interests of our organizations and our community…that transformation has to occur and be a learning journey…that trust in our collective ability to respond to change (whether in response to visitor and resident sentiments, competitive and climatic factors, or more relevant and nuanced information) will provide us with confidence to take next steps forward.

Failure is inevitable, but its impacts, possible negative consequences and outcomes need to be anticipated and minimized. It is one thing for leaders to accept the notion that failure can be a viable option, but in regard to the development of destination clusters that seek to improve local economies and the quality-of-life throughout the communities in which they are embedded, failure can be unforgiving, long-lasting and are not easily undone, especially when costly financing has been involved, commitments and promises have been made.

As such, it is vital to know about the lessons learned about tourism development (based on the World Bank`s experience), as well as why community projects fail.

Given the need to seek clarity, what`s also needed (and desperately lacking) is a fulsome understanding of what it takes to develop the qualities of the inner leader. Leaders who seek to…

· know what truly matters to communities and set out to determine what and how value can be achieved and delivered through tourism.

· Learn what it takes to preside and gain mastery over existing qualms and the quixotic of quests.

· Get extraordinary things done in, and on behalf of, their communities and organizations,

· Develop the practices and skills to transform values into action, visions into realities, obstacles into innovations, separateness into solidarity, risks into rewards, and then go on to

· Create the right climate in which people turn challenging opportunities into remarkable successes.

As a potential that can be developed by everyone, leadership is essentially the business of everyone. While the fundamental content of what makes effective leaders may not have changed, the contextual realities of our industry, organizations, and communities have.

As the prior links reveal, people`s frustrations and anxieties have become increasingly heightened; the quest for meaningfulness and social connectivity is intensifying, and the need to develop and carefully nurture and take preventative measures to protect our fragile social, cultural and natural capital has reached critical stages.

The challenges that lie ahead for all our communities-as-destinations are immense, and yet our ability to cope is being tested. Too few leaders have yet to develop the inner leadership abilities necessary for proceeding through these conflicting and confusing economic and political times. As such, it is becoming more difficult to…

· See ourselves, our relationships and situations clearly,

· Feel at ease in making decisions,

· Trust in ourselves and our abilities to navigate situations from a place of integrity,

· Find the time and inclination to develop new skills and leverage the skills of others more effectively.

Having read my prior article, Qualms about Predations and Perversions (Mind yout Ps and Qs 47) you will realize how difficult it can be for destination leaders and industry executives to proceed. Unpredictability and unreliability continue to abound.

Whether in reference to world trade disruptions, massive increases in tariffs, climatic disasters, fires, raging wars, extreme poverty in certain regions, inappropriate gentrification, famines, floods, increasing income inequalities, affordability crises, declines in providing foreign aid, challenges to the sovereignty of countries, travel boycotts, labor shortages, and liquidity crises, everything seems to be spiraling beyond control.

While the nature of the problems facing communities-as-destinations might pale in comparison, many are inter-connected. Yet it is trivial to assume that anyone can pick up the pieces, let alone know whether they can be re-assembled, repaired or rejuvenated.

While frets and threats proliferate, psalms about qualms are unlikely to provide solace…as if that is the right srentiment. After all, the domain of leaders is the future. Their unique legacy has always been the creation of institutions that survive over time. With ‘survival’ being the operative word, the contributions leaders make are not simply to today`s bottom-line, but to the development of people and institutions so they can adapt, change and grow.

As Derek Abell, noted decades ago, the success of all organizations is determined by how well they manage dual strategies – mastering the present, preempting the future. In this sense leadership is about the on-going revitalization of organizations, the creation of new enterprises, the renewal of healthy communities, and having immense respect for and understanding of our economic, social, cultural and natural worlds – their fragilities and diversities…normalities and abnormalities…vitalities and opportunities, all necessities to be considered.

And yet regardless of the turmoil, destinations remain obsessed with attracting more visitors and new market segments. With attempts to improve their positioning in global, national and/or regional markets, continuing emphasis continues to be placed on increasing volume, managing and expanding capacities that fuel economic growth and tourism development in order to enhance the overall competitiveness of tourism destinations…competitiveness characterized in rankings by the World Tourism Cities Foundation and the World Economic Forum`s Travel and Tourism Development Index.

Competitiveness has always been a complex and controversial topic with multiple dimensions and determinants but when contextualized in accord with regional clusters, considerable care has to be given to selecting those policy tools that will bring about or maintain desirable prosperity outcomes particularly during different stages of tourism’s development or in accord with purpose and what matters.

But is this happening? Rarely.

As will be noted in subsequent articles, popular communities-as-destinations are continually having to contend with opportunists and do-gooders ‘tilting at windmills’ while on quixotic quests whether to grow tourism and /or correct for contraventions to the Public Trust Doctrine including indignities to individuals and their rights.

In reference to that which is quixotic, who could have imagined Miguel de Cervantes`17th century Spanish novels about Don Quixote remaining germane and au courant. Despite being known for vanquishing behemoths and his heroic feats as a chivalrous knight, we often ignore the fact that it was his character development, creativity, individualism, and championing of the downtrodden that remains relevant.

While Don Quixote, and leaders like him, might be regaled for their victories, they are more likely to become revered for their ability to overcome their shortcomings, maneuver through tough circumstances, undo previous wrongs, and bring justice to the world…actions and decisions that overtime build resolve and character.

While the leadership of communities-as-destinations may be in the hands of numerous officials and executives, everybody needs to share responsibility for improving the well-being and performance of all hosts, guests and citizens. As detailed in Kouzes and Posner`s The Leadership Challenge, leaders are more likely to accomplish the extraordinary by engaging in certain exemplary practices. As such, they are known to…

· Model the way by being clear about guiding principles, setting the example, being consistent with words and deeds that are distinguished by relentless effort, steadfastness, competence and attention to detail.

· Inspire a shared vision of what could be, the force that represents the future, makes things happen, changes the way things are, creates things that no one else has created before, knows their constituents and speaks their language, and creates a dialogue.

· Challenge the process by being pioneers and be willing to step out into the unknown, knowing that innovation and change involve experimentation, risk and failure, utilizing incremental steps and small wins, leading by learning and learning best by leading in the face of obstacles.

· Enable others to act because leadership is a team or “we” effort, accomplished through collaboration and building trust, making it possible for others to do good work.

· Encourage the heart of their constituents to carry on through genuine acts of caring that uplift spirits and draw people forward, showing appreciation for people`s contributions and creating a culture of celebration.

Ongoing success, however, can be complicated. It will be determined through relationship building and dependent on high levels of leader vitality that, in turn, will serve to support efforts to energize the vitality of their communities-as-destinations.

Such opportune initiatives, however, are easily impaired or imperiled due to the interoperability of individual public and private tourism enterprises and the competitive nature of jockeying for position. Power and politics in play. Sounds arduous and oppressive because it is.

But need it be? By being focused on enhancing the uniqueness and distinctiveness of community assets that amplify their appeal and attractiveness - what works, what doesn`t, what is special, what isn`t - Creative Cities International, through their vitality index, explains:

“Our objective is to reflect a sense of the city from the perspective of the people who live there, the “inner tourists” who are the first and most important actors in any city’s present and future. Their commitment, loyalty, and participation in all aspects of urban living hold the key to a city’s future sustainability. Their appreciation or dissatisfaction with their city will greatly determine the level of interest or attraction the city holds for visitors looking for places to travel and for businesses looking to invest.”

While Jane Jacobs initially interpreted urban vitality as “the dynamic interplay between human activities and urban spaces,” others have noted that vitality represents “the degree to which urban form supports functionality and human life,” underscoring the ongoing need for urban planning and design that serves to address and resolve qualms and reflect on quixotic quests.

As we well know, cities and communities (not just their downtowns) are complex systems. The very fact that they serve humanity and meet diverse human needs suggests that urban vitality needs to be viewed and examined as a composite system of economic, social, and cultural vitality that encompass economic prosperity, social harmony and stability, rich cultural activities, and ecological sustainability.

No wonder efforts to improve urban or community vitality are likely to be complicated and challenging, suggesting the need to collaborate with a wide variety of stakeholders in order to enrich and improve the interoperability of shared infrastructure – a core or over-arching mandate for communities-as-destinations.

In resolving or rectifying frustrating concerns and vulnerabilities, however, leaders need to learn how best to collaborate intelligently, knowing when to prioritize interdependence without compromising on the independence of individual enterprises or institutions…a difficult task as individual enterprises are known to keep their distance when focusing on their USPs and creation of distinct value.

Regardless of the situation, transformation processes for communities-as-destinations are likely to be multi-transactional learning journeys or at least two-pronged, each with incompletely defined goals that evolve as organizations and communities make decisions together as well as separately, learning from outcomes and adjusting accordingly.

The true test as to whether destination vitality will succeed, however, resides in how well industry and community leaders entertain, preside over, and evaluate the quixotic adventures of economic and social entrepreneurs whose dreams “…transcend the limitations of reality and strive for something greater…embracing the improbable, challenging the status quo, daring to pursue unconventional paths…and defy the constraints of practicality and conventional wisdom…”

“Quixotic adventures manifest in various forms from social and political movements to entrepreneurial endeavors and artistic pursuits…yet it is precisely this willingness to pursue audacious goals that has led to some of the most remarkable advancements and transformations in history.”

While achieving a delicate balance between idealism, realism or practicality can represent onerous undertakings, it is where true creativity resides…a truism when destination and community leaders commit themselves, for example, to inclusive design which forms the basis of Tourism for All or Destination for All, and contributes further to the Laws of Attraction as desired by High Value Visitors.

Exemplary of such endeavors is Waterfront Toronto’s Biidaasige Park, which I visited recently. As part of their complex work to mitigate climate change and provide flood protection, the park serves to increase public access to the waterfront and lay the foundations for thriving complete communities where thousands of people live, work, visit, learn and play.

Based upon steady, meaningful public engagement, especially with indigenous nations, the project reveals how to lead with landscape that puts high-quality public spaces first. As with so many transformational projects most add immeasurably to communities-as-destinations. With inner leadership serving to create a wonderful world, especially when it serves to calm the qualms and blest the quests, much can be accomplished and achieved.

Oh, What a world!

Checking out prior to checking in. Have you experienced an immediate sense of dismay upon arrival at your destination of choice? That something was amiss and did not feel right?

· Feelings of having made an unwise decision

· An onslaught of cognitive dissonance

· The overwhelming sentiment of feeling out-of-place, unwelcome, knowing nothing about the place

· The fact that someone sought to pave over paradise rather than being more attentive to the possibilities for nature, culture and the arts…expressions, behaviors and sentiments that warm the heart, soothe and calm the soul.

Similarly, when we decide to return to places steeped in fond memories, only to find how they had succumbed to age and neglect…how certain places that once defined a community or region could disappear while still standing…places that carry our memories and have been subjected to and annihilated through touristification.

The most cherished communities-as-destinations have always been acts of imagination. They anchor somethings far more ambitious and enlightening through a thorough understanding as to what constitutes their vitality and distinctiveness…not simply by incorporating galleries, markets, centers for the performing arts, parks, gardens and a wide range of recreational facilities…but a clear-eyed declaration of what communities stand and are renowned for, or could become, though over time may have lost their way whether through neglect, thoughtless and ambiguous conformity.

The mystery of places and properties we love is that the essence of people who leave them often remains, one of the reasons we continue to return (home) to them on a frequent basis. It is not that we do not expect them to change. After all, preservation is often mistaken for the desire to keep things as they were while it simply demands that we decide what matters and is vital …authenticity over artificiality.

So, how do we honor a place without expecting it to stand still? The initial life of any place or property may be built on optimism, but the next chapter or rebirth depends on imagination, new and more relevant ideas. Not simply to rescue relics but to give old places another chance at life, to endure and become part of the future.

If not, memories or initial impressions are bound to be subdued…organizational and community capital and hard-won brand identity dissipating and depreciating. Communities-as-destinations, therefore, need to know and be reassured about the particulars about arrivals and return visits: Was the welcome at transportation terminals evident upon arrival…when driving into the community as a whole…when arriving at the hotel…when entering the event or festivity…when being received at the venue, the restaurant, the museum, the artisanal enterprise, or performing arts center?

The feelings of being welcomed are rewards that endorse and channel the promise. They signal comfort, culture, authenticity, warmth and hospitality. While on holidays or occasional visits will we, as everyday people, continue smiling? Will the settings, the accoutrements and trappings of wherever we are, including all attempts at connectivity and engagement, allow us to maintain the positive feelings or vibe, especially when we are already receptive and in the zone?

We are our happiest when in those places, locales and dwellings that consistently provide feelings of comfort, relaxation and joy…when all service encounters are warm and proficiently handled…when the possibility of pain points, disappointments, and payment bungles are anticipated and easily resolved…when obsequious behaviors are deemed unacceptable and unnecessary…when we are with friends and family who feel equally as content and fulfilled.

Nothing is worse than somebody in a foul mood, or around people who feel entitled or display exhibitionist tendencies. And yet, in so many popular destinations, it is not uncommon to find visitor misbehavior and excess, leading to clampdowns and expressions of limits with some observers suggesting that it is time for communities to question whether certain “...forms of travel are legitimate in purpose, suitable for achieving that purpose, necessary compared with alternatives, proportionate in relation to ecological and social impacts, and justifiable in view of future generations.” Welcome to the world of limits in which tourism, destination and community leaders need to navigate.

The prevailing and legitimate angst amongst guests as well as hosts remains disquieting. It adds to the problems facing most visitor-serving enterprises throughout the world and how they, and the communities, regions and countries in which they are embedded, should respond, conduct business, and as I would say, manage their Ps and Qs.

As revealed in the video on misbehaving tourists, it is insufficient simply for governmental authorities to voice their concerns. Industry and destinations leaders must assume responsibility; find and shape their ideal visitors; act quickly if they hope to endear themselves to all stakeholders, citizens and visiting guests; and bring communities as destinations to life, revealing their distinguishing qualities and commitments to excellence.

Just as ships need to be piloted through unfamiliar harbors and dangerous waters, industry and destinations leaders need assistance if they hope to enact as well as navigate through prevention and protection protocols. Despite responsibilities for managing the overall development, production and promotion of tourism, it is not as if prevention and protection are unfamiliar concepts. Most organizations do not set out to do harm or inflict danger. And yet, in pursuit of growth and high-performance metrics, it is amazing what gets overlooked or misused, who gets hurt or simply annoyed and offended.

To this end, and in response to all sorts of protective measures, governments have established all sorts of rules, regulations, policies, protocols and mandatory procedures and demand compliance, especially regarding the safety and security of the public and the avoidance of unfair and unjust practices but may have ignored, for example, cyber-security measures.

Similarly, many organizations want to act and be perceived as honest and reliable and do so through setting their own standards around employment practices, business relationships, safety, security and other protective and preventative measures…appropriate behaviors and actions also required through their insurers and expected by citizens, unions and employees.

In this regard, “protection” is likely to be conceived as being reactive, whereas “prevention” is decidedly proactive. When practiced in unison both serve to reassure and bolster confidence that the nature, quality and appropriate quantity of products, services and experiences on offer are of the highest standard. As it is with all laws, policies and promises, however, some authorities are willing to turn a blind eye to misdeeds.

Both irresponsible tourism and shortcomings in the management of destinations represent a scourge on an industry that should know better. And yet, communities-as-destinations must play a core role in ensuring that visitors and citizens avoid and feel safe from crime, dangers, drugs, harassment, prostitution, and possibilities of food poisoning.

In reference to the activities associated with tourism, it is becoming common to protect certain land masses, fragile natural environments, and other living species from human encroachment, as it is with heritage and sacred sites…and that includes the desire to offer protection to people as they are out and about. In this age of limits, however, too many preventive measures are being ignored.

So, it may be instructive to appreciate the basic concepts, stages or levels of “prevention” from a medical perspective and reveal how they might apply to tourism or the overall management of destinations. While the industry might argue that they are already fully committed to and absorbed in performing for today, there are no other options but to be forthright in anticipating and helping others transform for tomorrow. There is no rationale for preferring to opt out.

Why? Destinations represent an industry cluster of interconnected, adjacent and complementary enterprises. Any action or inaction by one party affects everyone else. Can you imagine a medical practice deciding to ignore its responsibilities to endorse and be engaged in preventative medicine? Certainly not.

As you read how the medical community defines its prevention strategies, it is interesting to note that prevention in tourism and destinations needs to connect with the notion of a lifecycle with the over-arching goal to prevent the onset of avoidable miscues, mistakes, tragedies, and the inevitability of decline over time.. Strategies, therefore, must be designed to reduce risk and mitigate downstream complications that could eventually lead to and hasten danger, destruction or demise.

In applying the stages or levels of prevention (primordial, primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary) to tourism activities within communities / regions/ countries do note how beneficial the conceptualization and utilization of these strategies can be in

· Helping visitors and citizens believe in you;

· determining, if not revising, the purpose, principles, potential and promise of tourism;

· reducing risk and protecting community, consumer and citizenry interests and assets;

· enhancing the overall reputation, image, vitality and competitiveness of destinations;

· assisting communities to be constructive in being resilient, sustainable, regenerative, and enduring;

· educating and advocating for the health and well-being of all.

In applying the stages and levels of prevention let us take a cursory glance at my neighboring city of Montreal.

Primordial prevention. It may be questionable as to whether communities-as-destinations can mitigate harm before they reach point of impact. Certainly, governments and institutions are active in addressing risks, but most have come to this requirement late in the game and, regarding tourism, rarely to the point of restricting access but hopefully in educating the industry, the general and visiting public.

With a rich urban environmental history, Montreal (situated in the Province of Quebec, Canada) just celebrated its 41^st anniversary of the Montreal Protocol, a landmark international agreement which was adopted in 1987 to phase out ozone-depleting substances (ODSs) and deliver significant climate benefits, making it the most successful environmental treaty in history.

More recently in 2020 they became the first Canadian city to join the Global Destination Sustainability Index and went on to lead in the 2025 GDS index as a result of initiating the Harmonious Destination initiative in 2022…peruse their 2025-2030 strategy.

If destinations, however, are to broaden their concerns about sustainability more attention needs to be given to the totality of ESG concerns and their strategic integration so as to protect how value is created and the financial viability of small to medium sized enterprises is not unnecessarily disrupted

It is also worth noting that Montreal is celebrating 20 years as UNESCO’s City of Design, with some of its ingeniously designed spaces described in the document. Since 1991 it has raised awareness among private and public sector stakeholders of the benefits of good design, and through its involvement in the Creative Cities Network continues to place creativity and cultural industries at the heart of its development plan.

Primary prevention. With the attention to reducing the risk of harm before it begins, efforts must be made to target those modifiable risk factors while people and places are still healthy. In examining Montreal’s Harmonious Destination strategy that reflects the UN Sustainable Development Goals, evidence of their commitment to resolving a long list of priorities is evident in four key areas:

(1) helping business cultures in the tourism sector adapt (2) promoting harmonious co-habitation of local population and visitors (3) making the destination more ESG compliant and resilient, and (4) supporting tourism development with a low environmental footprint.

Secondary prevention. The focus at this point is to reduce the risks associated with recurrence of problems, or to overcome reluctance to participate in the “harmonious” strategy. Prevention at this level is bound to involve a fair amount of investigation into the mitigating factors that could be diminishing progress and useful in modifying adverse behaviors, practices and actions requiring adjustment, further consultation and assistance.

Attempting to alter existing or traditional practices and ways of conducting business can be hard. It is one thing to develop a strategy for an entire community/destination, another to achieve agreement and implementation throughout a cluster of different types of enterprises with operations existing indoors and/or outdoors.

As is commonly known, it is hard to focus on what we do not know, just on what we can do, know we can do and accomplish. As in well-known in medicine, we are stubborn in making lifestyle changes (or altering existing management practices) when people may have limited options.

Tertiary prevention. Certain chronic conditions may be difficult to eradicate. The objective in this phase is to reduce the long-term impact, minimize complications, prevent maximum damage and attempt to improve people`s quality of-life and well-being. With the onslaught of climate change, environmental and ecological damage that has been underway for a long time, it seems as if this stage is more about a demand for fundamental change in the way we operate as societies…it goes beyond the need for protection.

Quaternary prevention. For tourism, safeguards against intervention seem moot, except for the fact that we know a growing number of climate change deniers might argue that the interventions currently underway are unnecessary. If the principle “do no harm” is to be taken seriously, however, it is evident that tourism`s best management practices always demand scrutiny and possible alteration…the rationale for this ongoing series of articles – Destination Leaders, Mind Your Ps and Qs.

On the other hand, destination leaders must be careful and ensure that all interventions are appropriate to the size, type and style of enterprise. Participation, collaboration and buy-in from tourism sector associations and neighborhood business associations are vital…though, it is never good enough to deal only with the elite within a destination.

Attention must also be given to the costs and unintended consequences associated with preventative measures and related changes to policies, as financial and other burdens on small businesses are already high unless, of course, the (financial) benefits of preventive measures can be proven and/or funds can be found through existing government programs to underwrite the costs,

As with medicine, preventative care in most communities-as-destinations remains fragmented and underprioritized. For prevention to meaningfully reduce risks, it must be fully integrated into and aligned with both tourism policy and industry practice. This integration is essential for reducing risks, socio-economic costs, and adverse impacts, while fulfilling a destination`s purpose, principles, and potential.

To this end, many industry associations and individual enterprises are trying to position themselves as advocates for more robust forms of responsible, community-based tourism. For example. The Greater Montreal Hotel Association (in partnership with GreenStep and MTLAB, along with LEAF Certification for restaurants, are showing the way. While more innovative contributions need to be sought, it would be helpful if the industry along with their academic colleagues would be more actively involved in promoting the benefits and rewards of forming innovation Institutes, as suggested by UN Tourism. After all, the future of innovation is collective.

But it is not just about preventative measures. All venues represent and contribute to the heart and soul of communities but could do more to make people aware, embellish or improve their core offerings in ways that truly reflect and protect the essence and culture of the communities they represent.

To this end, it seems appropriate, first, to understand how corporations strive to gain the vitality edge and, second, to adapt the concept (in accord with the special needs of communities-as-destinations who are likely to conceive of “growth’ in ways that correspond with their stewardship practices) in order to identify and close any glaring and not-so-obvious gaps.

What follows are random links to articles about some peculiarities of an array of visitor-serving sectors that add or could add substantively to the cultural and natural content of destinations - hotels, convention centers, restaurants, theatres, transportation terminals, museums, streetscapes, landscapes, nightlife, events and festivities, sports and their stadiums, festivals and fairs.

By taking direction from the Montreal`s Harmony Strategy all could be participants in revealing and educating visitors and citizens about both their contributory and preventative initiatives.

As a learning exercise it might be helpful if you identified a ‘destination of your choice’, and sought to determine what a variety of visitor-serving enterprises (hotels, retail establishments, artisanal enterprises, cultural institutions, and so on) could and should be doing to up their A-Game based on…

· Amending, Amplifying, Aligning and Accomplishing their tourism strategies (taking inspiration from the Harmonious Destination strategy);

· Changing Attitudes while Adjusting and Adapting to different Altitudes.

· Improving their Ambience, Aesthetics and their Artistic sensibilities while being cautious about unnecessary affectations;

· Augmenting as well as Accentuating their Assets and Attractions (physical and intangible) while operating in the shadow of AI and everyday Algorithms

· Becoming Architects for the senses;

· Seeking to Astound and Astonish in Authentic ways through future-forward Activation that is dedicated towards betterment

Destination’s A-game: complementing and embellishing their communities by creating meaningful and on-going functional, cultural, social, and life-affirming value for all…as well as by being attentive to implementing progressive and preventative strategies that ensure vitality and longevity. At last!

Now, for those destinations remaining reluctant: Stop wasting time, wake up, return, balance, align.

As a proposition upon which an argument is based, the premise of tourism derives from the ability of communities-as-destinations to create, personify, utilize, and monetize settings and premises as magnets for visitation. What makes them prodigious has often been explained as coming about through the proliferation of the built environment and privatization of the public sphere; however, such a premise is empty and devoid of potential, promise, and poetry.

In thumbing through such books as, Pride of Place, Building the American Dream…The Architect as Developer…New Uses, Old Places, Remaking America…Travellers` Architecture…Hotels, Motels and Condominiums …The Life and Times of Miami Beach, I note that potential and promise have more to do with the creation of presence.

And yet, with everyone waxing eloquently about the built environment and attempts to capture the vernacular of time and place (too often in short supply) I know that there is still something more astute about places (communities, their built and natural environments) heralded for being profoundly prodigious… by which I suggest something beyond simply provoking awe.

Typically, leisure-oriented premises consist of special or idealized landmasses, seascapes, and culturescapes and more particularly the structures or buildings that serve as attractions, accommodations and amenities…some designed and built purposefully to attract visitors such as national parks, theme or amusement parks, aquariums, stadiums, museums, theatres… others that overtime have garnered a degree of fame or infamy, churches, castles, historic areas, battlegrounds, industrial, film and literary sites that stimulate curiosity and can serve to elucidate and educate. Then there are those amazing places, with some likened to UNESCO`s Biosphere Reserves that consist of core areas, buffer zones and transition areas.

Man-made premises have always relied on land (and water) on which to build and construct. Such use, however, often results in abuse to the natural environment. Whether they be woodlands, wetlands or near mountains, rivers, streams, lakes or oceans, all have been subjected to some degree of encroachment, alteration or destruction, leading us to recognize that it would be cavalier, brazen, inconsiderate, foolhardy or ignorant to dismiss how deleterious the impacts humans, and the pursuit of tourism, have been on our natural environment, as well as on our heritage, culture, traditions or “spirits of the past” as we plunder rather than honor and preserve.

In fact, by embracing more-than-human nature of tourism impacts, we give recognition to the fact that all species in their natural habitats need consideration when tourism is being developed, or when built environments alter and reconfigure the essence of an area, and attract clusters of crowds that surge and impinge on spaces and places, whether they be protected and fragile, sanctuaries or homes, communities, cities and regions, urban or rural, remote or resplendent.

If tourism development and its developers are to give considered attention to being and creating that which is considered to be “prodigious” (remarkable or impressive, inspiring amazement, or going beyond ordinary expectations) then it is incumbent on all of us to have a “hospitality heart” and be far more generous and considerate in doing what is “right”, especially in reference to local identities, dealing with our stakeholders and clientele, and what we are expected to know and do exceedingly well.

Trouble is our notion of doing what we think is “right” often gets in the way, or runs counter to, being generous and doing those things that serve us and our communities. Listen to Danny Meyer’s storied experiences as he reveals our tendencies as professionals to insist that we know what is best, what is right, i.e. “the irrelevancy of being right”.

Unfortunately, few of us involved in tourism and its development are well versed in knowing what is “right” for our communities, for our citizens and for all our fellow species…and what they regard as being “right”. Part of the problem arises when communities neglect to clarify the “why” for tourism. Nor do we set out to determine expectations as to how tourism should serve and contribute to our communities - the functional, emotional, social and life-affirming value we are expected to create, bolster and not diminish.

Certainly, most communities have enacted policies, bylaws, guidelines, rules, standards and zoning codes for the location, building and development of all sorts of premises or physical structures, but if communities and all sectors of the tourism industry are to do what is “right” they should be far more considerate in protecting their biodiversity (preserving their natural attractions), and recognize that all sustainability initiatives represent and bolster a community`s or destination`s competitive advantage. To this point, all communities should consider joining climate action networks, be literate and on the leading edge of communities responding to and doing their best to curtail the damage being caused by climate change and the excesses of development.

We may not think that such actions help make communities-as-destinations prodigious but such a starting point for setting the baseline for transformation through eco-innovation in the tourism sector is bound to be a gamechanger over the long run, not just for locating and positioning tourism enterprises and touristic activities, but for the processes associated with designing, building, constructing and operating in interdependent ways.

To captivate interest among existing and new enterprises, however, it is vital we educate owners, developers, financial institutions, insurance agencies, economic development agencies, mayors, DMOs, consultants and architects and undertake detailed analysis of the tangible and intangible costs/benefits, with reassurances that the intent is to create prodigious premises with presence, as well as to ease and fast-track (not stall) approvals once due diligence has been completed.

But herein lies a more contentious problem: Most businesses and communities seek efficiency gains at individual project levels which, in effect, result in diversity losses at collective or community levels. It is possible that many individuals may benefit from such improvements in efficiency, but in so doing the total space of ideas is bound to narrow. In this age of optimization, the major risk to communities-as-destinations has always been inadequacies in the creation and preservation of character and personality, including the collapse of distinctiveness and a decline in a whole range of cultural, social and life-affirming values within communities.

In offsetting and countering such problems destinations have utilized marketing and branding initiatives or AI generated “better prompting”, but these tend to fail when the underlying operational logic is virtually identical to those utilized by other destinations. Moreover, place or destination brands do not equate to visual identity, only to the accumulated substance of operational decisions – customer service protocols, staffing and training decisions, supplier and stakeholder relationships, pricing and revenue management models, and amenity/product/ service/experience trade-offs. Such decisions do not support the brand…they are the brand.

A destination`s success is never determined by performance metrics (visitor counts and expenditures) but by the multitude of decisions made over decades, many of which have been designed to reduce variance, remove friction, seek familiar patterns and proffer homogenization (as part of an optimization logic) rather than seek uniqueness, idiosyncratic friction or agitation (a character or personality logic) that is bound to extend destination lifecycles.

If individual destinations hope to stand out, be conspicuous and distinguishable, it is essential that the need for efficiency and optimization be scrutinized. Preservation of distinctiveness is not a task for chief marketing officers, but a leadership, governance and community prerogative. Marketing and destination branding cannot protect the community whenever the quest for operational efficiencies erases a brand`s structural differentiators.

Community and industry leaders are likely to govern more effectively when they determine the non-negotiable expressions of their character and determine where optimization might serve them and where it might harm them. It is not that communities or organizations fail to undertake such assessments, but that character or personality-bearing decisions rarely feel natural and are less likely to be visible…witness the proliferation of cookie-cutter architecture.

Making them distinct is the hard work that must be undertaken if communities and organizations hope to deepen character, protect the irreplaceable, identify market separation, and foster local identity. In other words, answering “who and what we are” is never a project with a completion date, it is and must be a permanent discipline.

The work to understand what the community-as-destination is or hopes to be, is determined by “what it does” and should represent a defense against the constant pressure to trade character for performance. In calling attention to this insight, I recommend that those in charge of community-based tourism development embrace a gardener`s instinct, mentality or logic.

Not that we are all gardeners but that we love gardens. For deep within us lies a garden (in my case, Uncle George`s gorgeous English garden). As intensely personal places, these landscapes (or vacationscapes) grow from a rich blend of ingredients – imagination (especially a moral imagination), memory, exposure, character, dreams, and plans - that combine in wonderful ways in our innermost selves.

Until retirement my inner garden remained hidden, save for brief glimpses during moments spent daydreaming. As with so many entrepreneurs, we long to turn our imaginative gardens or projects into outward gardens or realities

As a metaphor for the making of communities into destinations, our inward and outward gardens represent our personal and public paradise – beautiful places designed specifically to reveal the most positive and refreshing of landscapes, seascapes and regionalscapes. And so, why not our communities-as-destinations?

Obviously, gardening like any form of construction is arduous work. But by learning through our bodies as we build…through our minds as we ideate…through our hearts as we absorb the cultural traditions that surround us…we begin to understand what constitutes the soul of a garden (and community) …the attributes, qualities and aesthetics of design, variety and placement…places for relaxation, contemplation, and the realization of value from the projects that will justify the investment in creating prodigious outcomes.

Rather than plunking down buildings, gardening suggests that we opt for care in the planting of buildings. Gardens, though, are more than planted places. They are touchstones, repositories of memories that form places of joy or, in reference to tourism, also places of hospitality. In a sense gardens represent a state of mind. The very fact that people garden to make something thrive and grow suggests that we are obliged to interact with nature…to share…to find sanctuary…to heal…to honor the earth…to create a presence…to leave a mark.

As we garden, we take time to understand the land and landscape, the features, the visual and sensory imagery we want to create and blend into. It is about setting moods that depend and rely on the quality of light, color, sounds, scents, the peculiar characteristics and blending of plants, spatial combinations and utilization of special features and artistic expressions. Of course, we cannot ignore the governing determinants over which we have limited control -climatic zones, soil conditions, landforms, presence of water, and the supportive infrastructure.

The nature and purpose of any of a community`s premises, however, differ in that attention must be given to ensuring their overall functionality, productivity, and financial viability. So, they must be designed in ways that

(1) complement and perhaps exceed user and everyday requirements, even people’s expectations; (2) match but do not exceed the capabilities of those in charge; (3) entice patronage; (4) optimize capacity fulfillment throughout their tenure; (5) serve both the local and visitor needs of the communities or regions in question; (6) appeal to, charm, and attract the attention of influencers and decision-makers; (7) complement the needs of local businesses in specific neighborhoods and neighboring districts; and (8) build on the strengths that serve to advance the potential of, communities and regions as a whole.

Certainly, there are community, destination and industry leaders who assume responsibility for places by ensuring that the gamut of premises under their management or purview create and preserve character, have beauty and meaning. To many of us involved in hospitality and tourism, these individuals are our magic makers, storytellers (social horticulturists), and lovers of places.I Our communities, whether they be destinations or not, relish their passion and fortitude.

Through their efforts to help us engage, connect and reconnect with each other, and further ongoing attempts to foster place attachment, they do so knowing that our communities are in need of a renaissance in rituals…rituals that focus on the desire and absolute need to gather to be and live together in harmony By encouraging use of, and building on, the metaphor of gardens as places and settings in which we gather in peace, all of us can help start a related renaissance by developing a gardener`s instinct, mentality or logic.

Yes, it requires getting into the dirt. Dirt-gardeners are fierce workers known to devote many waking moments in the quest to find the right spot to plant a favorite delphinium or find the best organic deterrent for the Japanese beetle. On the other hand, and simultaneously, we can be mind-gardeners who delight in the setting of the stone, being happy in gardens that are elegantly simple and easy to maintain.

As place enthusiasts, gardeners desire to make all our settings as comforting, pleasant and rewarding as a garden…a desire that I have carried throughout my working career and leisurely pursuits. Recognition that all facilities – hotels, restaurants, conference halls, theatres, performing arts centers, visitor centers, streetscapes, parks, even parking garages – can be designed with creativity, sensation, style, fashion, mood, harmony, nature, shape, seasonality, musicality ecology, art, and delight in mind as well as in substance.

Communities are unlikely to become prodigious destinations if their commerciality disrupts the well-being and quality-of-life and all species …a tendency that occurs overtime due to a fixation on continuity and convergence (predominate through oligarchical power) as opposed to an openness regarding divergence or receptivity to new possibilities and pathways.

As Peabo Bryson and Regina Belle regale, we can be the creators of a whole new world. But it is a world in which new decisions must be made and precautions taken. Gardeners, for example, are alwsays anxious to experiment and create something new, while being vigilant about protecting what already exists…concerned about weeds, drought, pests, and how the growing patterns of plants, shrubs and trees evolves…recognizing that plants need breathing space and sometimes cannot abide the presence of certain species of other plants. Moreover, destinations like gardens require fertilization and pruning may be essential in promoting new growth, though there may also be a necessity for relocation or removal.

Despite understanding the feelings of what it is like to be considered an outsider, the citizens of communities strive to prevail when overwhelmed. As with gardeners, their displeasure is on display when visitors are deemed invasive. In such circumstances it is hard to be resilient and difficult to maintain a stiff upper lip and carry on. But this is rarely the case when planners and officials decide to subject their citizens to arbitrary removal (displacement) for the sake of beautifying, renewal or gentrification of their abodes and neighborhoods.

In such cases, the relevancy of “the irrelevancy of being right” couldn’t be more germane as the consequences can be dire. To this point, communities-as-destinations need to be divergent in their thinking, and approach tourism development as a journey of discovery. As the Persian poet, Rumi wrote, “The outward garden should be a reflection of the inward garden”.

The intent of beautification should never be to create a luxury tourism market or to prioritize big spenders or promote narcissistic tendencies, but to foster a sense of purpose, dignity, elegance and respect for all….to bring a sense of enjoyment, calm, beauty and presence to all…to open up the community as a metaphorical garden to all…to make community and destination leaders receptive and responsive to the needs of everyone whether they seek solace and tranquility, excitement and vibrancy.

As gardeners, our task is to do what matters and will endure. With moral imagination informing our inner garden, we can translate our wisdom and insights into and throughout our settings and buildings…presenting them as vibrant external gardens deserving of public praise and love that emanates from our natural environment and those who truly demonstrate care for our communities-as-destinations.

Through carefully conceived and well-located settings and buildings, at events and festivities, in theatres and on the streets, at daytime and nighttime, and with safety, security and oversight in mind, with accessibility and (green) infrastructure solidly in place, we garden and develop for each other, for the roses, for the grandiosity and generosity of being simply and genuinely hospitable…performing for today, transforming for tomorrow.

Tourism revolves around the ideals of leisure time and pleasurable activities and pastimes that provide the essential opportunities for life satisfaction, joy, personal development, social interaction, corporate and community engagement. Communities bringing people together for “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

While work and economic progress remains the center of our cultures, it is amazing to discover how corporations utilize and are reliant on leisure (through paid vacation time, industry conferences, retreats, workplace benefits, corporate wellness partnerships, bleisure and workations) and how it is being woven into the fabric of many places of employment…even though work, for some people, can be as much a source of meaning, reward, liberation and pleasure, as does leisure.

In an age of accelerated organizational upheaval, however, it is refreshing to learn how many corporate leaders take their leisure seriously and recognize how it facilitates not just the ability to remain focused but the desire to learn, adapt and succeed. By managing time, energy and attention more efficiently, many incorporate leisure and recreation in their own lives, as well through functional accoutrements in workplace environments. One would think, therefore, that the hospitality and tourism sectors would be keener to take advantage of the numerous benefits of doing so:

· the desire to boost morale,

· foster initiative and innovation,

· improve relations with visitors and stakeholders,

· increase productivity and creativity,

· reduce stress and burnout,

· improve mental health,

· foster team cohesion,

· enhance employee retention,

· attract top talent,

· advance and reform workplace culture

Why then do the hospitality and tourism industries - the stalwart supporters of the leisure economy – seem reluctant to promote, endorse and utilize it intelligently and internally? Certainly, well-being is recognized as being an important market segment but, by virtually ignoring the leisure needs of their employees, they are more likely to mismanage what Jan Carlson called moments of truth – determined not only by how well organizations excel at all aspects of service but by being customer-oriented, employee-empowered, while steadily accumulating a high degree of influence and trust.

Sadly, while creating desirable work/life balance represents a priority for virtually everybody, it continues to be on the wane. The transactional demands of enterprises operating on a 24/7 basis are inescapable and (when linked to demands for profitability and productivity) are likely to lead to burnout, even for those privileged to travel the world through employment.

Perhaps because travel these days has lost its glamor (less so for the super-rich who may not depend on public transport)…travel that adds to life’s frustrations and expenses, and consumes an enormous amount of personal time, energy and money…a complaint made by my stepdaughter who, out-of-necessity, makes many quick turnaround trips to the USA, China, Cambodia and France and arrives home totally exhausted and in need of rest and relaxation…even vacation, which comes laden with its own travails and time-consuming travel components. Thank heaven she and her husband have developed a passion (and make time) for cycling and the desire to keep fit, healthy and happy.

Travel, despite its essentiality and benefits, has come to represent a misplaced pursuit (fraught as it is with delays, snafus, risks, capacity limitations, unfair revenue management systems) leading to feelings of anxiety rather than contentment. Though I recall my youthful self on outings in my Austin Healey 3000 roaming along scenic country roads feeling free, at peace.

As these and other engaging experiences have taught me, the most satisfying of leisure pursuits reside in seeking contentment, satisfying our curiosity especially through the discovery of `moments of being` - those captivating engagements that are all-consuming, poignant and occasionally transcendent … engagements and experiences that bring about an astute awareness of self and others…the rationale for community-based tourism as revealed in Planeterra’s 2025 Impact Report, that should include all types and sizes of communities as they could be developing tourism in more personalized and forthright community-centered ways.

As the opening photo (at the Savoy) highlights, imagine being invited to move and dance…dance that provides multisensory pulsating moments for inclusivity, connectivity and joy. There are few other leisurely activities as delightful, for dance directs us to learn, observe and execute, as do certain songs that stir our souls...e.g. Hey Jude (quite the story about how music can find you). While such moments are not to be found in all touristic activities, the possibilities should never be dismissed.

Such rarity suggests that we may be giving insufficient attention to the essentiality of realizing not just the importance associated with what are often serendipitous ‘moments of encounter’ but the know-how that needs to be given to understanding (deeply understanding) how destinations and visitor-serving enterprises can uncover and take advantage of the hidden value of face-to-face engagement and multitude of any community’s resource offerings (often obscure) that correspond with connectivity and value that people seek, identify with, and crave.

By cultivating, promoting and encouraging cultural inclusion and immersion, for example, communities-as-destinations are more likely to foster involvement, engagement, acceptance, and the possibilities for uncovering truths leading to introspection, all of which illuminate and decipher life-affirming value and optimum states of performance. After all, if tourism is about nullifying the notion of intrusion (not entitlement), then we must become more intentional in catering to those visitors who are dedicated to pursuing the value they covet, can access, fully comprehend and realize – the basis for connection, collective meaning, a sense of belonging.

So, wherein is the problem? In tourism today we have fallen into the trap of thinking that all experiences lead to `moments of being`. But with so many experiences being homogeneous and indistinguishable from those offered by others, all aspects of uniqueness, personalization and exceptionalism disappear, along with the ecstasy associated with more profound feelings.

As for those few enlightened companies and communities that set out and attempt to purposefully help their clientele realize `moments of being`, it is fascinating to learn that they seem to share some things in common. All accept the need to be shrewd and savvy in determining the essence of their clientele’s leisure interests, designing and curating their offerings in ways that allure, inspire and gratify…often through the magic of surprise.

Recognized as being permissionless organizations, they know they must invest in their employees and citizenry and ensure they have agency to create and make on-the-spot decisions that will provide the conditions for achieving and realizing the value and values desired by all, their clientele, their own organization and community.

In attempts to create and deliver `moments-of-value` these organizations realize that it is insufficient merely to challenge themselves to master certain practices to drive continuous improvement. Tourism, wherever it takes place, is a collaborative affair; therefore, these illustrious organizations feel entitled to develop partnerships and relationships with affiliates, counterpoint organizations, and communities they serve. They do so, knowing they must

· Posit optimism and the merits of meritocracy that will regain faith in the future.

· Demonstrate those practices focused on energizing the creation of trust and value for all.

· Work with others to explore what constitutes value and how it is assessed by multiple visiting publics citizens, and organizations.

· Build cultures of continuous learning, curiosity and intellectual humility…activities essential for everyone within the hospitality and tourism workforce - the force within the force - including students.

· Constantly work on things that yield new insights, learning and growth.

· Make it safe to try things.

· Reward intelligent risks, even if outcomes do not work out.

· Make curiosity among everyone contagious.

· Create partnerships and teams that remain open, cooperative, adaptive and committed.

· Meet regularly and guide discussions toward problems that need solving.

· Model high standards, spot roadblocks and identify where the next improvement comes from…share responsibility and encourage further collaboration.

· Make feedback safe and as a form of support that facilitates growth and avoids micromanagement.

· Ensure that all aspects of work do matter, appear meaningful, and contribute to moving people, partnerships and communities forward together.

In the realm of being extraordinary in their field of endeavor, one might point to Ritz Carlton Hotels and Resorts, particularly through their service recovery initiatives that have impacts on making customers feel special. However, does this initiative demonstrate or fully explain `moments of truth` and the power it can have on creating social and life-affirming value?

Certainly, it is a step in the right direction when things go awry; however, value that has the propensity to create ‘moments of being’ comes from immediate fulfillment, effortless returns, and feeling-induced experiences tailored precisely to extreme positives. Only then can organizations and communities expect to propel continuous engagement, loyalty, devotion and the stratospheric performance that they covet.

Unfortunately, most communities face a conundrum when trying to become successful destinations. Out of necessity, communities pour considerable time, money and effort to provide the necessary infrastructure, facilities and resources to attract developers and entrepreneurs and make them feel as if the investment climate is inviting and intriguing.

Once achieved and grounded, they set about capitalizing on the opportunities provided by the physical resource base of communities. In collaboration with local and regional DMOs they direct their strategic initiatives to achieving favorable returns on their investments. Though such a normalized sequence of events is likely to intensify interest and visitation, there are no guarantees that the experiences on offer will result in visitors having `moments of being`.

The reason: all out efforts are focused on filling stadiums, theatres, hotels, festivals, events, convention halls and hotels. Through reliance on the numerous sales, marketing and branding initiatives, and loyalty programs, most communities usually achieve a suitable response. Even with all the things to do and see in place, and the AIDA dictate achieved, we need to ask: What happens during and after such action is taken? Infrastructure does not animate itself.

Many organizations and communities may think they are doing their best when visitor volumes increase. They may rely on customer or visitor satisfaction scores to determine success, but if they ignore the need to determine what is hurting them (by removing pain points) or fail to determine whether visitors or clients have achieved their goals or objectives, they are unlikely to endure and may miss opportunities to innovate or make course corrections. Furthermore, while most believe that the quality of their offerings, services and experiences is up to par, does `up-to-par` suffice? In highly competitive environments the answer is a deliberate no…never.

With continuous exposure to, and experience with, multitudes of other businesses, organizations and destinations, customers become increasingly smarter about optionality and choice. Over time certain communities fall out of favor, visitors grow impatient and annoyed at those communities and organizations who fail to maintain (facilities), adapt or innovate. Indeed, communities cannot afford to ignore the disruptive power of extreme positives of competitive destinations or organizations, wherever they exist, particularly as the tedium, monotony and dullness of what once was acceptable becomes unsuitable or unbearable.

Many organizations and destinations will do their best to avoid any obvious downsides (disappointments and deleterious feelings), but I have often wondered whether sufficient effort is being put into seeking less obvious, but vitally important upsides.

In examining this point, renewed attention needs to be focused on what our customers and visitors are most passionate about… what pulls them toward what they love and have extremely positive feelings about...the plethora of leisurely pursuits and pastimes that animate and inspire…what they want to do, feel, and accomplish from their pursuits.

In the realm of all pastimes, most people may not realize it, but aficionados comprise what could be termed passion communities. Sadly, too few communities as destinations appreciate this fact and have not realized the potential of using their citizenry, local groups, clubs and volunteers to attract these passion communities, even linking their place identity to these pastimes and hobbies – an essential way to build connectivity and touristic activities.

An obvious way is to connect has always been through sports. One worldwide passion that is definitively on the radar and television screens these days is football (soccer) with the 2026 FIFA Cup tournament taking place in Mexico, USA and Canada. With the tag line and premise that “football unites the world”, it is enlightening how sports, in general, have become a major driver of tourism even when not all may be well with the fanatical mobility of fandom.

It hurts, however, when a major leisure, recreational and spectator activity operates under a cloud of suspicion and political interference. As such, FIFA deserves a Red Card for sportswashing and delivering what has become a politically combustible and polluting event. Amazing how such a leisurely passion can simultaneously provide intense `moments of being` yet be subjected to `moments of truth` that can be troubling…witness the price gouging and the hotel industry’s out-of-control revenue management systems that explain why hosting major events can be a bust, which serve to override the efforts some destinations, such as Vancouver, undertake in order to be regarded as marvelous hosts.

On the other hand, it is the attentiveness to the power of community sports that offers more virtuous insights into the creation of `moments of being`. As father to a son that excelled at sports, I came to realize how effective sports are in driving inclusion and social cohesion; encouraging civic engagement; bringing communities together; fostering mutual respect; and providing a sense of belonging while reducing social inequalities.

Watching him play during his `moments of being` were intense because he was so fixated on the game or whatever goal he was determined to reach. His participation and involvement in sports even had a huge impact on his career success and passion for teaching…heading up his school`s athletic program whereby he helped his young students develop the skills that allowed them to win more city (Toronto) sporting championships than any other school. `Moments of being` realized by his students who utilize these skills (especially teamwork) in life.

As activities encouraging community engagement, sports are exemplary of multiple pastimes, passions and pursuits that can be utilized to help stimulate touristic activity through invitations to compete or play. It is just not that such a wide range of activities and hobbies have broad appeal across cultures and socio-economic groups but that they prompt adventure seeking, stimulate curiosity and, thereby encourage travel and tourism…especially social tourism.

As another example, my mother turned her love of antiques into a business that required travel to antique fairs or areas of different countries where she expected to find hidden treasures. I recall numerous occasions when those experiences turned into exciting and engaging `moments of being`. Her savviness and business acumen grew to the point whereby numerous clients sought her out, traveling sizable distances to do so.

In this search for the best, culinary evangelists will also wax eloquently about festival and farmer markets, as well as those restaurants whose menus highlight fresh, local ingredients and feature unique flavors, textures or cultural specialties. Because many of our fondest memories are food related, we will travel far and wide to savor the delights of flavors and textures (not necessarily gastronomical) as well as wine, spirits and special items. Over time, reputations are gained or lost based on the degree to which curation, specialization, and hospitality are consistently remarkable (even if manifested in the most elemental of ways) and necessary resource reallocations are made where and when necessary. .

Whatever their interest or pursuit, everyone takes their leisure pursuits seriously, not just leaders who are committed to mastering and coping with incessant demands and complexity of their work. In fact, when leisure pursuits are divorced from work, the consequences are likely to be disastrous: Workaholism, work stress and burnout become inevitable, especially as physical and mental health slide into decline, causing many family/organizational/community lives to implode.

So, it is helpful when communities implement robust plans for their downtowns, parks and recreational resources. Community leisure resources, however, extend far beyond their physicality. Meaningful and vibrant social infrastructures are essential for a community`s citizens, so it helps when a community`s public spaces are acclaimed, visitors are welcomed and feel free to roam, relax and participate in a community’s regular pursuits.

My wife, for example, is an avid bridge player. While sitting in Benito Juarez Park in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, she met a local lady who invited her to play at her bridge club. Well, that experience developed into lasting friendships, a more fulsome introduction into the cultural life of the town, and time for me to engage in bronze sculpting. All of which led to a string of return visits making San Miguel our getaway haven that, over the years, has created the most memorable `moments of being`.

`Moments of being` that allow citizens to play multiple roles as participants, recipients, contributors and hosts. For therein lies the power (once unlocked) for everyone to stay engaged whether in outdoor, artisanal or cultural pursuits, After all, a community’s resourcefulness and perseverance in helping visitors engage in their pastimes and passions and pursuits – reading. golf, photography, hiking, shopping, birding, relaxing - represent the ultimate litmus test as to whether social and life-affirming value is achieved.

Now, communities can establish and reveal who they are, particularly through ongoing and seasonal festivals and events through their transformative power - meeting and greeting, weaving together traditions, rituals, and communal celebrations (despite some risks) that reflect the rich tapestry of human culture and nature’s bounty. When properly planned and designed to evolve in ways that create legacies, positive social, cultural and economic impacts, communities bring their leisure orientations to fruition, particularly as partnerships between local stakeholders materialize and place identity is given a boost.

Finally as we close out, it is fine to take an adult view when catering to people’s leisure time, but communities and visitor-serving enterprises should be excoriated if they fail to appreciate the necessity for orienting more of their attention toward the needs of children and their need for play, informal interaction and leisure. After all, there is a vast array of leisure possibilities available in all communities, especially when communities and the outdoors are utilized as classrooms offering genuine `moments of truth`, ‘moments of engagement` and “moments of being’.

Now, with summer upon us, let’s make time for dancing in the streets, finding our own natural rhythm without ever allowing the thrill to be gone!

Time for pause and reflection.

I did not fashion the initial theme of Destinations-in-Action, Mind your Ps and Qs, to be a word game, to be flippant or for me to appear as a wise guy. Rather my intention was to open-up minds and encourage curiosity. There may have been a madness to my aim but allow me to explain and provide some clarity about the terminology and vocabulary.

MIND – as you will note from the thesaurus, this word has multiple meanings as both a noun and a verb. Utilized as a suggestion, it means to pay attention to, heed, take care of, and protect.

The outcomes from tourism in many communities virtually flow from the bottom-up or individual actions of a community’s citizens, visitor-serving organizations and are seemingly beyond control. While many communities operate visitor bureaus and DMOS, their singular top-down priority is the management of demand rather than the essentiality of being concerned about communities as destinations…their ability to thrive and prosper.

In other words, there is a need to be attentive to a wide range of interests, concerns, values, ideas and ideals associated with stakeholders especially in reference to their communities. If communities-as-destinations are to assume responsibility for taking conscientious ”Action” then inaction or inertia needs to be amended.

By focusing on issues associated with the leadership of communities-as-destinations I started to wonder: What are the Ps and Qs that leaders should be more attentive to, if they are to:

· Determine and clarify the ‘why’ of tourism.

· Deliver what communities-as-destinations want tourism to be, to do.

· Develop the concepts, capabilities and connections that will allow everyone to succeed.

· Demonstrate outcome-oriented, result-based leadership appropriate for communities.

· Build pathways to resilience as the foundation to achieving sustainable prosperity?

· Create community shared value that delivers meaningful returns for and to communities.

· Design communities that create beautiful experiences and places for hosts and guests

· Abolish deleterious policies and practices, and revitalize the degradation of place.

· Ensure transparency and accountability.

· Succeed in undertaking ground-breaking transformations.

As I contemplated these issues and concerns, it occurred to me that the most important concepts started with a P or a Q…

Purpose

Principles

Promises

Pride and passion for place

People-centricity

As for the Qs, three stood out,

Quality

Quantity

Quintessential queries (part 1 of a 4-part series)

If you have not read these articles it may be useful to do so, as these essential Ps and Qs have now developed a life of their own. In undertaking the research and thinking further about other Ps and Qs, it occurred to me that if communities-as-destinations were to be led and managed in ways that mattered and were meaningful, then those who assume leadership roles need to draw upon and instantaneously access knowledge and ideas from many sources…hence the reason for all the links and the corresponding need to write long-form exposés. Revelations cannot be reduced to sound bites!

Indeed, as marketers, all DMOs are familiar with their own 4 Ps and Qs (product, place, price, promotion). In reference to hospitality and tourism, however, Alastair Morrison proposed that the list be expanded to include another 4 obvious Ps (people, partnership, packaging, programming) for a total of 8. This may be basic Marketing 101 stuff, but as we all know, the real test comes from how well these concepts are understood and applied…a task that requires intense preparation for undertaking deep dives into the contextual requirements of all communities-as-destinations.

From the inception of this blog, however, there was no intention for Destinations-in-Action to be focused on place or destination branding and marketing. Though, as marketers know only too well, marketing`s Ps are complex, intertwined and can only be understood in contextually relevant, inclusive, adaptive and nuanced ways.

Whether you know little about marketing or are an experienced pro, nobody can afford to ignore the need for and the power of marketing. They represent dominant and well-funded activities. Unfortunately, in some circles, there is disdain for marketing`s dominance, overt commerciality and growth (at-all-cost) orientation. Based on the location, touristic activities can seem overwhelming, a situation that riles some citizens especially when value and the ideals and concepts of community are seemingly being undermined by tourism.

In light of these concerns, destination branding and marketing need further clarification and more expansive interpretations. To this end I offer Seth Godin’s answer to the question: What is marketing? (Listen intently to what is being said and, if short on time, start the interview at the 8:40 minute mark).

In being mindful about our communities-as-destinations, everyone is anxious to make tourism work. As I state in the article, Destination Leaders, Mind your Ps and Qs, I offer this snippet:

“We all want our communities-as-destinations to excel. To do so, the approach to leading and managing them differs from the ways in which we manage our individual businesses, organizations or communities. Because tourism affects the lives and livelihoods of most citizens, including all aspects of community life, we must manage and govern them in ways that are good for the community, as well as for our individual organizations and industry sectors.

When stated this way, leading and managing tourism as a cluster (or non-cluster) begins by acknowledging that a destination’s success is dependent on its relational interdependencies …recognition that what the other does, or does not do, affects everyone. Hence the urgency to learn and develop a more realistic culture of growth (not solely performance obsessed) that necessitates a harmonious co-existence and seeks to build and enhance a community’s capabilities.

In this sense, the management of communities-as-destinations requires a convivial approach that fosters and achieves a ‘co-becoming’ of communities-as-destinations. A form of cluster leadership that values engagement, collaboration, innovation, and adaptation (for example, through catalytic specialization and civic entrepreneurialism) …all processes requiring the involvement of key stakeholders and leaders focused on building and strengthening everyone’s potential…everyone desiring and preferring to learn from their peers and mentors.

While these and related topics are subjects for far-reaching, future discussions within Destinations-in-Action and its Networks, they do alter and broaden our appreciation for what’s known as ‘executive presence’ - the characteristics of exemplary leaders (as revealed in the book Inner Mastery, Outer Impact) that can make a difference and undo indifference.

A presence that reminded me of my mother’s plea: Michael, “Mind your Ps and Qs”. A quaint notion that seems like a throwback to earlier generations, but more appropriate today than ever. Why? It’s not that leaders neglect the importance of manners, etiquette, and their obligations, responsibilities to the common good, but that greater emphasis has to be put on how leaders and organizations should behave and ‘present’ themselves as hosts and guardians.

The movers-and-shakers of our communities-as-destinations who need and want to eradicate their depiction as “chaos-makers”, seeking preference for being and becoming purveyors of hope and excellence. Trying not only to rebuild their companies as communities, but to help re-invigorate and re-vitalize the very communities in which they operate and serve. Leaders and managers making the effort to strengthen their community’s social infrastructures, taking their civic duties seriously.”

Obviously, all of you share an interest and involvement in tourism and appreciate its significance to and within our communities, the surrounding regional areas or throughout countries. This applies as well as for individual citizens, organizations, institutions, the hosting public and, of course, for visitors themselves…the people we invite to partake of what we offer.

I know you fully appreciate and understand the challenges facing communities as they grapple with trying to manage tourism. But herein lies the conundrum: These challenges have to be managed and resolved, yet too few appreciate the notion and tasks of managing in the way that Henry Mintzerg describes it. Read the article and based on your experience, reflect on what in practice individuals, organizations, leaders, managers and DMOs do, fail to do, or more realistically, do incorrectly or insensitively.

In furthering your understanding of management as applied to tourism in your community, this Mintzberg insight might provide a glimmer of hope:

“Known as the guru of bottom-up management, Mintzberg broke with convention by actually going inside companies to witness the business of business. Revealing how strategy is really formulated, he shows here that successful strategy is rarely, if ever, born in solitary contemplation; rather, the elements usually come together in the heat of battle. In addition, Mintzberg identifies the keys to outstanding management. He begins by describing the good manager who successfully combines interpersonal, informational, and decision-making roles.

However, effectiveness in management, as Mintzberg demonstrates, depends not only on a manager’s embodiment of these necessary qualities, but also his or her insight into their own work. Performance depends on how well he (she) understands and responds to the pressures and dilemmas of the job.

As Mintzberg illustrates, it is often the case that job pressures can drive a manager to be superficial in his actions -- to overload himself with work, encourage interruption, respond quickly to every stimulus, avoid the abstract, make decisions in small increments, and do everything abruptly. The effective manager surmounts the pressures of superficiality by stepping back in order to see a broad picture and making use of analytical inputs.

Keeping his focus on how real companies work, Mintzberg challenges traditional assumptions and answers from the grass roots level with such essential questions as “How do organizations function and structure themselves?....How do their power relations develop and their goals form?” And “by what processes do managers make important strategic decisions?”

If fascinated with his insights, you will find his new book, Rebalancing Society, relevant to managing many of the issues communities-as-destinations are grappling with. After all, you cannot escape the fact that a wide range of people within communities, regions and countries shape and determine tourism`s reality…and determine the benefits and costs associated with its social, cultural, economic and environmental impacts.

Put another way, whatever is happening and transpiring, destinations are constantly in a state of action. I say this not simply to note the rationale behind this blog, Destinations-in-Action, but to alert you to the fact that managing (as acts of planning, strategizing, controlling) could be out of control, misplaced, ineffective, inactive, or not in evidence due to camouflage, concealment or covertness.

At country and regional levels, various facets of Mintzberg`s ideas on management will definitely be in evidence. Within small- to medium-sized communities, however, constrained and limited mandates, tight budgets and inadequate tourism office staffing requirements are more likely to be the norm.

While the rewards from small town tourism can be substantial, the managerial activities in local tourism offices tend to be focused on one of marketing`s Ps (promotion) with emphasis on communicating local amenities and assets. And yet their challenges can be as momentous, if not more so when compared to more prominent destinations. Other reasons: seasonality, insufficient industry diversification, accessibility and accommodation restrictions.

Scan the titles in the blog and you will get an idea as to many of the issues that require rectification, remedy and reform. Now who is going to undertake the job of doing so? Clearly, those people who have the inclination, power, authority, insight, and knowledge to do so. These days no one can ignore the need to improve the leadership and management of communities-as-destinations, but it is in short supply as few have the necessary civic expertise and competencies matched with operational and lived experience.

Traditionally the path to managerial value has run through functional depth – building expertise in marketing, operations, finance, human resources… These days, however, I would argue that the P and the Q that matter more are Perspicuity (clarity and coherence) and Quintessence (essentiality). Now, as far as communities-as-destinations are concerned, the essentiality of providing clarity and coherence needs explanation.

No industry leaders and managers can function effectively without a full grasp of a destination`s strategic logic…one that works as a filter for the daily judgments and decisions as well as for communicating with others – colleagues, partners, teams, citizens – so that they too can connect their own work and responsibilities with the strategic logic that clarifies tourism`s purpose, the principles to be upheld and the promises that are being made.

Obviously, everything has to be checked against external realities: how tourism markets are evolving; what the community can continue to do well as a destination; how value propositions are changing or need to change; the degree to which destinations are delivering on the visitor experience; whether government policies are making it easier or harder to attract investment, encourage start-ups, and find talented employees; the ability to remain resilient, sustainable and regenerative, etc.

The cost of fuzzy direction is rising. When every leader or manager understands and minds their Ps and Qs, communities-as-destinations are more likely to become and remain winners…winners that express exuberance, positivity and vivacity…the ability to hold and maintain a direction against the proliferation of plausible alternatives and misadventures that can misdirect and lead to distrust.

(Please read Part 1 of this article first)

Based on your own experiences and travels I am sure you would agree that tourism astonishes and is more productive for everyone when…

· Communities become and remain compelling

· Hospitality becomes and remains inspiring

· Value becomes and remains shared

· Sustainability becomes and remains comprehensive

· Innovation becomes and remains collaborative.

Based on the following brief excerpts from my e-book Astonish! I encourage you to rethink and reconceptualize the notion of productivity based on your own personal experiences.

Compelling communities. “Communities become compelling when the coherent presence, identity, critical mass, flourishes, ornamentation, emotional effects, landmarks, activity centers, attractions, and places of natural beauty (outdoors) of communities compel visitation…I’ll take you there.”

Think about the role placemaking plays in making tourism and destinations more productive…productivity that encourages everyone to become enthused.

Inspiring hospitality. “At its most basic, hospitality is more than “how to win friends and influence people” or the art of diplomacy. It is the complex embodiment of life’s pleasures - gathering in friendly, safe and comfortable places; experiencing camaraderie and true affection; being provided with nourishment, accommodation, and signature comforts and amenities in congenial ways - all of which accentuate the senses and provide experiences that lift spirits and touch hearts. With a commitment to generosity and goodwill, politeness and grace, the goal of hospitality is a richly elaborated life - a nurturing of being, beauty, restraint, joy, and relationships.”

Think about how we treat and behave towards others and how the attitudes and behaviors of people make destinations more productive…peoples’ spirits lifted.

Comprehensive sustainability. “It seems that industry advocacy for sustainability and regeneration has to be brought to bear on curtailing the squandering and destruction of scarce resources and capital (social, cultural and natural, economic and monetary, human and intellectual) particularly when demand-side driven and stressful seasonal surges may require de-marketing, changes to ad campaigns, imposition of tourist taxes, changes to consumer behavior, seasonal/permanent closures, reservation and pricing programs, dispersion techniques, tourist site protection funds, optimizing vehicle travel, and infrastructure plans.

And yet, care must be taken as tourism represents a vital economic sector (reliant on development and the financial sustainability of many small to medium-sized enterprises that draw sustenance from a wide range of community resources) giving rise to trade-offs regarding types of “growth”, determination of “full growth”, carrying capacity, and other compromises.”

As the means of honoring, cherishing and protecting everything we value, doesn’t sustainability add immeasurably to helping ensure tourism and communities-as-destinations become more productive and content?

Shared value. “Comprehensive sustainability represents an interesting segue into the notion of shared value. Whereas sustainability regales us to be regenerative-by-design, to discover solutions or approaches to rectifying humanity’s value crisis and the depletion of value, and to finding better ways to conserve our scarce and fragile resources (natural, cultural, human, financial, and social), shared value demands we ensure that all participants or stakeholders sharing space in communities-as-destinations enjoy equal opportunities to derive and generate value from travel and tourism activities – in other words, tourism as redistributive, inclusive, and integrated by design.

With tourism often demonized for breaking its social contract, it isn’t at all surprising to find some communities questioning their tolerance for, and acceptance of, “others” (customers as well as capitalists from away). As a problem exacerbated by practices that are perceived as unfair, leading to the economic, social and cultural marginalization (inequality) of some groups of people, more communities-as-destinations are showing concern by protecting peoples’ human rights, and openly promoting their diversity.

Efforts to address the problem through multicultural or inter-cultural policies offers some hope for tourism to be a central player by building upon foundational cultural policies prevalent in cities and by calling for more astute cultural awareness training. Opening hearts and minds requires taking the first step (first contact) through a variety of approaches, revealed not just through distinctive foods and food-ways, well-established in cities through food festivals (Toronto à la carte), and the exuberance of their restaurant scenes, but far more importantly by progressing from poverty to empowerment raising the bar for sustainable and inclusive growth.”

While avoiding value migration or destruction, isn`t the equitable creation and capture of value for all stakeholders a fundamentally essential and productive undertaking? Simultaneously, everyone becoming better off, economically, emotionally, socially, culturally, naturally and life-affirmingly.

Collaborative innovation. “Don Tapscott’s reference to the murmuring masses of winged starlings (over a rainforest) epitomizes tourism’s greatest leverage: Uplifting residents, visitors, and tourism’s talent pool around ideals and original ideas for improving people’s well-being and joie de vivre. It’s not that the desire for, and promise of, “compelling communities”, “inspired hospitality”, “comprehensive sustainability”, and creation of new and “shared value” will go a long way in helping restore the promise of tourism as an aspirational force for innovation, astonishment and progress, but that each can act as a form of inspiration to imagine and seek new opportunities and problems to solve. It’s what great innovators do as they break down the barriers and build the habits and routines of innovation.

Such transformative undertakings require an unparalleled industry-wide commitment to re-imagine and identify the needs that arise from crises (e.g. COVID-19), resulting in synergistic innovation, which when combined with the power of progress and the “courage to lead” can create regional advantage through collective learning and territorial differentiation (as revealed by Visit England).

Such efforts signal the need to alter business models (Airbnb, for example), encourage growth mindsets and the inherent “power of yet” that capitalize on the motivators that drive innovation. When supported through collaborative, triaged opportunities, and diplomacy (in conflicting innovation spheres), they allow organizations and communities to close achievement gaps (demonstrated through the Urban Innovation Centre, and their Catapult Future Cities initiative, and explained in the book Co-Cities – Innovative Transitions)…one of the reasons Tourism Innovation Labs and start-up incubators (e.g. Montreal’s tourism related MT Lab) are gaining traction, so long as they help people and organizations escape engrained process mentalities that can obstruct innovation.

While many organizations or communities contemplate design-for-change initiatives, innovative capability gaps and barriers cannot help but exist between the careful selection of ideas, their design, implementation, diffusion, and continuation. Then there is the need for teaming and making sure good ideas don’t get lost. With so many organizations and communities content simply to tinker with improvement goals, full-scale understanding of, and commitment to, innovation and experience design tends to be lacking, especially when attempting to balance their introduction with the demands for achieving and maintaining service consistency.”

Is it not time we re-imagined how collaborative innovation (fusion at scale) could become the transformative engine that will lead to more productive communities-as-destinations? Building back better.

Collectively we can make tourism more valuable, useful, and productive for communities-as-destinations. As chief operating officers of major enterprises know only too well, their ability to deliver on organizational strategies depends to a large degree on improving productivity, how it can be reconceived and made realizable in humanistic and `can do` ways, in search of preferable outcomes, not simply the quantification of outputs compared to inputs…similarly for improving operating margins while avoiding the risks of over-optimization.

Let us be assured: Tourism’s approach to productivity must become and represent a more righteous and respectful way of being and living (becoming an untypical industry) to which we must live up to.

We cannot afford to back down.

Typical tourism enterprises do their best when they compete (survive and thrive) through welcoming strategies that provide friendly and proficient service, in clean surroundings, through the offering of good quality products and services tailored to meet the requirements, needs, and immersive experiences of specific individuals and market segments.

While productivity may be defined as output per hour of labor, that is hard to determine in reference to tourism because the outputs associated with joy, happiness, and life-experiences can be ephemeral, hard to determine and measure.

To my mind productivity has more to do with maintaining our humanity…and doing so by managing for value which includes enhancing the quality of a full range of inputs (especially the trust and fairness among employees and consumers) and how they coalesce and interact in relation to improving the highly personal needs and requirements of stakeholders and the communities they serve.

As I see it, determination of productivity in hospitality and tourism (within communities) ignores, at their peril, the value hierarchy that is inspired through the quality of its inputs including the efforts and commitments made by volunteers, the citizens of a community and the sponsorship support provided by so many astute public, private and plural organizations…all of whom contribute to giving communities their soul, turning them into inviting and competitive destinations.

In this light it is unproductive, if not counter-productive, to produce those things or services that are not needed or wanted…those things and services that are wasteful, dangerous, and unhealthy…those things and services that waste people’s time and efforts.

Indeed, everything done (or ignored) to improve evolutionary and economic productivity at community or micro levels exponentially affects the planetary or macro level. Stated in a dire way, human civilization threatens the life support functions generated by global ecosystems. As referenced in prior articles, it has ushered in an era of converging crises: climate change, ecological destruction, disease, pollution, habitat degradation, poverty, famine, migration, and socioeconomic inequality. If these crises are to be resolved surely everyone needs a seat at the welcome table, don’t they?

As a symbol of inclusion and cooperation hospitality and tourism leaders and operators can be more welcoming and choose to go beyond the basics of decision-making. Yes, it is a matter of differentiating through the design and unique conceptualization of more localized, place-based surroundings and provision of more personalized service and innovative experiences, but it must be done so in ways that align operational mandates within place-based economies that are truly democratic, practice asset-based community development and economic nutrition. The intention: To shift the value proposition from operational excellence to human and community intimacy by offering and delivering the specific outcomes and the democratization of quality-of-life (QoL) that all visitors and citizens desire.

Out of necessity, all businesses chase high-level financial objectives – return on investment and earnings. To this end, some form of growth is always sought. Frequently it arises or is required when strategies and investments become more intentionally focused on unique activities that deliver a mix of functional, emotional, social and life-affirming values that serve to increase customer and stakeholder loyalty in core categories.

And yet, while it has been said that “cities and communities represent the salient entity for solving problems”, too many communities suffer from “fiscal incontinence, supply side urbanism, and often forget that the seasonal and cyclical demand side leaves cities spending more for less” – outcomes particularly evident when cities lack a salient proposition and/or tourism related organizations are not in alignment due to confusion, conflicting priorities and stalled execution.

Regardless, no business, industry or country (as detailed in this OECD report) can escape the need to deliver on operational effectiveness, though it can be undermined in other ways:

· When managers, above all else, prioritize frugality.

· When adversities, a lack of maintenance, and the deterioration of assets are allowed to proliferate.

· When built-in inefficiencies, incompetencies and complacencies exist.

· When leaderships skills are not updated to bridge the digital-human divide.

· When operational budgets undermine or kill organizational and destination strategies.

· When insufficient consideration is given to the feelings of people at work and in communities.

· When transformation efforts are inconsistent or do not materialize.

· When what irks guests regarding services and service recovery are ignored.

When practiced in accord with standard approaches, productivity is said to have two components or mandates:

(1) Improve cost structures by lowering direct and indirect inputs, sharing common resources, and/or by utilizing circularity.

(2) Improve asset utilization either by filling or occupying existing capacities or by reducing working and fixed capital to support a given level of business and/or by being more careful in the acquisition or disposal of goods, equipment, furnishings, etc.

Hotel rooms, seats in airlines, theatres, restaurants, stadiums, as well as retail establishments, harbors, and spaces in a wide range of venues need to be utilized daily…capacities cannot be inventoried as determined by the nature and characteristics of their economic realities.

Underutilized assets are unproductive whether for an organization or a community. Indeed, it suggests that the concept of productivity in hospitality, tourism and service industries needs to be considered in contextually appropriate strategic terms. A point Michael Porter argues for in his article, What is Strategy? which he distinguishes from operational effectiveness.

To reiterate; “The essence of strategy is in the activities – choosing to perform certain activities differently or to perform different activities than rivals.” With strategy referencing how an organization or destination positions itself in any market, industry leaders and managers must make choices regarding what to do, as well as what not to do, especially whether striving for operational excellence or human and community intimacy.

Misplaced and excessive focus on achieving efficiencies through labor productivity, generative AI, micromanaging, for example, can compromise quality and quality-of-life, particularly sensitive when a strategy is built on the humanistic aspects of personalized service.

Expressed another way, productivity is about systems as well as people, suggesting that productivity improvements require employees be aligned with strategy and have the capabilities to deliver specialized activities consistently. A realization I came to many years ago by explaining how productivity connects to quality through the design and implementation of the appropriate service delivery system. Service systems that represent the implementation of strategies.

It is not that operational effectiveness or efficiencies can ever be neglected. After all, productivity frontiers are constantly evolving and quickly shifting towards new technologies (generative AI, for example) and better management practices. But here again, they must be carefully chosen to protect whatever strategies and competitive advantages organizations, communities-as-destinations and tourism clusters might have, or desire to have in the future.

However, individual tourism-related enterprises derive competitive advantages by being part of vibrant and healthy tourism clusters. Through the dynamics of cluster involvement, productivity and the capacity for innovation can be improved and new business formulation stimulated. Though it may take time to institutionalize such a cooperative network effect.

Cluster prosperity, though, can be compromised by inadequacies in destination stewardship and infrastructure, external economies, ailing states, reductions in foreign aid, tariffs, spillovers from the demise of local, regional and national industries, and/or competitive cost disadvantages (currently facing the City of Toronto, for example). It’s extremely unfortunate when communities aren’t business friendly, or organizations fail to provide joyful employment, problems that are bound to adversely affect productivity.

To a large degree, the ability of communities-as-destinations to survive and thrive depends as much on the bargaining power of their tourism clusters, as it does on the strength of personal relationships, face-to-face communication and interaction among networks, industry associations and efforts by local and regional governments and DMOs to foster cooperation, including pursuit of technological improvements such as AI, its impact and strategy.

Thrive-ability is also propelled when industry leaders harness the power of purpose and prioritize organizational and destination health which is comprised of three elements (1) how well leaders encourage their organizations and tourism clusters to rally around a common vision and strategy (2) how well strategies are executed and (3) how well organizations and destinations innovate and renew themselves collectively overtime.

For example, the productivity of individual firms and clusters improves when everyone works hard to:

· Mend psychological workplace contracts

· Avoid careless situational spending and economic leakage

· Incentivize development (e.g. Destination Canada’s Investment Hub)

· Prioritize energy-efficiency

· Enhance adjacencies and complementarities, essential in place-based economies

· Realize community shared value through a community ROI calculator

· Set achievable sustainability goals

· Offer emergency preparedness resources

· Promote innovation

· Find hidden value

· Empower the frontline employees and citizenry

· Make concerted efforts to strengthen relationships with government agencies for access to talent, the provision and sharing of critical resources and information (e.g. identification of special traveler segments).

The social glue that binds tourism clusters together contributes immensely to improving organizational health and the ability of everyone to create and capture value. In fact, through civic engagement (discussed in a prior article), individual tourism enterprises are more likely to identify with and develop a stronger sense of community which, in turn, is more likely to foster trust, loyalty, and satisfaction, serving to further enhance productivity and innovation.

While links between productivity, destination performance, and stakeholder well-being can be tenuous, far more can be accomplished, especially on behalf of employees of organizations. As a labor-intense set of service sectors, the productivity of the workforce can be worrisome.

Given the existing perceptions of tourism as a place of employment, for example, some destinations suffer from staffing problems, increasing the workload for those employed. Faced with relatively low wages, workplace stress, corrosive corporate cultures, and bullies in the workplace, turnover can be high. While many governments are doing what they can to increase their investment in HR programs and training, individual organizations should be leading the way by…

· Creating the right conditions for people to get to where they are heading.

· By giving employees more control over how they do their work.

· Providing stability in their schedules with some flexibility when they work.

· Allowing them to identify and solve their problems, especially through peer learning

· Ensuring operations are well-staffed so workloads are reasonable.

· Supporting personal needs and investing in the overall health of employees.

· Being more forthright in regard to employee inclusion and collaboration.

· Improving performance reviews.

· Offering appropriate advancement or career ladder programs.

· Recognizing, and appropriately rewarding, their contributions.

· Finding ways to make their work and responsibilities more meaningful and less stressful

· Helping them unwind by encouraging setting aside of unstructured time to hangout.

It needs to be emphasized: Operational effectiveness requires seamless interactions between tourism’s front-of-the-house hosts and back-of-the-house services. With thousands of daily interactions (host-guest, employer-employee, employee-employee, customer-customer) resulting in moments of truth, relationships and reputations are constantly being tested and scrutinized. There is little wiggle room for error, especially when service goes awry, and recovery must be swift and on point.

Undeniably, these and other productivity improvements serve to improve the performance of organizations, tourism clusters and communities, producing value and wealth for investors, shareholders and stakeholders. And therein lies a lesson for leaders and managers as their own productivity must be woven into the mix as they seek to unlock as well as protect the store of value contained within their brand.

The socio-economies of tourism clusters flourish, and are at their best, through the practice of stakeholder management. Destinations thrive when all members of tourism clusters, the citizenry and residents of a given locality or region, and a wide variety of people involved throughout value or supply chains, acknowledge their ability to derive meaningful value and their own versions of wealth or “wellth” from tourism.

Such achievements, however, can be compromised through high taxes, rolls of red tape and towering protectionist walls. Tourism clusters vary not only in terms of their location and access to markets, resources and inputs, but in terms of their collective ability to leverage their position and trajectory throughout different seasons, markets, and stages of a lifecycle. For a primer on the topic consider re-reading the articles on Quintessential Queries that are part of this series on Mind your Ps and Qs.

Governments can play a role in influencing progress and productivity (even improving government`s productivity) particularly through investigating labor violations and encouraging investments in transformative infrastructure initiatives, including the ability to manage tourism’s growth paradox, and utilizing regional tourism policies to foster the sustainable development of, or avoid the decline of, clusters.

In proposing a strategic view of productivity, it`s vital that organizations and destinations remain sensitive to the requirements and needs of their customers and markets, the problems they want solved, the achievements they seek, even their ability to be productive and engaged when in destinations…for example, wayfinding or being able to find their way around. After all, everyone, including visitors, is, and has to be considered, a marketer these days.

Think about Marriott`s recent move into the outdoors accommodation segment and how the experiences of outdoor enthusiasts need to be productive in ways that distinctly differ from their experiences with Marriott`s other brands. How workplace cultures must shift and adapt. How the effort that goes into identifying and ensuring that the value desired by their guests (functional, emotional, social and life-affirming) can be efficiently and effectively delivered in scalable, frictionless, meaningful, cost-effective and enjoyable ways.

When certain operators within tourism clusters of destinations remain oblivious to the needs of visitors they covet; aren`t ready, willing and able to deliver the value desired; or fail to cooperate with their complementary counterparts, imagine the impacts that are likely to reverberate throughout the cluster or community as demand diminishes or reputations sour. Imagine the impacts when visitor sojourns soften, and expenditures fall. It is inevitable: community shared value becomes unrealizable. But then again, while the needs of visitors need to be met, in the process, community’s needs can never be ignored or compromised.

The productivity of tourism clusters needs to be viewed in expansive terms. While made-to-measure economic empowerment is in the realm of possibility, imagine what happens when frustrations over tourism turn to outrage; when tourism enterprises are oblivious to the Business Roundtable’s commitment to corporate purpose; when it rings shallow and is not creating value for customers, employees or communities; when the insularity of our cultures and cultural ideas and norms become compromised; when culture is promoted unsympathetically as an industry; or when the new technologies such as AI are ignored.

By destroying or harming what people value, societies and communities can become unhinged and start to lose their way and, thereby, unproductive. Why then do we persist in determining progress almost solely in economic terms…quantified through input/output measures of productivity or, in the case of tourism, through versions of service productivity that seek to maximize the marginal differences between (maximizing) outputs and (minimizing) inputs? Perhaps it results from a lack of shared meaning or understanding.

If tourism is to remain a productive component of communities-as-destinations, why aren`t we making sure that local tourism development, procurement and circularity practices adopt gardening as a metaphor that positively reflects and resonates with citizens, employees, employers and visitors? Why aren`t we reinvesting in tourism or making sure that investments being made are rigorously evaluated to ensure the monies are being appropriately spent to improve the upskilling of the labor force (an imperative for schools, colleges and universities) and achieving the long-term objectives of communities?

Despite multiple proposals to make cities or communities more productive, I continue to be amazed as to why the determinant resonant properties of productivity aren`t taken more seriously. In Astonish! Smarter Tourism by design (my four-volume e-book to be given to all who become paid subscribers to Destinations-in-Action), I devote a whole chapter to Resonance which, I believe, dovetails with productivity, yet brings us to a more robust conceptualization of the concept.

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Part 2 of this long article qill appear shortly

April 6, 2026, “Earthrise”. A lesson from the onset of space tourism.

As the Artimus II mission completed its journey around the dark side of the moon, our planet surprised everyone with a game of peek-a-boo.

Amazing how the quietest of conversations can fill space with joyous levity…not squeals of toddler delight but astronaut joy and amazement, followed quickly by delayed anxiety…not just because return journeys can be hazardous, but because such journeys raise questions as to what type of world they would be returning to.

Having chosen to be impersonated through Anthropocene, why would our world want the astronauts, involved in such a serious mission, to become engaged in a game that was bound to deliver such exuberant and experiential enjoyment? Why not? While we expect travel to deliver curiosity and amusement…playtime in space?

And yet, Erik Cohen has given credence to tourism from both perspectives – play and space. While his idea of “play” did not include the child’s game of peek-a-boo, Anthropocene`s surprising appearance could not have been timelier, despite the fact that the astronauts had to withdraw their attention to prepare for re-entry. With social connectivity and conversation ceasing, we cannot help but wonder: Did peek-a-boo achieve its intended effect?

Similarly, for us as spectators to the event. We were enthralled. Seeing our planet from afar captivated and captured our attention if only for a moment, though I doubt whether anyone realized that Anthropocene was present, let alone conveying a message.

While the game did not last long, there are many who remain curious:

· Why the hilarity at the time when it is usually harder to laugh than it is to cry?

· What were the thoughts of the astronauts when peek-a-boo begged for their approval?

· Did the game fuel a desire to pursue further conversations with Anthropocene?

· And, having completed the journey, did the severity of the issues confronting our planet become more pronounced and profound?

· Or was the game more likely interpreted as a longing for home?

· Do the astronauts now feel an obligation to share their newfound wisdom?

· Will their voyage serve to repudiate anti-science sentiments and encourage an action-orientation toward the fact-driven wisdom of Anthropocene?

· Or lacking time in which to fully .interact, did the astronauts even remember encountering Anthropocene?

· And, if perceived as a joke, might concerns about the health of the planet and its people have lost their eminence?

Rare are the times when we laugh at the same joke, so perhaps the joke is on us for being negligent in cleaning up our mess. Or should we be crying over spilt milk because we have been unable to find the resolve to be more careful, more considerate, more conscientious, suggesting how difficult it is to rein in Anthropocene`s adversities.

That may be a vacuous under-statement were it not for the fact that there are many individuals, agencies, NGOs and governments that do take Anthropocene seriously, so why the angst? Is performativity lacking? Evidence at the destination levels suggests that indeed may be the case.

Preoccupied as the industry might be with a slew of other contentious other issues, it is amazing why performativity skews more toward verbosity, grandstanding, and incremental change (greenwashing) rather than demonstrable improvement. Perhaps those in the industry are of the opinion that climate change and most regenerative behaviors lie beyond their capacities and capabilities, beyond their mission and more commercial interests.

It is frightening how we have become so immune to and distracted by some of our more pressing and existential environmental problems. More so these days as climate deniers, wars, political upheavals, anti-science rhetoric and other adversities serve to upend our priorities and push Anthropocene and its consequences to the backburner.

When we fail to act with a renewed sense of urgency and unified verve, heat waves, droughts, wildfires, lower agricultural yields, poverty, migration, pandemics, diseases, boycotts are bound to intensify. Yes, there always will be multiple excuses, with another ready to derail us: Untenable national debt levels that will limit needed investments and interventions. So…

Who or what will mount a much-needed course change

LEADERSHIP or PUBLIC UPRISINGS?

Or will

Climate change remain death by a thousand cuts?

Multiple efforts to build strong and resilient communities are underway, but will they be sufficient to quell Anthropocene`s wild ride? Some will argue, it is time that the chattering classes get smarter about climate.

Why can’t we propose a massive industry-based challenge (in collaboration with governments, research institutes, universities, NGOs, an informed public, and throughout supply chains) to mount a net zero or positive global energy system?

Pulling together as an industry need not be difficult as travel and tourism are all about “feeling together with the world”. In craving connection for new beginnings, embedded intelligence already exists, but our ability to come together in divided times will only happen when we emerge from the struggle and choose to defend human life and humanity, the well-being of people and the overall health of the planet. Is it not in our collective self-interest to do so?

In seeking help to achieve positive outcomes, I favor asking our trusted astronauts to reveal what they have seen, experienced, and learned by studying and looking back at earth (not looking back in time but looking back to see the devastation)…and then imagining how our communities can be re-designed so as to prosper and achieve more productive and vibrant futures…an essential JTBD (job-to-be-done) priority whereby we strive to empower permissionless innovation, with our workforce and citizens by our side.

It is up to us, collectively, to ensure the planet remains habitable, equitable and lovable for future generations.

With the astronauts` peek-a-boo experience thoroughly articulated perhaps a new awakening can be achieved…a new insight as the game seemed to have energized and provided a renewed sense of optimism...exactly what the great games do, so long as they are approached with a can-do spirit.

In this light we need to do a number of things: (1) Be more forthright in communicating the short and long term cascade of consequences emanating from climate change; and (2) Consider becoming challenger cities, communities and regions (formidable “peek-a-boo” destinations) that through intense scrutiny, collective action and conscientious introspection seek to challenge climate change and thereby enhance the overall well-being and quality-of-life of citizens and visitors.

Creating “places that are happy, prosperous, productive, purposeful, healthy and hopefully fun too” is an admirable undertaking germane to the success of all communities-as-destinations. While such outcomes are likely to remain formidable given that they are contingent on how well our cities and communities reverse the impact of climate change, the optimists among us will recognize that these preferred outcomes are mutually achievable. From a touristic standpoint they will signal that cities (destinations) can become and remain magnetic.

Such a juxtaposition of challenges demands a future-forward mission-orientation and a reconfiguration of business models built on a bedrock of cultural intelligence, context, nuance, HOPE and what can be WONDERFUL, communicated with a profound sense of urgency by the very people whose mission requires that the world prioritize investments and innovation to improve our natural, social, physical infrastructures so that the planet, our HOME, remains the place where the heart is. Purpose prioritized over profit.

There are bound to be many setbacks and glitches, however. Capitalocene (wealth power) has solidly linked space tourism to the Anthropocene. And while it is sad to assume that the commercialization of space (Artimus chastized as a stunt by a prominent environmentalist) will become the norm, need this be so?

On the other hand, it will require significant efforts to rein in the excess of oligarchial power and eliminate democracy`s blind spot that serves to further hinder progress. In the meantime, though, perhaps we need to view space tourism through a different, home-based lens and mindset.

I propose it can happen if we become more attentive to the instrumentality of play and games. As we learned from the astronauts, the real magic of peek-a-boo emerged from the earth`s ability to gamify our attentiveness.

As we know from playing with toddlers, the game`s success has always been contingent on the eye gaze and how it can be so mutually rewarding and productive over the long run. Perhaps Anthropocene was attempting to teach us something quite basic, the essentiality of looking, seeing, and focusing through games.

For this to happen, and as discussed in the prior article, performative psychology that performs purposefully, the vitality of the tourist gaze needs to be optimized. As hosting communities, we have the inherent power to facilitate this gaze and recognize it as both as a form of meaningful communication and as a skill leading to performative action that everyone can master… especially as we strive to perfect our ability to design for the climate crisis.

What is fascinating these days is that such undertakings are becoming more prevalent as visitors seek more meaningful and transformative travel and destination experiences… experiences that prioritize engagement, feelings of belonging, acceptance, inclusion, and learning. Such success, however, will be determined by how well hosting communities intensify their efforts to optimize and help them realize the meaningfulness of their experiences.

As revealed by playing peek-a-boo with our youngsters, it is evident that our eye gaze helps in this regard by accomplishing two main functions. First is a form of bonding that is central to our story as a species and serves as a form of empathy and caring…a vital form of resonance as a way of knowing and realizing our relevance. What could be a more important host/guest challenge?

Second, the game acts as a bridge that links or connects us as families and as communities. By being attentive to and caring about each other and our communities, we assume responsibility for the wellbeing of all our visitors and citizens, regardless of race, ethnicity or culture.

To this end, and as Peter Widrich has determined: The neuroscience of peek-a-boo matters for adults in meaningful ways. We all thrive in friendly play. Indeed, by gamifying our lives we bring enjoyment back into them…perhaps less so when premised simply on winning and related outcomes and rewards, but more so when based on exploration, involvement, engagement, attentiveness, and feelings of flow so as to be attentive and synchronized with the heartbeat of a nation, city or community.

As Stephen Anderson explains in this video “from paths to sandboxes”, the circumstances and time in our careers and lives dictate that we seek and embrace new behaviors, create new designs, foster new hopes and eliminate outdated processes, rules and behaviors…all of which can be facilitated through play within proverbial sandboxes.

While I covered the importance and relevance of pathways and pitstops in a prior article (notable for their value in determining and controlling direction and shaping behaviors that lead to predictable outcomes) their usefulness in resolving thorny and novel problems, like climate change and improving the overall health and well-being of people can be extremely limiting.

If we hope as a society to curtail the harm being done in this age of Anthropocene, we need to champion the freedom to explore and experiment through self-directed and inter-dependent discovery that facilitates the essence of being and becoming especially through overcoming challenges and learning how to surmount obstacles.

This is the essence of play particularly through togetherness…play that is movement, freedom, imagination, fantasy, and lightness, so endearingly demonstrated by nine-year-old Molly Wright who proclaimed: Peek-a-boo represents a game that can change the world.

Based on your own experiences, I am sure you would agree. In no uncertain terms, play can shift our thinking, inspire connection and spark creativity but only when we are attentive and maintain our focus and gaze. Remove our focus or gaze, allow it to become idle, and the earth will continue to cry in a never-ending symphony of despair.

It is often believed that play and adulthood are antithetical until we reconnect with its magic and realize what life would be like if we were play-deprived rather than play-fulfilled.

So, as we travel the world in search of storied experiences, most of which are embedded within play triangles (consisting of self, others and the environment) recognize that our environment represents and includes communities, places and settings. It is evident, and should go without saying, that their capacities can become stretched and overburdened…little wonder we have a world of limits that questions our right to travel and be a tourist.

As noted in the title of this article on peek-a-boo, tourism communities throughout the world are having to contend with the ramifications of “our planet at play” which consequently has put “our planet in play”.

While “at play” signals enjoyment, relief, and a right to travel for enjoyment, “in play” signifies abuse, exploitation and manipulation that is becoming a more prevalent part of our existence. No wonder Anthropocene utilized peek-a-boo as an attentive “at play” ploy to demonstrate the shenanigans that are subjugating our planet to threat, thereby putting it “in play”.

Perhaps such playfulness will lead communities and destinations to evaluate the holy grail of experiential tourism which can ignore the fallibility of good intentions, the failure of long-term vision, a community`s susceptibility to commodification and, more particularly, the neglect and concern about ecological functions and malfunctions as relates to visitor and destination experiences.

Strangely enough, there is something endearing about play and games and how they can be put to good use in all sorts of creative ways…for example, bringing the world together through Futbol… providing a comedic touch to teach as well as to capitalize on creative approaches to weaving fun and games into our communities that demand we be protective of our natural environment.

Even in this a new world of AI, we need to recognize the potential and brilliance of human intelligence to help put our world on a more righteous path. As leaders within tourism and our communities, this means being vigilant to our obligations which flow from our relationship with the natural environment…reimagining and redesigning all engagements in touristic activities so that they be purposefully merciful and magnanimous.

Despite a predilection toward self-interest and competition let`s recognize that we need to approach our challenges like Rafa (Spain`s great tennis player) because there is a competitive spirit in every game. Given the difficulties of tackling global problems, Rafa teaches us that intense preparation is insufficient. We need to go beyond by exploring our own individual limits and widen the space in which cooperation and equality can endure.

It is a matter of knowing and owning our purpose, knowing and owning our goals and working even more diligently to heal our world for generations to come.

Be sure to re-read Part 1

Because performative psychology applies to everyone, communities and those organizations that deliver the destination experience will need to take their employees and visitors under their wings, not just to help them commercialize relationships, but to protect and develop them, to set them free within boundaries.

In this regard I am reminded of the previous post on the transformative power of pathways, or more particularly, the Camino as the moment that realigns you…travel and tourism as tools for mental wellbeing, everyone`s well-being.

Let it be known however, in this age of acceleration the well-being of workforce and its customers lies beyond the problems the industry is facing. Well-being is determined through their becoming, their needs, hopes, and the future they desire…staying alive and amplified through feeling alive!

This ideal of camaraderie and bringing people together - creating a sense of belonging and inclusion (easier said than done) - is what hospitality and tourism have always been about and what they should excel at - providing a sense of welcome and connection whether with loved ones, with places or communities, with nature, with organizations and the teams within.

In reference to employment or vacation, the adventure starts when home is left behind. During these times we are forced to learn how to embrace the edge and address the edginess of the world.

For employees working 24/7, it is not that the working environment is unrelenting and high pressured, but that their jobs are process- and task-oriented. Navigating the challenges can be onerous especially if people are inadequately trained, unqualified, or ill-suited for their positions.

Supervisors and managers may be expected to provide and enhance employee support and elevate the overall work environment but that is difficult when they too are under intense pressure. With their nose to the grindstone and unlikely to be rewarded for their empathetic efforts - because employee relations are not embedded within the value and performance systems of organizations – many employees do not feel a sense of attachment to their employers, unless employee engagement becomes a prioritized and established standard.

Despite the current back peddling on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), it would be marvelous if every organization would endorse and unequivocally demonstrate what is written in the USA`s Declaration of Independence:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

While Walter Isaacson explains why this may be the greatest sentence ever written, it is amazing why we are not doing more to realize its potential as a fundamental conviction within our communities-as-destinations and all our host/guest/stakeholder relationships.

Certainly, pleasure, joy and happiness represent the ideal outcomes we want our employees and visitors to feel, but it’s our unwillingness to find redress for any infusion of pain or discomfort which can lead to the erosion in social trust and social capital as empirically demonstrated in Robert Putman’s Bowling Alone.

“Though social capital varies across many dimensions, according to Putnam, the most important distinction is between bridging (inclusive) and bonding (exclusive) social capital. Bonding social capital networks are inward-looking and tend to reinforce exclusive identities and homogenous groups. Examples of such networks include ethnic fraternal organizations and country clubs. On the other hand, bridging social capital networks are outward looking and include people across “diverse social cleavages.” Examples of bridging social capital include the civil rights movement and youth service groups.”

While the nuances associated with “bridging” and “bonding” are beyond the scope of this article, it is essential that we work together if we hope to re-learn how to bowl together. Any success that communities-as-destination can claim is dependent on how astute they become when building social capital. Consider these five reasons:

“Social capital has five features that help people translate aspirations into realities. First, social capital makes collective problems easier to resolve, as there is less opposition between parties. This results in improved social environments, such as safer and more productive neighborhoods. Second, it makes business transactions easier, since when people trust each other, there is less of a need to spend time and money enforcing contracts. As a result, economic prosperity increases generally. Third, social capital widens our awareness of our mutual connectivity. This can improve the quality of our civic and democratic institutions. Fourth, it helps to increase and speed up the flow of information, which, in turn, improves education and economic production. Finally, social capital improves our health and happiness through both psychological and biological processes which require human contact.

In providing some restorative measures Putman offers several innovative solutions or supportive mechanisms:

· Educational reforms including improved civics education, well designed service-learning programs

· Family-oriented workplaces which allow for the formation of social capital on the job.

· Efforts to foster a new urbanism

· More tolerance and desire for co-existence

· Technologies that reinforce, rather than replace, face-to-face interaction

· Making art and culture become more interactive

· Toning down the political rhetoric and divide.

To which I would add the need to recognize all citizens, and everyone connected to tourism, as part of a destination`s hosting community. However, it may be insufficient to provide them with knowledge, understanding, sense-making, and the skill sets to be effective, gracious and lovable hosts, unless there can be a personal and permissionless quality to it – an inner desire to be welcoming and hospitable to those from away. Sounds like a high-hurdle starting point until you recognize that being permissionless applies to organizations that work so long as the guardrails and boundaries are well-defined and clearly set.

To my mind, these are essential prerequisites that allow performative psychology to perform for citizens and the visiting public. Individual organizations may go out of their way to prepare their staff for the quirkiness and individuality of the visiting public, but few communities-as-destinations are as truly prepared as Jamaica (through its National Tourism Community Policy and Strategy for the seasonal descent that can be redirected and re-imagined.

Of course, DMOs and marketers are already ready to discern the intentions and interests of visitors from different locales and work diligently to utilize demographic and psychographic data to design not just the activities, events, and places of interest…but rarely the entirety of visitor/destination experiences and how well these experiences fully and truly resonate. Resonance which serves to entice return visits. Resonance that leads to reflection, which leads to resilience which then (if permitted) leads to knowing our relevance – of being with determined through developing our ability to receive, allow and sense.

Of course, given the short span of time we spend within the communities we have chosen to visit, I wonder whether we ever develop a sense of belonging. Certainly, we may feel at ease, at peace and sympathetic to the culture or vibe of place but, in the end, it is our ability to receive, allow and sense that truly makes our trips and visits worthwhile, enlightening and magnificent.

Unless, of course, feelings of dissonance and trepidation occur. Fear of the other may be an overstatement but what is not is our perceived inability to be accepted or to fit in. Less so, of course, for regional and domestic visitors, but more so for international or foreign visitors whose ability to navigate local customs and language may be limited.

All of which suggests a need to fully appreciate the tourist gaze, now 3.0. While the review of this book is illuminating, perhaps it is a misinterpretation of the gaze (supposedly a long, hard, steady look) that is at fault. So much of what happens is a mere glance or a glimpse, if not a disregarded overlook, a display of apathy and indifference. Why? Stringent time and money restraints. An inability to personalize. Ineffective interpretation. Insufficient planning of itineraries.

With more people desiring to be intentional and thoughtful in their travels, it is in the destination`s court to make amends. On the other hand, are their hands tied? Only privileged visitors can afford personalized attention and service. Visitors, though, can do more to be intentionally flânerial which can be bolstered through efforts by both host and guest to embrace encounterism - the joys of real-life encounters. Honest-to-goodness engagement and involvement are unlikely to take place, however, unless communities invest in the further development of their social life infrastructure and third places.

Hospitality and tourism flourish when the impersonal, cocooned world of tour buses, cruise ships, hotel rooms and places we gather make us feel alive and are embraced with brilliance and kindness what provides an inner sense of human connectivity and peacefulness.

Wouldn`t it be marvelous if we let our citizens and visitors know we care and are at their beck-and-call if they need a friend, a helping hand.

Tell them: You can lean on me.

From its inception, Destinations-in-Action has represented my way of informing the tourism world as to how the management and leadership of communities-as-destinations can be improved through feasible and favorable transformations (viable and meaningful “acts of doing”) that deliver just, fair, and desirable outcomes sought by visitors, citizens and communities alike.

In retrospect, I established some of the basic foundational principles and set the agenda for changemakers, prior to starting this Substack blog, Having established the conditions for do-ability and thrive-ability in an unstable world (further explained in “why now?”) I found a way of expressing the “how” through a theme that has developed a life of its own, Destination Leaders, Mind Your Ps and Qs.

With 50+ articles already published I now recognize the need to dig deeper into some of the more complex aspects of human (host/guest) performative behaviors that determine how every aspect of tourism and its development proceeds, gets accomplished, falls short or fails.

As reviewed in Wikipedia, “performativity” (revealed through language and action) does not merely describe reality, but serves to actively create, maintain, or transform it. Rather than being a passive reflection of who we are and want to accomplish, performativity views speech and actions as merging or coalescing identity and social reality with intentionality, hopefully, to do and accomplish that that which is worthwhile and, in the process, willing something into being, a becoming of sorts that accomplishes a clear-eyed purpose, achieves high-priority goals or objectives.

While “performativity” has become one of the buzzwords of the year, it is worth noting that it took some time, as the performative turn in tourism was explained a decade prior (though not always with positive or favorable outcomes). One interesting example being how place branding sought to focus attention on perception and image in order to obscure reality.

An outcome that often leads us to associate performativity with spurious virtue signaling, vapid promises, ineffective and misplaced intentions (e.g. greenwashing, gentrification…), exaggerating what could be and, thereby, being cause for concern. Over the decades, far too many promises have been made by industry operators, government officials and DMOs, perceived and criticized for having “just for show” undertones…statements that represent a “tableau of artifice” behind which there is nothing, at least nothing substantial or authentic. As the cartoon in the article reveals, when non-performative becomes recognized as performative, the term becomes a contranym. Time for a course correction…time that will see you through.

Because we live in a society dominated by persuasion and performance, one executive has identified the necessity of distinguishing between that which entails performing in contrast to what is merely performative. Such distinctiveness can be clarified, especially for readers who are academically inclined, by interpreting “performativity” as a philosophy that shapes human interaction and action through persuasion.

Sadly, it is possible that socio-political utilization of language may not work, based on what is planned and permitted. On the other hand, it could be misleading if attempts made to deliver on a promise or a vision fall short. Deception or perhaps “category mistakes” can also occur…recognition of how language is often used to distort truth…the rhetorical twists and turns of language utilized to convince, confuse, or to demand compliance.

So, what are we to make of the DMOs and tourism marketers/developers who assume responsibility for various performative perspectives focused on “brand doings”…brands that represent products, services and experiences…brands that exist within our minds…brands that are culturally fluent and meaningful…brands that are socially and environmentally conscious…brands that exert dynamic relational potentiality? (To fully appreciate the nuanced complexity of tourism marketing and branding do take the time to peruse the articles).

Working within any persuasive environment can be exhilarating when marketing and developing represent celebratory acts designed to promote communities-as-destination and their associated activities. Brands, however, operate within complex and culturally significant, social and political milieus. Their “brand doings” can be undone whenever “celebration” and “image” are prioritized and in the process “critique” is dismissed or ignored.

In this time of divide, performative people, whatever their ilk, cannot be effective when consumed with their constant busyness and choose to solely perform within their own milieu. As a complex system, tourism demands intervention, cooperation and collaboration. When dependency on travel and tourism flounders, industry leaders need to step up if they hope to protect and embellish lovability for their communities, regions and countries. Doing so will only happen if they can demonstrate meta-leadership and prove they have earned and have permission to lead.

A requirement that demands continuous learning, listening to and dealing with those citizens, teachers, researchers, and consultants whose legitimate critiques of tourism demand review and resolution. Indeed, it means welcoming them into the fold as part of a vibrant and effective network thereby making it easier to ensure everyone is fully informed. In every situation it is important to know that creating success for a project, entails ensuring success for every individual on the team.

While everyone needs to appreciate how all aspects of the tourism system work and dovetail, especially on the commercial side, everyone is searching for a win for their constituents and how their interests are incorporated in ways that deliver recognizable and realizable value.

Now, the distinctions between so-called thinkers and doers may be fluid, but their efforts can be more fully integrated so long as habits match the ambitions of the whole. In most cases this requires breaking down tribal barriers, finding and committing to enhance complementariness …everyone working collectively (in cross-partnerships) to deliver and achieve substantial and transformative outcomes through cooperative and collaborative behaviors that ideally should become the norm.

All of which suggests a need to delve into performative psychology as we seek to enhance the relations between all actors or participants - leaders and managers, employers and employees, hosts and guests, shareholders and stakeholders, entrepreneurs and citizens alike.

As in any business endeavor, tourism exists, takes place, and excels when people engage with each other in cooperative and collaborative ways, forming relationships, interacting and performing to get things accomplished…these days increasingly in creative ways as virtually all successful interactions necessitate the personalization of performance.

Though let’s be honest, that is rarely what happens. False alignments arise when vague discussions, avoidance of disagreement, and pressure to move too quickly occur. Similarly, when previous animosities linger, common goals can’t be identified, and generic and outdated dictates (rules, procedures, policies) or the status quo win out.

This need not be so. As more communities-as-destinations strive to align vision with civic values, seek transformation, and recognizing the slice of genius in everyone, industry leaders will have to reimagine themselves as changemakers who prioritize responsibility for, and innovation to, achieve desirable quality-of-life and longer-term impacts. A challenging undertaking necessitating improvisation (having to do things few may know how to do) - activities that are intensely experimental.

For therein lies the essence of human growth in people’s emotional, social and intellectual lives…the basis for tourism`s continuous development and growth that are not determined through volume of visitors or ROIs, but through deliberate attempts to weave learning, developing and doing into performances of a lifetime (POAL)…communities-as-destinations energizing their citizens and visitors to become honest to goodness makers-of-meaning that, in the process of being involved, serve to reverse the brain drain so as to achieve a brain gain.

As one of the ultimate experience economies, tourism comes loaded with responsibilities associated with the pursuit of extensive opportunities. As noted in previous articles, destination leaders are expected to deliver results based not only on a notable progression of economic value, but in accord with a hierarchy of values – functional, emotional, life changing, and social impact.

But how? Obviously, through performances requiring “new skills, new intellectual abilities, new relationships, new interests, new emotions, new hopes, and new goals – which is, after all, what learning and development are all about.”

Where to start? Performative psychology is intentionally relational. For the theorists it may start with a better understanding of relational science and 14 core principles of relationships as well as knowledgeable understanding of how relationships work, develop or dissolve, especially when influenced by making them more functional, fulfilling and maintained through cohesion, supportive environments and continuous improvement…as exemplified in the story how Kingston, Ontario sought to achieve a brain gain.

On the other hand, it is concerning when polarization and divisiveness in communities and municipal governments intensify…how tourism is perceived to alter the very nature of what ‘community’ is supposed to represent. In such circumstances it may be difficult to restore social trust, but it is unlikely to happen unless a whole-of-community approach is taken. and DMOs, with the help from all industry leaders, commit to getting involved, breaking the ice, removing the barriers, and revealing what can be achieved…eschewing the “just for show” mentality (that could turn ugly).

These days keeping up with change is harder than ever. The most successful community and industry leaders try (often struggling) to prepare their citizens and employees to navigate ungovernable change, by routinizing it – treating it as if it were an everyday process and acknowledging constant transformation as the new norm. To do so they must be responsible for equipping everyone with practiced change skills that feel and become second nature.

This largely means that community and industry leaders must understand and respond to the uncertainties of citizens, employees, clients, customers, and stakeholders. If not, everyone will continue to lose their trust. It has always been a challenge, but it certainly helps when leaders become a source of predictability as well as a source for certitude and stability. Adaptability is essential but it will have to be evident and clearly visible.

As for who can help, it helps when community accelerator programs can be introduced as a subset of the inevitable need to coach ourselves…recognition that it may be essential to engage with the educational sector, but only if they can prove they are up to the task and are interested in doing so. I say this reluctantly as too many tourism programs refrain somewhat from being connected, being associated with. or working on behalf of the industry.

In any case, leaders gain respect when they model change-ready leadership every day, display empathy and accountability, reveal learning and growth. As noted in “how to build a superteam that keeps getting better”, outstanding organizations get more done by encouraging relationships and managing time, energy and attention more efficiently.

With members actively striving to make each other better, constantly building new skills and improving them over time, achievement can be made when relationships mature and everyone realizes that the future starts by how we think , how we connect and interact, how we approach and communicate ‘performativity’ as thoughtful and meaningful action that can be perceived as beneficial to everyone. By turning that ambition into impact, through rigorous intent, disciplined execution can turn bold ideas into measurable, lasting results.

Are you ready for the unthinkable?

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Part 2 of this article will be forwarded to you next week

Do you know the way to San Jose? Such a question hits at the heart of every destination concerned with visitors` knowledge about travel…the ease or difficulties of access…the multitude of concerns regarding mobility and wayfinding…direction as well as intention.

To attract and appeal to visitors who ponder yonder, destinations have always been vulnerable and beholden to the availability, the inefficiencies of existing transportation systems, as well as various public and private sector organizations whose collective decision-making power determines what gets built, is done or remains undone – pathways, roads, route structures and modes of travel whether on land, the seas or in the air – and, thereby, determines the viability of tourism.

As we all know from personal experience, when mobility and movement become imperiled, tourism and its power structure flounder. The implications for communities-as-destinations are serious and not simply for tourism but all forms of trade and distributive-reliant enterprises.

Based on arguments provided in a prior article - proclivity to please – it is evident that destinations need to be more forthright in taking ownership of the entirety of visitors` pre- to post-trip journeys. After all, a destination’s success is contingent on being attentive to resolving the trials and tribulations of the travel aspects of visitor trips or journeys. Why? Travel to and within destinations constitutes a portion of, and cannot easily be separated from, the overall destination-experience.

In this case, we can liken travel to the myth about the goose that laid the golden egg and wonder: Are the industry`s “countrymen” complicit in failing to respond whenever travel’s nuanced foibles morph into serious failings…prevalent these days when travel and tourism are used as diplomatic weapons (as in boycotts) and victimized at chokepoints….actions intensifying the vulnerability of the industry and necessitating course correction.

With the blockage of the Strait of Hormuz (and possibly any maritime one) - halting and rerouting the global movement of cargo and cruise traffic - economic pain and inflationary pressures are being triggered worldwide, increasing the overall cost of all petroleum products, curtailing the production and availability of fuel, rerouting aircraft, revising travel decisions (due to cost, safety and security concerns), thereby disrupting supply chains, altering travel behavior and transport usage.

In an inter-connected world, all communities-as-destinations are being subjected to a litany of cascading impacts brought on by geo-political upheavals, energy security and climate change. As such, building resilience has become a pressing issue as noted in this OECD report, particularly for coastal communities and across transportation infrastructures.

Even in urban areas, and all areas of visitation for that matter, a constant barrage of problems can occur, especially when public and private transportation systems are exposed to road closures, exorbitant maintenance costs, derailments, airline mergers, pilot strikes, and other operational challenges that bring about downstream effects that disrupt or alter movement patterns.

In determining how best to manage the capacities and capabilities of all forms of transport, especially from the point of view of visitors to destinations, all we can hope to do here is to highlight a fraction of the considerations related to all stages and aspects of travel – from pre-travel considerations, travel from, travel to, travel within, travel around, travel back, and post-travel impressions.

Following up on the need for trauma-informed leadership throughout the travel, tourism and transportation worlds, communities and their DMOs need to recognize that destination marketing is no longer confined to attracting visitors (campaigns and channels) but needs to become a reliable, real-time growth engine that integrates insights, content and commerce, solves problems, reduces the friction, and takes responsibility for a wider range of visitor experiences.

In this environment, advantage can only accrue to those who learn faster, personalize-at-scale, and optimize the full marketing funnel that accounts for and incorporates all visitor pre- to post-trip travel and place-based experiences.

Let`s begin with pre-travel. It represents the inception point and often starts to take shape years in advance, based on curiosity and long-standing interests in culture, cuisine, or commerce. As a destination first decision this is the arena in which DMOs and a wide variety of organizations devote considerable attention, effort, time, and investment to inform, promote, incentivize,

As undertakings carried out by many individual enterprises, it is notable why so few destination marketing efforts are coordinated, unless DMOs accept responsibility. With mixed messages, prospective visitors are left to their own devices and interpretations about a destination and must make choices regarding travel logistics often without sufficient guidance.

In days gone by, a lot of these decisions were made by travel agents. That has changed in our online world. Yes, there are specialists, influencers, all-inclusive properties, and tour organizations that will provide advice, assistance, or offer packaged travel, but surely there is need for an orchestration role for destinations and/or individual visitor-receiving organizations.

To an extent, some do act as trip-planning concierges. They appreciate the inconveniences associated with the travel portions of trips; offer recommendations in reference to modal choice, scenic routes, places for pit-stops and refreshments. But more can be done to personalize travel arrangement based on criteria that match visitor`s needs and interests regarding specialized activities. Even to the point of reminding potential visitors about certain necessities and special equipment that will make trips safer and more enjoyable.

After all, it is the travel from and travel to portion of most trips that tend to be the most enraging rather than engaging. Given the stressors, regardless of mode (idle waiting times, delays, biometric checkpoints, amenity and luggage fees, snafus at customs, and any number of inconveniences) avoidance is rarely possible. If flying, for example, the best option is always direct. The extra cost may be far less than layovers and the wasting of time.

The most frustrating aspect of travel is the lack of treat `em right services prior to arrival. While destinations want all service encounters to be pleasant and fruitful once visitors have arrived, they are neglectful of those discomforting encounters that occur in transit. While they represent functional and jurisdictional issues beyond their control, are they worthy excuses?

DMOs and visitor-serving organizations work diligently in the creation and construction of anticipation – the stirring of moods, emotions and imaginations – but it is disconcerting when travelers arrive frazzled and emotionally drained. As travelers, we may be our own worst enemies through insufficient planning, being in a hurry, and having unreasonable expectations, but more can be done to smooth, soothe or soften the adversities associated with travel (e.g. jet lag, circadian rhythms, culture shock and health risks). If only more destinations would prepare visitors with cursory knowledge about social norms, language, food, appropriate clothing, and health care (through pamphlets, podcasts, YouTube channels) they would endear themselves.

Travel within and travel around destinations and regions requires knowledge about unfamiliar pathways and the need for more detailed information beyond the typical brochures found at information booths. The consumption work of travel never ends, especially when ensconced in unfamiliar places. It helps when efforts are made to reveal the novelty that can be found, the rules of the road, the excitement of street life, how to utilize and access transit systems, car rentals, and taxis.

Destinations and visitor-serving organizations want visitors to discover their community’s regional attractions. It is not just a matter of providing detailed advice, which should be readily available, but personalized in accord with interests - the routes to take, how best to see and partake, places to avoid that might be unsafe or unsavory. Certainly, new technologies can be utilized and are available.

Because unlicensed tour guides often prey on unsuspecting visitors, travelers need to be wary of the unavoidable tourist hustle. Indeed, the local industry should do more to ensure visitors aren`t taken advantage of.

Travel back may mark the end of a visit, but it comes with its own hardships. These can be ameliorated through fond memories of a visit, but it helps when there is fond farewell and some sort of parting gift, not the kind offered through duty-free shops, rather thoughtful gestures (follow-up thank-yous) that convey friendship or kinship and signal interest in and recommendations for their return.

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Returns that remind me as to some other particularities and peculiarities along life`s pathways - the ones we take and commit to, the ones we ignore…the celebratory sounds and sensations of our journeys…a reference to the importance of what we seek from the excitement that comes from anticipating arrivals and the fond memories that follow.

So, bear with me as I revive an initial draft of this article in which I reference another journey of sorts, the birth of my son in 1972, and the 1973 release of Elton John`s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.

This is the pathway that stirred my son`s imagination, especially as we ventured into the fantasy land of Bennie and the Jets…a wild and wooly point of departure for future journeys, with returns along memory lane to a singable and danceable nostalgia that reminds all of us to celebrate those who pave the pathways to delight and joy.

Similarly for the passage of planes, trains and automobiles. They would not exist were it not for the visions and extremely hard work of others whose creativity, foresight and investments continue to provide access to places where we need to be, want to be…the movers, doers and shakers who facilitate mobility, movement or flows of people to places that we never dreamed would be available or possible to visit.

It may seem strange to engage with pathways through reference to music and movies and yet anyone who has raised a child instinctively knows that they initially learn about the world by acting on sound and sensation, objects and people. They “think and act with their bodies” well before they think with words. Music stimulates “mobility and movement” that, in turn, forms the basis of social activities that help them feel part of a group and brings a dimension of beauty and joy into their lives.

For musicians, such continuity never ceases. Life becomes a highway as they traverse route 66 or any travel or trade route for that matter. Whenever they pack their bags and venture into unknown territories, something magical happens. With new melodies in their heads, they find their voices and reveal the connectivity between travel and musical genius…a story conveyed to me personally by Robert Plant, of Led Zeppelin fame, while sitting on a beach on the island of Bequia, and further emulated by diehard fans who, influenced by his vagabond ways, seek their own metaphysical and transcendental journeys.

Maybe the same cannot be said for the road warriors and road runners clogging the highways and byways. Their boredom might feel debilitating, but we all know from personal experience, they are slaves to the rhythm of looney tunes and favored pulsations.

When younger, I knew that I was breaking the speed limit listening to rapper’s delight, while trying to slow down on the long way home (to save myself from speeding tickets). Thank heaven for jazz grovin hip-hop (my son`s influence). Music, always mobility’s favored companion.

To savor the moment, we rely on movement. Movement that seeks and depends upon new, different and indirect pathways for excursions that quell the urge to get lost…a voracious call out heard by every community in their quest to serve visitors and encourage destination development (unless they want to remain single postal-code economies).

A quest that now is leading many a community or a DMO`s marketing and branding department to invest in intelligent community accelerators and broadband…other integrative forms of innovative pathways designed to enhance and speed up connectivity and ease the way to prosperity…technologies of connection that can also tear us apart.

While the same could be said for virtual and augmented realities, such diversionary pitstops are not so straight forward or inevitable. When used as substitutes for travel and tourism, they can never amount to meaningful connectivity, engagement, and understanding that necessitate face-to-face interactions.

On the other hand, effective artificial intelligence (AI) can be a valuable travel companion, a tool useful in solving many issues from the planning of itineraries to managing visitor flows, influencing choice behaviors, enhancing and redirecting movement and mobility.

Consider AI`s use in helping control and curtail crowding especially along well-worn routes and streets…aiding DMOs to become the effective network orchestrators they are supposed to be…working diligently to sustain and justly manage and develop their communities-as-destinations in accord with principled purpose.

We are thoroughly aware as to travel and tourism`s seasonality and cyclicity, but these days the ebb and flow of visitors have taken on greater significance in places like Venice, Barcelona, and numerous others complaining about the disorder that emanates from deluge.

Unfortunately, it is extremely difficult to judge what is optimal and orderly. On certain occasions being part of a crowd is the intent, especially at sports stadiums or rock concerts. The intensity of being part of dense groupings of enthusiastic fans represents the optimal experience for all participants.

While elaborating on the psychology of optimal experience, determined through flow, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the pioneer of the flow concept, recognizes that the nature of the situation will always determine what constitutes the nature of the optimal experience.

At certain times and situations, the overbearing number of people in any given space or place detracts and calls for dispersal or offramp pathways, especially when there is need for a degree of privacy that allows for contemplation…one of the reasons why art galleries, museums and libraries limit patronage and expect behavior becoming of the solemness and quietude expected.

If the potential of tourism is to foster and deliver economic and social development, the purpose of travel and tourism needs articulation and requires clarity. As such, all countries and communities would be remiss if they failed to focus attention on ensuring not just pathways to provide accessibility, but pathways to relieve the pressure, and pathways to spread community shared value, justly and fairly.

To this end, an immense amount of effort will have to be devoted to identifying and navigating the particularities and peculiarities to a wide range of pathways. How? By…

· Improving transportation policy and its symbiotic relationship with tourism that will further the amenable development of visitor activity

· Perfecting aviation policy and its relevance with tourism while energize aviation`s revival

· Improving transit access and reliability in urban and rural areas

· Providing better hosting and logistical support for large tour and event organizers

· Creating meandering and sensorial walking paths as essential infrastructures

· Creating and connecting more regional and national cycling networks

· Encouraging the notion and benefits of wandering

· Perfecting the naturalizing of streetscapes, the streets alive program

· Cleaning-up alleyways, beautifying streetscapes and being pedestrian-friendly

· Improving the safety and security of pedestrians and passengers

· Creating new tourism corridors, reimagining existing ones (Appian Way)

· Encouraging travel off the beaten path, wandering

· Continuing the conversion of rails to trails

· Encouraging collaboration among cycling networks and facilitating bikeshare programs

· Developing more visitor-friendly service and information-centric centers

· Placing more attention on accessible parking areas and fee structures

· Reflecting on the appropriate visitor levies and tolls on major roadways

· Enhancing the dispersion of visitors through well-crafted itineraries and cultural routes

· Being more cognizant of the special needs of the disabled and immobile

· Improving the design and functionality of transportation terminals or staging points

· Creating and utilizing location-based services and navigation tools

· Re-evaluating how all attractions can become vital and interesting “pit-stops” for visitors

· Re-thinking the promotion and development of regenerative policy pathways

· Being concerned about our waste streams and how circularity programs are progressing

· Carefully assessing the nature and characteristics of future demand

· Reviewing the adequacies of waterways, nautical areas, harbors, canals, rivers, lakes and waterfronts

· Being focused on the avoidance of traffic congestion and pollution

· Widening the pathways to the future to enhance the flow of, and ease the access to, knowledge and information for all stakeholders – citizens and visitors alike.

What lies “Beyond” your Yellow Brick Road?

New pathways to opportunities

`Ponder, probe and query` may have been the title of a prior post, but over the years I have found myself disenchanted by the efforts of travel and tourism organizations to do so fervently, especially as they attempt to evolve gracefully…nurture engagement and connectivity with visitors, citizens and members of staff…and commit to creating meaningful community shared value, which leads to certain questions:

· Are industry executives and organizational boards of directors up to the task of fully understanding and resolving the challenges they face?

· Stated more directly, are the challenges being met with profundity…great depth of knowledge, thought and concern?

· If not, is it possible that executives and the boards of directors of DMOs, NGOs, government agencies and private sector organizations are victims of their own success and, by default, the Peter Principle?

· If not, what is being done and accomplished to enhance and upgrade their personal competencies and ability to create truly viable and intelligent learning organizations?

You might wonder why the emphasis on `learning` rather than on organizational or destination performance and the usual array of economic metrics.

Simply put, organizational and destination performance is constantly being determined, if not undermined, by how executives understand and respond to a variety of vexing situations - technological change (AI in particular, exemplified by the future of the restaurant); civil strife; rising authoritarianism, polarization, immigration, climate change, and foreign wars that are destabilizing operating environments, visitor flows, and the desire to travel.

Expressed more poignantly, tourism`s quietude is being exposed by the shift in conditions underlying marketing’s prowess and a reluctance to be introspective (previously mentioned in a prior article, proclivity to please and provide pleasure…perverse or not?)

Then there are the difficulties associated with resolving security, sustainability, strategic and structural issues, the rising levels of critical customer/visitor/workforce problems and tourism’s dependency on mass (quantity) all of which invariably sabotage the quality of engagement experiences.

More insidious are the bureaucratic barriers that impede progress, made worse as companies age, grow, become stodgy and risk averse. With reluctance to take risks and embrace failure, homogeneity sets in and the ability to create uniqueness, be innovative and do things differently stalls, if not fails.

It`s not that executives and board members aren`t used to a constant barrage of crises and conflicts, stressors and uncertainties, but that insufficient effort is being made to master the requirements for becoming learning organizations, learning communities and destinations that are on the leading edge of knowing especially within unique social and cultural contexts.

This being the case, the ability to leverage the broader context, pivot and adapt, and be more expeditious and forthright in pursuit of opportunities, is bound to be disruptive. What then will it take to spring industry executives and their organizational boards of directors from the built-in traps that are incapacitating or impeding progress?

The answers are multiple and rarely simple. Firstly, throughout their careers, executives, whatever their stripe, proceed through specialist, technical, job stage cycles until they reach senior positions or the pinnacle of success.

At this final stage some fundamental flaws reveal themselves. As specialists, who have not had the opportunity to learn and practice generalist skills, many find it hard to cope in face of uncertainty during turbulent times…a situation exacerbated by organizations that fail to prepare, properly select and specify the capabilities and performance expected of them – one explanation for burnout throughout organizations.

It is amazing why so few organizations even contemplate or design appropriate induction, inclusion, and development processes for these execs and directors. The implicit assumption being, the very act of declaring someone to be an executive or director bestows on them the powers of omniscience…a power contradicted when newly minted execs develop a sense of being over-promoted and find themselves afraid of being found out…exacerbated by feelings of being unaccepted by fellow executives, some of whom allow them to flounder simply by hoarding knowledge or declining to share their wisdom, often for self-aggrandizement.

While all executives and directors are expected to understand and advise upon all matters regardless of specialist discipline, if they can`t it is usually expected that they keep quiet and let those who understand these things get on with them…obviating the idea that they are part of an integrated, higher-order thinking and directing entity.

Lacking the frame of mind or ability to cope with monitoring the external environment, (resulting in lack of agency and hence withdrawal)…unable to integrate the specialist functions of an organization and become a source of predictability, certitude and stability for stakeholders…and lacking in the ability to develop their subordinates as to how to do their job more capably, the whole essence of organizations trying to build a winning superteam is defeated from the get-go.

Welcome to a societally manifested problem that is currently associated with losing our ability to think deeply and undertake deep cognitive work or, for that matter, being able to communicate and share knowledge with humility.

Whether promoting people to their level of incompetence is perceived to be an organizational truth or myth, it is vital that greater attention be given to the role and development of people at the top of any organization. In reference to any industry cluster that serves and may dominate a community, region or country, the necessity to have a superteam in place couldn`t be more important and must be prioritized.

In reference to tourism, the attributes of superteams – the ability of a group to learn, adapt, and succeed in an age of accelerated change - suggest that DMOs and their boards of directors need to think and act collectively and, thereby, be fully conversant with the roles and responsibilities of those who manage and lead communities-as-destinations, as outlined in the following documents:

· World Bank`s Destination Management Handbook

· OECD`s Guidance to Strengthen Destination Management Structures (for Croatia)

· Solimar`s What is a Destination Management Organization (DMO) and Why Should Destinations Care?

As is stated clearly, it isn`t sufficient to merely outline the roles and responsibilities of executives and directors to a DMO. Their responsibilities must extend outward toward the communities, regions or countries they serve, which necessitates acknowledgement of a social contract and fairness principles that explicitly outline responsibilities with reference to civilians, employees, cultures, history, heritage, and a community`s overall economic and social prosperity, and well-being. All precious and fragile commodities, assets, and life-sustaining elements that need to be carefully and lovingly protected as they are being appropriately marketed, managed, and developed.

But if, as Destinations International posits, industry executives and directors are to become catalysts for community vitality, how then should DMOs and industry leaders turn their attention to ensuring that their organizations and communities become committed to learning what `vitality` means beyond its economic significance?

In other words, how are they to gain an accurate picture of their communities` social, economic and political realities…a systems approach that reflects the interests and involvement of communities and the citizens and organizations that tourism is intended to serve?

Obviously, attendance at industry conferences helps, as do subscriptions to leading publications and newsletters. But do they serve only to endorse industry interests rather than community perspectives?

Would it not be preferable if communities and their DMOs took greater responsibility for formulating development programs and initiatives that reflect the views and interests of all stakeholders, communities-at-large or individual neighborhoods…perhaps with a focus on asset-based community development which represents the foundational basis for developing a more inclusive and expansive view as to how community shared value could be defined, implemented, communicated and evaluated?

In the corporate world chief learning officers are being employed to help in these regards, but such a c-suite position may be ill-suited to DMOs and their boards. The importance of learning needs to take place at all levels in an organization.

As Peter Senge outlined in his ground-breaking book, The Fifth Discipline, to achieve a better world no organization can ever expect to succeed unless everybody is familiar with and utilizes a systems thinking approach to their job.

With attention currently being focused on building an ecosystem of geopolitical insights that disseminates knowledge to communities and regions, individual DMOs are unlikely to realize the benefits of these insights unless they simultaneously:

· Deepen their relationships and involvement with multi-stakeholder groups.

· Recruit for great representation of community-as-destination interests and improving how they manage their boards in order to enhance their governance.

· Review and evaluate their existing leadership development programs.

· Assess knowledge of executives and directors, shared leadership, performance and the contributions they are expected to make.

· Determine how to improve the development and training for directors.

· Identify the critical resources that boards need if they are to function and perform better.

As relates to becoming learning organizations however, other obstacles remain. The learning most executives and directors usually have been exposed to within their specialist roles has been programmed - P learning - and is highly codified. Generalists, however, need the ability to ask discriminating questions - Q learning – amplified by encouraging courageous conversations and communications.

But, as Revens explains in his book, The ABC of Action Learning, four corrigible handicaps will have to be overcome if these conversations and Q learning are to occur: Namely, (1) the idealization of past experiences, (2) the charismatic influence of other successful managers (3) the impulse to take immediate action, and (4) the belittlement of subordinates.

In a world of constant change, it is amazing why hindsight - the belief “how things have been done before” - remains more important than foresight - “thinking about how they will be done in the future”.

No organization can develop into a learning organization unless these blockages and adverse attitudes (especially regarding responsibility) are eradicated. It is essential that more integrated and insightful approaches to adaptive governance be designed and implemented …ones that clarify the intertwined roles of policy, strategy and operations that are essential components of a system that needs to be understood within unique cultural and nature-based, organizational and community-wide contexts.

Organizations and DMOs that favor integrated and adaptive approaches and utilize systems thinking are bound to achieve profundity and, more importantly, avoid the Peter Principle. By so doing, the likelihood of achieving such outcomes could be improved…made more possible if organization made the effort to create a Manifesto that emulated the importance of developing and engaging agile directors, especially those conversant with Kolb`s learning cycle…a conceptual framework for learning organizations that favors and desires agility, never simply to study it.

· Agility manifested by forward-thinking executives and directors who are adamant about being and acting as the `brain` function of their organizations or DMOs.

· Agility fashioned as organizations prioritize thinking processes and allow time for them to happen.

· Agility achieved through establishing systems for looking upwards and outwards to help reframe, understand and resolve current organizational/ community/industry problems. The search for civic joy!

So, join in as we listen to this Agile Rhapsody signaling that the villains are never people but outdated and perilous processes that limit our ability to know, to think and to perform.

Destinations would be remise if they did not assess top 10 ways to invigorate attention, interest, desire and action (AIDA). Operating as they do in extremely competitive, on-line worlds, destinations are under pressure to encourage visitation – sending out invitations to “get here” - so visitors can partake and enjoy everything that is on offer.

By seeking to prove their prominence, preeminence or worth, destinations seek endorsements or accolades. Indeed, they represent jewels in the crown of communications through conveyance of privileges and the granting of special honors…an esteemed value easily monetized and compounded so long as implied promises are upheld, messages and content resonate, and visitor delight is ensured. Undoubtably, each deserves to be treated with considerable respect but also precautionary responsibility.

As reputational assets, endorsement and accolades are derivative assessments of other intangible assets - the distinct skills, capabilities, attitudes and behaviors of hosts…the ambient beauty and scenography of community or place…the inspiring hospitality and culture of welcome by citizens and organizations…provision of elegant service-related processes and procedures…carefully conceived and responsive policies (e.g. ETIAS and ETOA) rules and norms…software and databases that, for example, help identify preferences…and solid relational reputations with stakeholders that generate loyalty. In other words, despite their intangibility, endorsements and accolades serve to support and drive the performance of visitor-serving organizations and destinations…unless the influencers are perceived not be honorable or are deemed to have been paid off by the destination.

Of course, that’s only part of the process. Endorsement and accolades are derivatives or outcomes associated with on-going and meaningful aesthetic and multi-sensory aspects of choices…choices determined through political debate, cultural and religious dominion, locational and contextual influences, and a vast array of inter-relational socio-economic decisions that flow, hopefully, from clear-eyed intention.

Having been visited through time immemorial, the image, identity and reputation of all communities-as-destinations have probably wavered, based on public opinion, scrutiny, and how they score related to the concerns and interests, norms and values of locals and visitors…a recognition by community leaders, especially through their DMOs, that they must be diligent in how they convey a community’s appeal and essence, its resonance and safety.

Make no mistake, reputations must be guarded and constantly nurtured. Complacency, neglect, or ignorance must be renounced and resolved.

With recent release of The Destination Professionals Guide to Community Engagement and commitment to Community Shared Value, Destinations International recognizes the need to tune-into and proficiently respond to the concerns of citizens or visitors, but to what avail? The politics of tourism in interaction with the politics of communities can be perplexing and contentious, especially as communities and countries grapple with the crises of the day.

· As such, what can these engagements expect to accomplish, achieve or do differently?

· Are the interests of DMOs and the local tourism industry primarily concerned simply with telling (revealing tourism’s merits), or on the other hand, listening and resolving problems, suggesting a willingness to cooperate, collaborate and negotiate.

· How frequently, where and why, will these engagements take place and intercede, especially when community and industry leaders, managers, entrepreneurs, citizens and hosting communities are already embroiled in their own battles to resolve the frustrations of the day - flaws, delays, ineptitudes, shenanigans, operational deficiencies, neglect, or the ability to meet/exceed expectations?

Welcome to the chaotic world of civics, democracy (imperialism or authoritarianism) in action, the roller coaster ride of local wranglings, the never-ending cycle of shifting imperatives, actions and inaction, the misguided adventures of others, shifting perceptions and blame games.

Or should these challenges even be cause for concern? Once prominence and preeminence have been earned and attached to a place, it is commonly believed they are hard to displace, especially when fascination with certain destinations continues to revolve around their vitality, attractiveness, enchantment, mystique, richness, uniqueness, and welcome.

Inevitably, some destinations maintain their prominence through long-standing personal attachments, familiarity and habitual behaviors among regular visitors and a diaspora whose memories of familial homelands and pursuit of special activities are intractable…entrenched when the beauty of a place, aura and appeal of public spaces provides contentment, enjoyment and happiness.

In such circumstances, destination branding and marketing are at their best and excel when they posit honorable truths about the positive attributes of a destination. No wonder DMOs feel at ease as marketing organizations, though less so when expected, in their managerial capacities, to quell tempests in the teapot.

Even then, their responses may be meek. Whenever destinations seem to be at the pinnacle of their success, it is not unusual for complacency to set in, for organizations to let their guard down. Solid reputations are expected to shield them from any form of downturn or disruption. Anxieties that are partially set aside through KPIs or lagging key performance indicators (e.g. visitation and conversion rates, sustainability indexes) that take time to reveal the seriousness let alone the source of problems. More worrying when tactical outcomes camouflage or ignore strategic failure or neglect. An issue highlighted in a City DNA whitepaper, The Score is not the Story

Such disconnects remain obscure when nobody is noticing, questioning or failing to report dissatisfaction, boredom, negative impressions, service failures, broken promises, and vibe cessation among visitors or hosts. Expressed more succinctly, nothing remains constant.

Reputations are gifts that are earned; they are never owned.

Over time, communities-as-destinations are subjected to continuous displacement and development characterized as commercial uniformity - planiformity of identity, character, and nuance – a burgeoning of advancement altering the significance of place, what is in place, at place (at stake there) or even presented there (taking place, as in an event).

As is well known, tourism often results in appropriation (or expropriation) of certain places as they become over-whelmed, over-developed, closed-in, even spread-out in different locations and neighborhoods, eerily echoing “ex-tension” – a prevailing angst among citizens caused by an invasion of strangers, and feelings of being hemmed-in, displaced or devalued.

In recent years the entire industry has become aware of the poignancy and plenitude of tourism and its impact on others. Obviously, it has resulted in much debate and consternation about the sustainability and regeneration of communities, including the dominant symbolic economy of destinations criticized for imposing its culture on public culture.

While bucket-list destinations of enduringly good taste, and ephemerally bad taste, will continue to proliferate, their economic value will always fluctuate with each transaction, and in accord with shifting preferences, lifestyles, generational mobilities, values, interests and shifting narratives, including those being told through a destination`s priciness.

The realities of destinations are determined both within and beyond the places in which tourism takes place. Pick any city, town or region in any country and most of the challenges will seem quite familiar. Consider Montreal, a notable urban destination and how its persistent woes influence lived experiences that cannot help but flip over into destination experiences.

With geo-political events and sanctions happening around the world, leading to destination boycotts, threatening travel, tourism and human connectivity, an increasing number of people are feeling alienated within our own communities, raising concerns about the difficulties associated with trying to remain humane during stressful times.

Consider the foreboding notion that we are becoming nations of strangers…a characterization totally antithetical to the concept of hospitality and what it means to be destination, places open and welcoming to all, for all.

Going beyond this scenario, listen as Michelle Dickensen reveals what is happening to the middle class, then contemplate the implications for travel and tourism. With fear and despair, division and conflict, becoming operative words, we seem to be living in a world where nowhere feels safe…a world in which, oddly enough, lacks the urgency to resist …another challenge facing communities-as-destinations, which cannot afford to be subjugated.

Few communities may regard tourism as an industry that deserves special prerogatives. On the other hand, they cannot be dismissive of the blowback from a litany of issues, the cascading second and third order effects that are bound to determine whether, as destinations, they can become, or even hope to remain, preeminent and prominent.

· At the time of writing, we are witnessing widespread airspace closures, flight cancellations, route disruptions and airline mergers, affecting airport operations, and notable shifts in global travel flows and patterns.

· Significant increases in trade tariffs, inflationary pressures and interest rates, and volatile oil prices are affecting travel and tourism in its entirety, leading to operational headaches, even the postponement of travel decisions.

· Elevated transport and accommodation prices are likely to remain high, forcing visitors (already stressed due to fractured K-shaped economies and affordability crises) to substitute out-bound travel with more local and regionally based activities.

· Exasperating inconsistencies in the delivery of services in all visitor-serving organizations are destroying trust at a time when value for visitors (whose expectations are not diminishing) is expected to become pleasantly multi-faceted, personalized, meaningful and culturally rich.

· Visitor-serving organizations, suffering from supply chain dislocations and acute staffing shortages, are leaning towards subcontracting certain services primarily to reduce labor costs and increase efficiency. Perhaps this is where agile (noted at the end of the prior article) meets agentic AI leaving many concerned, especially about capability gaps and where such decisions might ultimately lead, and with what affect.

· DMOs, being encouraged to diversify markets even further, are under pressure to encourage the development of a wider range of seasonal offerings tailored to specific target markets to extend year-round visitation. But, to get it right, are DMOs being truly attentive to the voices of citizens, in conjunction with the voices of visitors?

· The architects of how destinations make visitors feel are not just visitor-serving organizations but the acceptance and welcoming that emanates from the community-at-large. As advocates for tourism, however, are DMOs performing a vital role in making sure that hospitality is inspiring and rewarding, that human inter-connectivity is improving, and cultural integrity and nature-based assets are being protected?

· DMOs, traditionally, have taken their lead from the major players in key industry sectors. They cannot afford to be advocating solely on their behalf, after all destinations are in service to communities. As such, what should DMOs be doing differently if they are to be more attentive to the needs of the communities and citizens therein? What more needs to be done and accomplished?

· To lessen the load brought on by overcrowding, some destinations are attempting to revise their approaches to market segmentation, some deciding to focus on higher-end visitors. But is this wise? Can fewer, wealthier visitors lower tourism`s negative impacts? What else could be distressing about catering solely to elite mobilities?

· If we are to engage in the debate as to whether travel is a right, not just a privilege, let us not forget the realities: The conditions in a destination that deny some citizens the right to travel (the privilege of leaving), suggest the need to re-appreciate what privilege is and the responsibilities (of guests and hosts) that attach to that privilege.

· Summed up in another way, wherein lie concerns for marketing control before DMOs lose control? Can we identify more honorable and exemplary pathways to privilege and prestige for communities-as-destinations that, in the process, could serve to revise what it means to become or remain preeminent and prominent?

Given the issues and challenges facing communities, compounded by the significant issues re-shaping international agendas, DMOs can play a more significant part in identifying the structural and strategic reforms that will help create new pathways to privilege and prestige. Reforms that will also refine, if not re-define, what it means to be and remain a preeminent and prominent destinations in service to principled purpose.

No wonder organizations like Destinations International (DI) are obliging DMOs to re-engage with their communities…an undertaking that must be done with extreme care and clear-eyed intent. After all, no community can afford the luxury of failure, particularly when their luxury of choice already comes burdened with limitations.

With careful thought given to the end game, it is vital that the conditions for magic be bolstered rather than jeopardized. As revealed in recent studies, it is not just a matter of fixing deficiencies or making incremental improvements. Human behavior shifts when experiences cross critical emotional thresholds and are extremely positive. As more communities and their DMOs entertain the idea of building a superteam of super-supporters for their communities-as-destinations, then it is essential that elegant solutions to the engagement process be found.

As an example, CivicBrand`s work for Boone North Carolina posited the necessity for engagement as the initial step prior to formulating an implementation framework. By connecting their brand to everyday decisions regarding communications and marketing, placemaking, partnerships and policy alignment, they focused on balancing continuity with evolution, giving Boone the tools needed to carry their (historic)story forward in ways that felt grounded and current.

An engagement that ultimately led to destinations brands being recognized not solely as positioning devices, but as a means to foster identification, revise a sense of self, and act as nests and harbors worth arriving at. “Brands as participants, not authors. Brands as grammar, not messages. Brands as contributors to a cultural ecology they do not control and cannot predict.”

Similarly, as expressed in this Future of Tourism`s podcast with the CEO of the Gdantz Tourism Organization on the intersection of city, citizen and tourism. It is amazing what can be discovered when profound attempts are made to build bridges with a community`s citizens. By amplifying their voices…enhancing resident sentiment toward tourism…creating educational programs, communication and citizen cards…and by enhancing efforts to improve accessibility and sustainability. By so doing the tourism authority won the trust of people and their ongoing commitment to ensure citizens that they can be ones who will determine how tourism can best create value for all.

As suggested, it is exemplary when local governments and their DMOs go out of their way to master the art of the interview as an essential requirement in fostering and perfecting engagement, earning people`s trust thereby enlarging their circle of supporters who, by being reminded as to what it means to be fully human, are welcomed into a community of weavers.

All of this might seem a bit far-fetched and exaggerated, but if we are to disavow the inclination to become a nation of strangers, it is time we recognized the merit in talking to strangers, helping everyone get to know our neighborhoods and our communities, and engage in woke wanderlust whose immersive qualities can aid in correcting anti-social tendencies.

Such undertakings might seem audacious, unless we recognize their renown in invigorating attention, interest, desire and action (AIDA) and representing the foundational principles for determining a destination`s pre-eminence and prominence as they seek better pathways to privilege and prestige.

No need to be living on a prayer. Turn hope into action. Destinations-in-Action.

Pleasure, joy and happiness represent the memorable outcomes all of us expect when pursuing the exceptional aspects of leisure, recreational activities, travel, and visits to distant lands… enjoying the freedom, leaning in and learning to let go. As stated previously, I made my career choices based on the belief that hospitality and tourism would lead to the good life. It did…it has…but such delight seems to be slipping.

Having already broached this subject in a prior article, Please, please, recent personal experiences lead me to wonder why this plea is falling on deaf ears.

Let us start with the travel portions of two recent international trips. Any desire to please was, at best, ephemeral: Delayed departures, outrageously priced airport meals, sullen flight attendants, restrictions on luggage allowances, lack of leg room, no entertainment systems (on all flights), mechanical failure in baggage carousels at two airports, scroungy airport hotels, unlicensed taxis allowed to operate and charge double the standard rate, customs agents who grunted, no semblance of `Welcome` upon arrival, anywhere, even on my return trip.

The front and back end of all trips, dismal failures…a situation that travelers have come to accept as the new normal. Sad. Unacceptable.

Need this be?

I am a seasoned traveler but I am witnessing the steady decline in service standards, as are my family, friends and colleagues, many of whom, living in popular destinations, are fed up and frustrated…weary of the traffic, the crowds of faceless masses…blaming tourists, transients and tourism for the escalating costs of living…upset at heartless developers, greenwashing and the dismantling of cultural heritage…disenchanted and totally bemused by the notion that tourism represents a community shared value…value dispersed to profiteers who, through their actions (inactions) and behavior, sadly are adding to the Illusion of ethical capitalism.

As for those serving in hosting capacities, most seemed perfunctory in their roles, trying their best to be nice, doing their job while maintaining their composure. Few, however, were smiling; few performing even the most ordinary of pleasantries. The exception, our tour guide at the ancient ruins of Dzibilchaltun, Yucatan, not just because his passion resonated but because he cared about his heritage, connected with his guests and stimulated their curiosity.

Certainly, there were many other occasions when we found pleasure, joy and happiness but rarely because of involvement from the hosts themselves. It was as if visitors were there to be treated in purely transactional terms, never anything approaching transformational or transcendent as our tour guide made possible.

And that really is the point. We are all born with the need for contact and tenderness. It is part of the virtuous cycle associated with the transforming power of hospitality. When it is ignored, shattered, forgotten or dismissed, it is not that tourism and communities-as-destinations cannot survive, but they certainly cannot thrive when conscientious social contact and connection are absent or denied.

Throughout this extensive series of articles, I have attempted to argue that the concept of hospitality represents the heart and soul of tourism…a foundational or core concept rarely mentioned in the literature. Until today, when I opened up an e-mail from Ian Yeoman regarding an upcoming webinar, Hospitality through an Islamic lens:

As researchers we often view hospitality through a Western lens but in a global tourism industry, hospitality has different lens. One such perspective is Islam which is founded on compassion and care. Hospitality in Islam is deeply embedded in the spiritual, cultural, and social fabric of Muslim communities. It is regarded not merely as a social courtesy but as a sacred duty grounded in generosity, kindness, and profound respect for guests. This ethos reflects a timeless set of values centred on welcoming others, offering comfort, and ensuring the dignity and wellbeing of every visitor.

While I would argue that all religions share similar beliefs, inspired or enlightened hospitality, needs to be portrayed in even more fulsome ways. I prefer to view it as the `power plant` that energizes a virtuous cycle…a cycle, rather than a hierarchy, that prioritizes employees because they represent the ultimate decision-makers and real play-makers. The own and control the proclivty to please, provide pleasure and add value.

Indulge me and do listen to Danny Meyer`s discussion with Adam Grant about how the `proclivity to please and provide pleasure` represents the essence of success whatever the enterprise or undertaking. Perversion it is not...but a lesson to be learned, often the hard way as Danny so eloquently describes and more thoroughly detailed in his book, Setting the Table.

If we purport to believe that Tourism Cares…attempt to make sure it can be Transformational… strive to ensure tourism Becomes a Community Shared Value…pleasure, joy and happiness must become measurable values. But are they being measured beyond satisfaction scores?

Achieving these goals, as with “taking care of others first”, will demand that we put far greater effort be put into eliminating discord and displeasure within our hosting communities, whether on the frontline, behind the scenes, or in our daily conversations.

And yet, such tasks are never going to be easy or straightforward when work lives are frantic, and emphasis is on optimization, efficiency, productivity and getting things done. As is so prevalent today, we appear to be stuck within a dilemma, operating under conditions of angst and suspended commitment. Read the article to learn more about this indictment.

Following that, find out what is happening within your own community. Why as a destination it is stuck? Why an increasing number of tourism`s workforce are being counted among the working homeless?

Surely there is a way out of these dilemmas.

It entails introspection. But HOW should we encourage its practice?

As managers and leaders, rarely do we take the time to reflect on what we are doing, how we are perceived, whether we are making a difference, undoing indifference. So, why the reluctance?

As a sanctuary for reflection, self-improvement, and progression, introspection requires an intimate dive into our personal, organizational and community lives…our thoughts, emotions, choices, beliefs and motivations. For those in managerial or leadership positions, it entails a deep understanding about decision-making, our emotional triggers, our day-to-day responses especially to those in our employ. It is a scary undertaking, too often avoided. Again, Why?

Such a journey extends beyond just evaluating our actions. It seeks to uncover the reasoning behind decisions, emotions, and reactions. And it begins by unraveling our core beliefs that dictate policies, strategies and tactics, comprehending the emotional triggers that are influencing choices and instincts that surface during unexpected challenges.

There are several unseen advantages for being introspective. Primarily, introspection enhances emotional intelligence. When our internal thought processes are evaluated, we become more aware of our emotions and learn to anticipate how they might affect others and influence real-world interactions.

As Danny Meyer articulated in the interview with Adam Grant, this understanding can lead to improved communication and stronger relationships whereby, through discussions and collaborations within the industry and throughout our communitirs, it is possible to develop a framework for analyzing past decisions, identifying patterns and resolving problems.

By acknowledging his vulnerabilities, embracing them, and becoming more relatable, Danny makes evident the learning process that allowed him to transform perceived weaknesses into strengths resulting in more fair and just decisions.

By incorporating introspective practices into his daily routine, his decision-making improved, as did his connectivity and relatability with his team of employees, investors and communities-at-large.

As a further and equally as interesting article on introspection and the ability to discover clues, (especially about how to break free from being Stuck) The Great Reconfiguration suggests we ask ourselves some profound questions:

· What do I actually do that has value? Adds value, shared value?

· Who needs it? Why?

· How do I build from it when the old paths are dissolving?”

I would add an even more revealing question:

· What and who is our industry lobbying for? Ourselves or others?

Based upon personal experience I can tell you that lobbying is rarely about our workforce, or what governments could and should be doing to make life easier for them and our community`s citizens…which is quite revealing! Such questions and queries are essential to ask if we hope to transition from being out of focus to achieving greater personal and organizational clarity.

Having tried these questions on for size, I can personally attest to their ability in helping managers and leaders alter their focus and become adept at becoming unstuck…a quest that led to a TED talk examining how the differences between happiness and joy directly influence the ability to achieve inspired or enlightened hospitality by “taking care of others first”, being attentive to how the people we serve and employ are feeling…determining the importance of knowing whether or not they are happy and content…recognizing why we get so wrapped up in our endeavors that we forget about joy, its power to…

· Enhance people’s wellbeing.

· Spread its contagious effect.

· Sharpen our own minds as well as those of others.

· Help improve our state of mind, our performativity and productivity.

· Open everyone up to exploring and accepting new ideas.

· Improving people’s cognitive ability.

· Build their resilience.

While Danny Meyer may have discovered the ways in which such outcomes are possible, I continue to wonder why as an industry we continue to neglect how to perfect and employ our “experience intelligence” (community resources and finances), directing them toward creating more fulsome opportunities to the hosting side of the hospitality equation that is the building block for strengthening relationships and fostering camaraderie whereby we can discover joy anyway whether through detours that are diversionary, recreational, experiential, experimental or as an existential truth that tells us it is good to be alive.

Everyone needs a change of pace and place, opportunities and places that allow us to wind down, refresh, revive, recharge, relax and relearn. Imagine expanding the expertise of destinations through their DMOs and visitor-serving organizations to bring these benefits to all, for all. Isn`t that a way to bring about and ensure community shared value?

`Promises made` translated into `Promises kept`.

It may be a stretch, but what if we drew upon Paddington`s experience…examined the immense possibilities for joy that can be derived from overcoming fear, adapting to new and different circumstances, feeling out of place, alone and different, all while trying to fit in? Why did Paddington succeed? What and who was responsible for his success?

Yes, I know this was a cinematic experience that allowed us to laugh at the woes of others, as was John Cleese`s portrayal of Basil Fawlty in the magnificently ridiculous episodes of Fawlty Towers, but there is so much we can learn and apply as we confront the task of truly making hospitality inspired and enlightened for all.

To do so, imagine super-charging introspection by drawing the community into the process. Recognition by community and destination leaders that they cannot solve problems with the same thinking that created them. So why not tap into the collective intelligence of entire communities, utilizing what is called Socratic Design, a process successfully being applied in Amsterdam.

Rather than collect opinions through surveys or town halls, Amsterdam decided to organize structured dialogues through which participants initially examined their own assumptions about a topic before moving toward positions or solutions.

Obviously, hospitality is a demanding, pressure-filled undertaking. But just as Amsterdam might contemplate how AI might change or fit into the hospitality equation and its virtuous cycle, it is notable how introspection and collective intelligence need to become useful and productive tools and practices to contemplate and become aspects of transformative frameworks.

We don’t scale ideas by pushing harder, we do it by leading with empathy. Because growth can’t be forced, it unfolds over time when culture is moving in the same direction. We’re being invited into a paradigm shift in how we show up for leadership. This isn’t a trend; it’s a shared frequency that demands presence. When we center ourselves, we make room for new possibilities that defy traditional KPIs, but move the needle where it matters. As the pace of change compounds, the real differentiator won’t be speed, but ethical intentionality.

The “bridge to belonging”, as Danny Meyer might have concluded, is really based on ensuring that hospitality becomes fully integrated into organizations and communities-at-large…constantly being translated into real behavior in daily life over time. So, as you attempt to mine for community intelligence, why not ask participants: In reference to tourism, how would you define and determine what success looks like to you?

Once you have got the answers, work backwards from them to develop the policies, strategies and tactics that would ensure success or to discover the true essence of meaning that is found in truth, beauty, goodness and delight (beyond duty).

Prior to signing off, I would like to revisit my opening comments regarding recent travel experiences. I wonder how you might answer my final question:

What needs to happen or change if your organization/community consciously assumed greater responsibility for owning the entirety of the journeys (from opening gambits to concluding or reactionary states) that your guests and hosts take? For providing the circumstances and opportunities to find a surprising sense of joy anyway?

The proclivity to please cannot afford to be perverse. Pleasure, joy and happiness are outcomes of hospitality that is coherently and conspicuously inspired and enlightened, never perfunctory. So, destination leaders, commit: Mind your Ps and Qs. And remember…

No longer can it be `Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps` or Quizas, Quizas, Quizas.

If it is, then Time`s a wastin.

Karthik Ramanna, author of `The age of outrage: How to lead in a polarized world` says we are stuck in an exhausting cycle of crisis management. A new world disorder that is becoming deeper and more structural is multiplying the problems our organizations and communities face, whether they be destinations or not. Clearly, leadership needs to adapt accordingly. But how do we “turn down the temperature”, listen generously, and build real resilience? Even if that can be done, is that going to be sufficient?

As Ramanna notes: Resilience plays a huge role in the age of outrage. Not only are we trying to figure out when to respond, how to respond, and whom to listen to as we make decisions, but we have to figure out how to do this in ways that allows all of us (as individuals, organizations and communities) to come out from each experience stronger for it - at least not weaker.

Let us first acknowledge that adapting to change, life`s misfortunes, setbacks and stark realities take a personal toll. As the Mayo Clinic advises, it requires developing specific coping skills. Similarly at organizational and community levels. For example, one essential adaptation skill, deep listening, requires that we do so with our head, heart and body, but also with generosity. Listening, after all, is a psychological act that requires us to understand, empathize, and forge stronger connections with everyone around us.

Regardless of the type of crisis or problem, listening does not simply require appreciating the concerns, opinions and ideas of plurality, but being finely attuned as to whether others feel seen, heard, validated and valued…previously referenced as radical hospitality.

Given that “crisis management is an organization’s strategy and process-based approach for identifying and responding to a critical event”, it should be obvious that communications among all parties and stakeholders must be built on a foundation of civility and trust (not setting traps or helping them avoid being or feeing trapped) and represents a discernable follow-through on commitments to our customers, our communities, and our citizens.

If we as leaders and managers are to build resilience in times of crises, whereby it’s said everything must change, we`re obligated to thoroughly re-examine how to reassure and develop (not just retain) our customers, clients, guests, and yes, our hosting workforces. Perhaps we should be encouraging our leaders to engage in and practice therapeutic thinking.

We shouldn`t have to review Peter Drucker`s views on sales and marketing to realize the necessity for deep analysis of our products, people, place, price, promotions and politics to determine how they will evolve and must evolve - choosing between conformity and innovation. To improve, innovate and grow we have no choice but to get curious – consider using AI for simulation and scenario planning in strategy - and do so in accord with the evolving views on the new society of organizations that is constantly being confounded by the uncertainty of what are supposed to be certain certainties.

All requirements that demand, as skeptics, that we ponder and probe (seek and test new data) with clear-eyed intent - from wishes to real world alignment while released from being captivated by the constraints of collective emotions.

Brainstorming not for answers but for questions. After all, a major requirement of our jobs is to deliberate with all our stakeholders (mass deliberation?) with humility and compassion (without coercion), pondering through, with deliberate care and compassion, the crises, moral complexities, dilemmas and lack of balance characteristic of our time…introspection that represents the philosophical scaffolding of inspired hospitality.

If we hope to de-bias decision-making and encourage real value-creating opportunities, wouldn`t it be appropriate to identify and ask the challenging questions? Re-evaluate the promise and shortcomings of community shared value…what it means and entails…what it is intended to deliver and accomplish?

Do citizens know about and are they deriving benefits or shared value from tourism? If not, why not? And then, how should DMOS, our leaders and managers actually go about building business through social connection, delivering, achieving and measuring the shared value?

Throughout our societies, we are all well-aware how products, services and experiences are becoming more adaptable through software updates and apps that change their functionality in real time. Certainly, our visitors expect consistency, but what happens when boredom and uncertainties occur, experiences stay the same, their usefulness and novelty wear thin and no longer delight? Obviously deep dive questioning into how consumers change as they grow and overcome their challenges needs to be prioritized and probed.

Similarly, we need to be determining, probing and questioning how to modify and improve the offerings of our organizations and communities in order to:

· Ensure the creation of value`s 30+ commercial elements jive with the values of the community and what its citizens value.

· Regain our benevolence without compromising the value of obscurity and uniqueness.

· Design for relevance while enhancing the social value of tourism.

· Appreciate the experiential shift between `we` and `us` experiences

· Ensure further flexibility in the response from our markets.

· Capitalize on adjacencies, especially by syncing cultural output with commercial value.

· Alter business models (reflective of archetypical models) and tourism strategies so our destinations are viewed as pioneers in the marketplace with emphasis on flexibility, longevity, and environmental consciousness.

· Make known the full range of complementary products and services.

· Create positive social/cultural/environmental impact e.g. operationalizing regeneration

· Become wary of inconsistent incentives, fragmented accountability, and structural constraints that continue to shape outcomes.

· Integrate more authentic, cultural and nature-based offerings into our tourism strategies to gain competitive advantage.

· And, to do so before our communities-as-destinations de-stabilize, go into decline, and create their own set of internal cascading crises.

With results from recent political elections around the world about to cause substantive carnage to institutional norms (e.g. a possible retreat from climate diplomacy for some), leaders and managers will have to re-engage in forward-thinking protective manners.

This problem alone will necessitate activation, for example, through use of knowledge groups (City Destinations Alliance) and higher degrees of collaboration at board levels where delicate decision-making is paramount. Whether in reference to sustainability or workforce issues, the interplay between anti-immigration initiatives and tourism is about to cause nightmares in many destinations as racism and reaction to woke agendas intensifies and serves to dissuade visitation (last chance tourism due to climate change or collapse of tourism), undermine liberal concepts of civility and hospitality and, in certain jurisdictions, diminish the labor pool as undocumented immigrants flee or are returned to countries of origin.

Queries about HR (human resource) issues will always remain central to the viability of communities-as-destinations. A recent copy of the Harvard Business review, for example, asks “Why employees quit?” and what managers get wrong about the employee experience. Perhaps it all stems from the prevailing community and corporate culture.

Another article questions how to “Turn Employee Feedback into Action” and do so by protecting employee privacy, navigating conflicting viewpoints, addressing unpleasant feedback, and empowering leaders to translate insights into concrete actions. Of course, it starts by being inquisitive and delving into root causes of concern in order to clarify the multifaceted challenges they face and build employee trust through active listening and transparency.

Now, wouldn’t it be nice if leaders and managers were privy to the essential questions and probes that need to be made. Fortunately, hundreds are available in my four-volume book, Astonish! Smarter Tourism by design (made available for FREE to all paying subscribers to Destinations in-Action) and contained as part of destination assessments (branded as Destinations-in-Action). Here is the introduction to the assessment process from the book:

Too many communities-as-destinations fall into the trap of believing that they Astonish! Such beliefs, and lack of intellectual humility, know no bounds. If we are to be seekers of objective truths, we have no choice but to operate under the premise that “we don’t know what we don’t know” or don’t see. As such, we are obliged to reframe, dive deeply to gather the facts, adopt more systemic views, and expand our circles of competence. Critical inquiry requires working harder to improve our collective instincts, best accomplished by immersing ourselves into the issues; seeking the perspectives and truths of others; intensifying our curiosity about the future; articulating our convictions and aspirations; identifying, and then pursuing opportunities that can pass considered decision reflection.

With communities-as-destinations under extreme pressure to provide services and experiences that count, create and capture value, transformations can be complex, time-consuming projects, demanding interactions that have to be carefully orchestrated and choreographed. Taking place within unique and nested adaptive systems, it seems absurd that the process can be simplified by seeking answers to the magic question: “What does success look like?”

And yet, despite the existence of assessment tools, research techniques, and professional advice, there is no acceptable universal methodology or uniform logic as to what makes communities-as-destinations great or how they can achieve (and maintain) net value over the long-term.

That’s not to say that smarter and more thoughtful approaches can’t be found; they can, but they must be designed and customized to suit purpose, taking into account complex organizational and socio-cultural contexts, situational requirements, and reference a wide range of differing expectations, outputs, outcomes, and impacts. It helps if transformation can be done pre-emptively, but more often it tends to be made reactively.

With the intent to get better at the basics, create positive change, sustain improvements in performance over the long-term, as well as identify the trajectory and direction of community futures, Destinations-in-Action sets out to re-think and navigate our way out of constraints through deep, wide and long destination evaluations, leading to actions that are strategically relevant and transformative.

As evidence-based balancing acts, the oversight offered through Destinations-in-Action requires situational humility, deep curiosity, and psychological safety, plus a high degree of collaborative effort to assess and test ideas and intuitions.

Chock full of questions and probes, you will be shown multiple pathways, but not a definitive roadmap to preferable outcomes and development. As leaders, with the intent to awaken, unleash and harness peoples’ collective genius and help create more aspirational narratives, beware: If you are intent on legitimizing tourism as a super-cluster and its transformational success, you’ll have to transition from being heroes to hosts.

In doing so, you will thoroughly test your profound beliefs, be amazed as to what you will be able to learn and accomplish. After all, what got you here, won’t even keep you there. What will keep you here are resonant ideas that lie within the realm of possibility.

By working with the good advice we have accumulated, it`s no longer a question of So What but time to pick up the pieces…let the music stimulate and push you toward resolution.

Given the urgency of the situation – the climate crisis, the collapse of tourism (in the United States and the Middle East), airline troubles – it is time to get on with the go-go. As an initial suggestion, larger tourism-related organizations and DMOs might want to consider employing Chief Learning Officers who will be responsible for leading beyond the learning function.

An undertaking that must start by helping everyone involved in tourism fully comprehend the severity of so many issues we are facing these days and the learn how to become effective leaders at a time when nobody wants to be the boss anymore…a boss that can be trusted and is focused on doing what is essential and right.

Re-imaging the role of a leader is but an initial step, but what else will it take to get ourselves out of this mess…revise what some deem to be reality?

Share your thoughts with us.

Everyone involved in the creation and operation of communities-as-destinations are choice architects. For better or for worse, the power to influence the decisions of hosts and guests is made largely by individual organizations. By creating individualized (not parroted) content, narrative and experiential opportunities, the perceived quality and intent of their actions can either confirm or contradict the attempts of DMOs to provide direction and maintain a semblance of oversight.

Consequently, DMOs (like many conglomerate organizations) are constrained in their ability to structure and manage their community’s vast portfolio of assets, activities and amenities. With the subtleties associated with influencing seemingly beyond control, the ease in which tourism can favorably contribute to building viable and desirable market and social economies, as well as bolstering a civil society, can easily be short-changed.

Whether or not we have entered a time in which anti-tourism sentiment is intensifying, world events are rapidly making tourism plans, and the assumptions they are built upon, obsolete. With everyone being pulled into a reframed polyrhythmic present, the demands to lead are intensifying, requiring alternative ways to sense, respond in order to regain a sense of mastery and agency.

As composites of stakeholders remain intent on achieving their own personal and organizational goals, guiding and re-shaping the performance of communities-as-destinations has become a major challenge. A situation made worse by communities that have not been diligent in conceptualizing progress…bringing people together…or holding on to what matters most. Whenever there is a lack of coherence due to misalignment with strategic priorities, indeterminate ways of measuring impact and engaging with others in meaningful ways, destinations inevitably suffer and undergo strain.

If destinations are truly to become of the community, for the community, and by the community - an interwoven part of, not apart from, community – far greater attention has to be given to stakeholder management. As has been said: The most effective DMOs are those that build and bolster their relationships with partners.

A recent article in the Harvard Business Review noted that as systems intersect, morph and redirect, resulting in diverging priorities, capabilities and constraints, the need for collaboration intensifies. New ideas can`t flourish without “bridgers” – leaders who excel at collaborating across boundaries with partners whether they be adjacent or distant.

Strange as it may seem, the verb ‘to part or depart` suggests division or separation, relinquishment or abandonment, whether from something or somebody who has value or is considered not to have value…a reality that also occurs when interdependencies and relationships fail to form due to indifference, differences of opinion or a lack of common interests, values and aspirations.

Obviously, when considering what tourism is all about, decisions to visit begin with leaving or a departure from one place, for arrival in another place or destination…decisions made willfully when there are expectations for warm welcomes from hosts and families whose desires for engagement come with invitations to be part of their community, if only for a short time.

In no uncertain terms, communities-as-destinations need to be deliberate and in agreement about how best to inspire potential visitors, foster and create shared value for them, which stems from the promise of hospitality and commitments for the well-attuned co-creation of ‘wellth’ or well-being for all… a getting away from it all…a true departure, all to be part of something special upon arrival!

Similarly for communities in crisis, desperate in their struggles to revive if not survive. Paramount is the necessity to bring the best minds together to reverse course…a requirement that demands the formation of long-standing partnerships: “Local government leaders making creative use of their relationships with regional and national government to influence policies, lobby for contracts for local businesses, and ensure that funding would be available for development programs” as exemplified in Greater Geelong, Victoria, Australia.

If, as President Reagan once said (in reference to immigration), “our origins matter less than our destinations” (a belief being refuted under the Trump administration and evident in other regimes that castigate the other, whether or not they be refugees) then the question becomes: How should we go about agreeing and assuring that tourism, touristic activities, and visitors will be welcomed, accepted, immersed into and become a blended part of our communities…a core part of what it means to be and evolve as a community, even though most are simply passing through?

While there are many distinct component parts to or multiple varieties of tourism enterprises serving complementary though disparate requirements, it is amazing how they are all needed and patronized by locals as part of their day-to-day leisure or work-related activities.

Indeed, virtually all these public and private facilities and enterprises are considered essential and admired for advancing a community’s status and substantive nature (business-to-visitor, business-to-business, employer-to-employee), made possible by commitments to serve expansive sets of serious and frivolous needs for people from near and afar.

The degree to which communities choose to accept or ignore these needs adds complexity and nuance to the subject we call tourism. A process which is reciprocated and noteworthy when locals depart from their own communities to become visitors to partake of so many touristic activities that exist in the beyond. Hosts becoming guests, guests becoming hosts…a persistent duality and divergence of roles.

At different times, occasions and places we are all involved in role reversal and identity transition – accepting/excluding, serving/being served, welcoming/being welcomed, observing/being observed, inhabiting/visiting - everyone actively engaged as participants in a world of exchange and interchange.

While most interactions are transactional - socially, culturally and humanely interwoven and interconnected – they are intended to make us feel needed, content and healthy. Regardless of being perceived as annoying, hectic or stressful, far more could be done to ensure tourism becomes truly transformational and is pursued in ways that commit us to re-humanize the other.

With everyone, informally or formally, a part-timer in tourism - engaged in some capacity of hosting or being hosted - comes a responsibility to care for our fellow citizens, communities and countries…recognition that tourism should be part and parcel of the “care economy” as discussed in a previous article.

Given our obligations to be hospitable and be supportive of communities-as-destinations, care obligates us to put greater effort into supporting our communities, public institutions, and resources that attract both visitors and locals…as exemplified and important in regard to our educators, indigenous and civil society groups that exemplify the need for collective impact.

Implicitly the concept of care is in full swing when personally entertaining our own guests, maybe less so when facing a steady deluge of and intermingling with out-of-towners, having to make sacrifices and putting up with certain inconveniences. Though, need this be the case?

If only community officials and destination marketers would change the parameters for success, with progress and achievement not simply determined by visitor throughput and provision of tourism’s economic benefits, but determined by being truly attentive to resolving tourism`s extraneous costs, disruptions and pressures, and by managing use of scarce resources, visitor flows and concentrations, particularly around instagramable sites. Obligations that extend to include a community’s resident hosts in their active roles as partners in the development of and involvement in collectively owned strategies through systems orchestration.

Expressed another way, community officials cannot do it alone. They have the ability to empower their citizens by making them partners in tourism. Doing so, however, will require concerted attempts to overcome strong feelings about being excluded and marginalized, as many citizens grapple with their own problems or feelings of being strangers in the land.

All of this seems out-of-the-ordinary, but efforts to bring about DMOcracy have been proposed by many, including Destinations International. Through engagement, DMOs are being urged to form public-private partnerships (prominent in some Small Island Development States) to deliver more expansive and sustainable outcomes expected from tourism and its development.

Efforts to mount public-private partnerships, however, are still relatively sparse (generally limited to marketing initiatives), under-developed and under-funded with the citizenry of communities rarely involved in determining preferences, purposes and policies for tourism, as acknowledged in the DMOcracy report.

Regardless, community member engagement has the potential to fuel action, ownership, and momentum. When structures of governance and delineated partner roles and responsibilities exist, partnership cohesiveness and effectiveness can be established, so long as training and orientation to new partners is provided…members are enabled to voice their opinions…records on the processes, decisions, and accomplishments of partnerships are kept…and partnership engagement continues until policy changes are enacted.

Developing strong leadership and group management skills among partners is essential and can be made more effective so long as all partners are involved in determining or revising the principles, purpose, vision, mission and strategy for tourism. Of course, the success of partnerships always depends on contextual factors, such as the history of the community’s previous partnership efforts, inequities in the community, and funding cuts at regional or local levels. Indeed, inequities and the inequitable distribution of community resources or shared value are often the reason for forming or dissolving partnerships. As such, we always need to be cautious in thinking your partners work for you .

While there may be no single best model for the structuring and functioning of partnerships, one thing is for sure, partnership models need to have the right “fıt” for the initiative in question, including the historical context of care and collaboration in the community. While there are a range of models of cooperation, a shared understanding and agreement among partnering organizations can be contentious, especially in societies where individualistic worldviews dominate over relational alternatives and as agentic AI starts to take shape.

For example, in regard to the entrepreneurs out there, some of whom are considering (co-founding) partnerships, it is essential to be patient about courtship and the nurturing prospective relationships. Collaboration doesn’t occur automatically; it is a product of time and careful deliberation. In fact, it is normally preceded by efforts to communicate and form networks that hopefully result in cooperation and eventually culminate in partnerships and community development.

Here is a guide outlining what collaboration is all about. It discusses some drawbacks; how to do it by being ready, willing and able; areas of assessment for community collaboration; typical collaboration relationships; how best to work together; factors, abilities and skills for effective collaboration; and ways to establish and maintain effective collaboration.

Typically in the tourism realm, partnering refers to or is limited to co-op marketing programs, exemplified by Brand USA. But it relates also to the provision of assistance, training programs, research projects, innovation and the betterment of communities. Done well, effective collaboration builds a solid foundation of support among local stakeholders. When organizations invest time and resources into community-based tourism initiatives, they demonstrate their commitment to the well-being of the community.

This commitment is essential for creating positive rapport, as it encourages community members, tourism organizations, even the informal economy (StreetNet) to participate in partnership activities, be involved and supportive of industry/community initiatives. Such community-centric approaches (e.g. Project Together) can yield valuable insights and feedback, helping organizations, such as DMOs, to tailor their strategies to align better with local needs and preferences.

There are numerous types of collective action projects. From touristic points of view and as we know from personal experiences, first impressions count. Yet it has taken time for marketers to acknowledge placemaking as a core marketing activity. Personally I draw inspiration from the United Nations, Best Tourism Villages Initiative that identifies all the areas necessary for undertaking an evaluation, which when implemented can result in the magnificence, for example, of Les Plus Beaux Villages de France. As for the impact on regional or rural development, experiences in Denmark reveal that competitions, prizes, and campaigns positively affect the dynamism of villagers and show that villagers are quick to accept and adapt to a competitional approach to community development.

Much more needs to be done, however, particularly at regional and national levels to encourage self-help for bottom-up rural development projects (e.g. Green Rock, Armenia). By so doing, regional governments can be encouraged to help municipalities make investments and support places that demonstrate potential; however, such an approach has the potential to increase inequality if there is an uneven distribution of resources within rural communities. In Denmark, for example, it was determined that the winning villages were the ones who already managed to attract funding and used their success proactively, creating a ‘snowball effect’, while others lacked qualifications to identify the possibilities for funding and prepare proposals.

In these and similar situations, fostering partnerships for community engagement demands that DMOs maintain an active presence in the community and are acutely aware of the need to bolster and build the four core types of resilience—financial, operational, organizational, and external – essential if public/private/plural sector partnerships are to thrive and survive and, thereby, override shareholder supremacy with the creation stakeholder or community value.

To my mind the most effective partnerships are those that have discovered the wherewithal and potential of ‘participaction’. Similar to the Canadian initiative to encourage people to be physically active, ‘participaction’ among partners and within partnerships requires the establishment of goals – social impact goals, process goals, financial goals, learning and growth goals – which when linked to collective strategies (driving greater impact, incentivizing and championing the issue, growing funding and support, optimizing operations and culture and achieving the math of generosity) can ensure destinations become of the community, for the community.

Based on what is happening in community manufacturing industries, DMOs could be emulating the work of Mechanic that is intent on “re-anchoring production ecosystems in enduring, north star values that explicitly lift up strong labor standards, family-sustaining wages, safe and healthy workplaces, community ownership, and a culture of craft and innovation that strengthens the identity and resilience of the places we call home”.

Similar initiatives may represent departures from the norm – norms of complacency, inaction and exclusion – prevalent in far too many communities, especially those that have been single industry towns and are struggling, emotionally and psychologically, with the inevitable established intransigeances and transitional processes. But, as Aretha Franklin once sung, there ain`t no way forward unless love is reciprocated - love and care of community…commitment to the community…involvement in the community.

Bringing about evolutionary change inevitably represents new beginnings. As departures from what was once familiar, we are bound to lose some things. Messes are left behind, yet memories remain. In seeking refuge, we cannot help but learn to embrace alternative views as we cultivate intellectual humility, recognize the power in collective behavior (possibly AI generated), reduce organizational friction, build new competencies and upskilling to attract recruits, spur innovation and entrepreneurship, and undertake the hard work of rebuilding our communities and teams, our trust and culture…culture that requires newer and better forms of leadership that model and celebrate desired behaviors and have the capacity to re-charge our social batteries as well as force us to adapt to the uncertainties of the present and scenarios for the future of tourism.

“Short-term results come from intensity. Long-term results come from consistency”

When demonstrated through persistence, storytelling and relevance, and a common sense of principles, purpose and goals, tomorrow`s tourism`s public/private/plural sector partnerships may have to be receptive to the inevitability of individualism, so long as it is balanced and humane…everyone partaking and realizing the benefits and need to reinvent themselves, important for those communities, small countries and emerging economies that have either grown dependent on tourism or wish to refine, tame, dignify, or revitalize it.

As identified at the outset, if we desire to be more effective choice architects, we need the freedom to push decision-making to the edges of our organizations and communities. To ensure tourism thrives then we are obliged to ensure that we build equitable relationships that last. If and when this occurs, only then will DMOs, corporations and organizations be more likely to evolve towards becoming permissionless. While accelerating the shift from domination to partnership systems is bound to be a challenge, help from the Partnerism Movement (and their toolkit) may offer further insight.

Nothing is benign as it might initially appear. Tourism is one of those pursuits that, for whatever reason, everyone craves. While it signals and aligns with our desires for leisure and pleasure, it is cultivated for its economic benefits for which everybody within organizations, governments, and destinations yearns. Certainly, tourism deserves to deliver profitability when developed in honest, holistic and wholesome ways, but not if pursued in self-interested, deceptive, avaricious, or possessive manners.

In examining tourism, it is well known that wealth, money and prestige underwrite so much of its development. But when pursued for selfish and nefarious reasons, the outcomes can lead to misguided optimization, a highly monetized commodification of communities and cultures (if not life), a degradation of benefits and value, and an increase in pain and suffering for some of the most vulnerable. And this applies to the inattention given to ensuring that abundance includes nature and culture – our world’s most precious, sought after, but abused of resources.

The struggle and anguish associated with tourism development is well documented in these films, especially in sensitive and fragile locales, as well as in books such as Polly Pattullo`s Last Resorts – The Cost of Tourism in the Caribbean. Not all investors are insensitive and callous, but when their actions and government policies are dismissive, ill-informed or ignorant of a society`s broad-based economic needs, as well as those associated with advancing progress that is socially, culturally and environmentally rich, tourism`s intentions shift from being uplifting to being downgraded…from being rewarding to being distressing.

Motivation to make considerable sums of money through arrogant behaviors and undignified affectations is an affront, unforgivable and completely unnecessary. I recall many stories my father told me about tourism`s early beginnings in the Bahamas during the 1950s and 60s. With the infusion of mafia money, and the disgrace of complicit government ministers seeking self-aggrandization, I became aware of the unseemliness of certain aspects of tourism`s development that were offensive to an entire nation.

In school I recall reading the Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (followed by the movie starring Richard Dreyfuss at a later date) – about a young man infatuated with material success and belief that man without land is a nobody. As the story develops, we note how he struggles to ingratiate and cheat his way to build a resort in Canada’s Laurentians.

Offset by pleasurable holidays spent on many a coastline, these were my early introductions to tourism, which even today makes me wonder what possessed me to enroll in a program to study hospitality and tourism, especially against my parents’ wishes. Regardless of its downsides, I believed in and remained intrigued as to its upside potential, subsequently going on to have a lifetime career working in hotels, catering, teaching, researching and consulting.

While remaining conscious of my Caribbean roots (its flora and flowers) I recognized the problems associated will mythicizing the region as “paradise” with so many citizens feeling besieged and struggling to overcome their misfortunes. Deep in my heart I knew we could do better and develop real connectivity…the wholesome way of creating meaningful value through recognition of tourism as a more beneficial social life project in our attempts to live together.

At the very least, I felt that we should learn to accept and deal with the fact that tourism exists in an in-between, ‘nepantla’, freedom-infused world, which as a form of acceptance could engender greater appreciation for and understanding of the other…a process that has always been achieved through the arts…one reason for embedding music into my articles, my life.

In any case, every field of endeavor has its predations and perversions. While less egregious perpetual plights (identified in a previous article) have a way of being resolved, it is the exploits and corruptive behaviors of the predators that should worry us the most…not simply those who have no other choice but to fight for their survival, but those who are seduced by status and seek to swindle to achieve their goals, regardless as to who may suffer the consequences.

Based on personal experiences I believe greed, fomented by power and an obsession with money, is a compulsion about never being satisfied with reaching financial milestones. In the movie, Jerry McGuire, you might recall the shouting match: SHOW ME THE MONEY! It’s always about getting and having MORE…the shenanigans entailed in maintaining MORE-induced privileged lifestyles achieved through asset-rich, profit-generating holdings in the most popular of destinations.

Of course, tourism cannot be developed unless it is bankrolled by individual investors, lending institutions and governments. No one lends or invests money, unless there is a decent chance of earning a steady rate-of-return over a specified period…returns based on financial integrity and prudence, not fraud, misrepresentation or deception.

Having been involved in a few feasibility studies I can assure you that most of our work revolved around addressing fears about unstable futures, not unstable developers. In fact, developers cannot succeed unless they project a credible facade and respected image. Unfortunately, with seismic clusters of events (e.g. Venezuelan oil blockaded from Cuba, devastating tourism) and the clash of (political) personalities (revealed through illegitimate border enforcements) shifting (growth) trajectories, even the most respected developers and financiers encounter upheaval and financial trouble that can easily metastasize.

It has been said that projecting into the future is a fool’s game, but for tourism it is not about utilizing (questionable) demand/ supply data sets. Rather, it should be about the construction of scenarios that take a whole-of-community-led-approach to scenario development…scenarios that incorporate a wide variety of other contextually and culturally significant and relevant social and economic factors to help determine how everyone should be able to derive value and benefit.

Sadly, such an ideal approach is rarely considered. Most consultants (whether brought in from the outside, or beholden to special interests) lack sufficient knowledge regarding context and the purpose tourism is intended to serve. Put mildly, they are guilty of ignorance, disguised as certainty, compounded by an illusion of comprehension.

Tourism development typically involves prime real estate land grabs (sometimes resulting in displacement) whose asset values skyrocket once developed. But even when money is thrown at high-profile projects, it can be wasted, unless separate but supportive physical and social infrastructure developments are prioritized, simultaneously developed and funded.

With tourism development representing a form of community development it needs to be carefully incorporated so as ensure public sector performance; encourage further tourism cluster and SME development; promote essential social, cultural, personal, and knowledge development; and serve to help improve quality-of-life. Such synchronicity, however, rarely occurs, often due to policy inadequacies, other pressing priorities or, more commonly, an inability to invest due to difficulties in parring down existing community debt levels.

Then there are those issues associated with seasonality and tourism’s sensitivity to economic and business cycles downturns. With operating expenses climbing and revenues falling, job layoffs become inevitable, especially worrisome when social security safety nets are weak. With declines in tax revenues and the collapse of profit margins, private/public sector speculators are pushed to the edge. As owners and investors reevaluate how their assets are being managed and whether they are equipped for the complexity that lies ahead, one thing is for sure: Austerity alters behavior.

At this juncture, it seems apropos to contextualize tourism development within A Small Place, Jamaica Kincaid’s non-fiction story about the island of Antigua. Speaking with a community perspective through themes of neo-colonial structure, racism, poverty and corruption, Kincaid provides a localized perspective that reveals how tourism development often proceeds with insufficient appreciation, respect, and concern for local populations. When locals feel humiliated, disenchantment with tourism is inevitable, feelings of hopelessness occur…an indication as to our collective inability to be truly sensitive and responsive to the ruminations about tourism development, regardless as to where we may be in the world.

Questionable and abject behaviors among investors, government officials, and operators, have always been prevalent. With money occupying the center of everyone’s attention, it is inevitable: bribery, bid rigging, billing schemes, kickbacks, payoffs, extortions, laundering of money, and vacation scams become part of the fray. Representing the dark side of tourism’s choice architecture, some financiers, investors, owners, and government officials feel as if they have no choice but to be selective when identifying and presenting their options and in making decisions about funding tourism’s development…who should benefit, who should be ignored.

That`s not to say that such shady practices are always prevalent, but they are part of the greed-induced behavior that comes with developing and utilizing real estate so common in vacation settings. Development that, on the other hand, can fail to contribute social/cultural value – a sin in itself . The tyranny of good intentions.

Unavoidably, similar abnormalities can be built into and exist within the operating systems of visitor-serving entities especially when tourism`s vicissitudes create instability.

Under pressure to produce profitable results, managers and department supervisors are compelled to drive efficiencies and optimization. As the screws tighten, predatorial behaviors and perversions become more commonplace, a certain meanness can take over. Already pressured through the constancy of emotional labor, both employees and managers tend to lose patience, become irritable, uncivil, and condescending…certainly not indicators of resilience!

Tourism work need not suffer from absenteeism and high turnover but imagine how you would feel if your everyday needs were ignored, if you felt unsupported or de-valued, told that you don`t add value, and that you only matter when you show up to “do the job”. How might you respond…take revenge? Little wonder tourism officials struggle with building a legitimate case for tourism and hospitality careers and advancement up career ladders.

Similarly for locals who feel isolated and excluded even in their own communities. Tourism performed on a large scale in confined areas can bring about feelings of not being citizens in their own land…feelings exacerbated by being excluded or unwelcome in certain tourism locales; being stressed as tourism energizes inflation and gentrification, not simply dislocation.

Certainly, visitors exposed to growing animosities may suddenly feel unwanted, which is likely to undermine a destination’s integrity and image. Indeed, as the repercussions spread throughout communities it is not uncommon to find a wave in crime rates, side hustles, extortion, prostitution, human trafficking, child labor, estrangement, and an overall concern for safety-in-place.

No two organizations or communities are the same but when individuals and organizations are determined to just look after themselves, rather than for each other, competitive downward spirals emerge. As visitors we have all been victimized by the “enshitification” of work or feelings of being unwelcome or unwanted. To get a better sense of the depth of this dis-ease, everyone should be reading Nation of Strangers to understand how tourism can get snared in the crosshairs.

Predations they may not be, but what are we to make of the shrinking legroom on planes; the demise of the golden age of travel alongside the hassles and joylessness of the journey; hotel fees, surcharges and related extractions ramping up; the overcrowding in destinations and attractions; reimagining the guest journey in the age of AI; and a lack of experience intelligence as destinations lose their soul, and in ways that are not always obvious.

With joy and money being squeezed out of travel, shopping, and too many cultural and destination experiences, what can be done...what must be saved? With shareholders taking their revenge, are the heady days of stakeholder management gone, or were they never to be?

As “a pattern of calculated actions aimed at exploiting vulnerabilities in others for personal gain, often involving manipulation, deception, and the abuse of power dynamics to control and harm the target”, predatory behavior exists at all socio-economic levels, in all parts of our societies. While it may not seem pervasive because it is well-disguised, should any of us have to live with it and bear the brunt?

We may have limited knowledge of how severe and rampant the problems are within our communities-as-destinations but, as stated before, these adversities are an abomination and need to be curtailed. I appreciate the relationship between predation and unsustainable tourism but why do so few take the relationship more seriously and beyond greenwashing?

In so many high-profile destinations, overcrowding and anti-tourism protests have become the most visible form of reactions or frustrations. But why are only the visitors - those who are invited to bring in their hard-earned dollars, those who are being charmingly and deceivingly victimized by the predators hiding in plain sight - being singled out as the bad guys, while the real perpetrators, including marketing’s deceivers, get off scot-free to claim unjust rewards?

It is not that tourism can overwhelm, but that tourism is overwhelming itself.

To minimize the risks of being ensnared in such “T traps”, it is essential that our communities re-focus on developing the competencies of good governance to counter corruption and predatory behaviors for more peaceful and just, saner and sustainable communities.

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Having qualms about predations and perversions is one thing. Quite another to know how to quell them especially when, given the time it takes to achieve difficult long-term outcomes, resources may simply not be available. Equally as frustrating is the desire to maintain the status quo that serves the interests of the political cabal or the demands of the autocrats… those who lack political will to halt the transgressions and willingly just `walk on by`.

When investigating crime, corruption and conflict, it has never been easy to “follow the money”, It’s not because of the amount of time and investigative power required to do so. Rather it’s repercussions and blowback from release of sensitive information with linkages to rich and powerful people that hinders or prorogues justice, as exemplified in the Epstein case.

Regardless of how corruption-conflict relationships manifest themselves, investigative decision-making is a serious process demanding specific protocols, tools and resources and requires interagency cooperation. But beyond that, it requires serious deliberation within the industry.

For that to happen, collaborative introspection will be most productive when it involves a range of participants or stakeholders (citizens, government officials, law enforcement, and operational personnel from all sectors of the industry) whose varying perspectives when shared, discussed and reflected upon, are more likely to reveal poignant insights. In fact, here is a useful guide for academics who choose to employ students as partners in similar inquiries.

With governments and the private sector deciding to cooperate through prevention and enforcement programs, involvement from civil society organizations, NGOs, citizens and journalists needs to be called upon to exert pressure, demand accountability and offer constructive support, with academia serving as a resource to further analyze, critically assess, and help share their knowledge and findings. Little is likely to change, however, until there is the determination and intent to change behavior and social norms…reward and incentivize integrity…and, punish and disincentivize predatory behaviors and unethical action.

For anti-corruption efforts to fully advance and be effective, community and industry leaders must emerge, deploy their corruption and conflict intelligence, and agree to cooperate and collaborate across boundaries as a network (not silos). With emphasis put on mounting

· transparent public communication strategies

· educational programming (prepared for different audiences)

· empowering people and partners (mentoring, guidance and peer learning)

· raising standards, and

· developing innovative tools

strong capabilities and capacities can be built.

As aggressive collective action to combat graft and bribery in private/public/plural sector transactions gets underway, it should be emphasized: Fighting corruption is not just about having the right laws, controls and institutions. It is as much about deciding how to make these formal structures work and achieve their aims – a requirement that suggests application of behavioral science-based interventions.

Replacing `greed is good` maxims with community-oriented, cooperation-promoting mindsets demands changes to selfish behaviors and the norms that foster these behaviors. But how?

First, decision-makers will need to re-evaluate their “choice architecture”. In doing so, it will be essential to (1) identify all the attributes that need to be included, (2) become familiar with all the hidden partners who might be behind the scenes influencing choice behavior, and (3) know more about the places and communities where decisions are made and exert their influence.

With tourism under intense scrutiny to do better and be more responsive to the needs of our communities, the decisions we make and the choice architecture we utilize should align with and reflect what matters (as discussed in the prior article)…further reflected through the principles of good governance.

Education is where all of this should begin, not as moral uplift but as collective self-knowledge. For example, it helps to see our own temptations clearly and translate those insights into practical scaffolding – laws and civic rules that reward cooperation and raise the costs of exploitation. Cheating will never vanish, and some people will always look for an edge, but our distinctive intelligence lies as much in recognizing exploitation and organizing against it as in exploiting in the first place.

Second, we might not realize it but so much of what is financed these days is determined by downside risk (possible failures) rather than upside potential (success). Wouldn`t it be preferable if greater attention was given to more thoughtful agenda setting and a desire to finance or incentivize for desired outcomes (rather than avoiding failure), as is being suggested in the philanthropic world?

If our hope is to create community-oriented, cooperation-promoting mindsets, local governments, their DMOs and destination clusters, will have to double down on reestablishing social norms; do their utmost to eradicate predations and perversions; lead through principled good governance; and, hold developers more responsible for creating community-preferred outcomes from tourism. Clearly the role of destination management has to be expanded.

In seeking new roads to progress, success, and value-laden outcomes, people are asking: Can we begin to believe in this again, knowing full well that tourism through its careful development and management can overcome adversity, do good, be good, honorable and worthwhile?

To help achieve or promote a semblance of prominence, billions of dollars are spent every year on creating and producing destination brand programs. But what is being produced, how are brands being managed, with what intent (even an ROI) when it has been said that a brand is nothing more than a “person`s gut feeling” about a destination?

If a brand is merely a perception based on our individual interpretations and reactions to a destination`s proposed identity and positioning, confirmed or disconfirmed through our experiences, interactions or memories with and within a particular place or destination, can these perceptions and emotions be molded in favor of communities-as-destinations?

Perhaps. But what happens when experiences disappoint or disenchant? What might this reveal about the brand when charisma, warm welcomes and hospitality (that are promoted) go unnoticed, unconfirmed, wear thin, or become debased? When unity, respect and harmony suffer, and proverbial bridges are burned?

Might such questions expose the fact that living destination brands merely represent or consist of nothing more than patterns of behavior…not stylistic veneers, logos, identities, products or services? Patterns of behavior that too often are either left to chance or cannot be easily controlled let alone monitored. Or should that matter?

Experts crow on about the need for and value of place branding, but as explained in the previous article, “presiding over perpetual plight”, organization and destination brand strategies are prone to fracture, especially by events beyond immediate control. Consider Minnesota`s branding efforts, juxtaposed against the current reality with notable repercussions exemplary of a war on civil society A revelation that suggests how vulnerable place branding is to everyday mischief, miscues and maliciousness.

Despite their vulnerability, destination brands and marketing efforts are intentionally designed to generate exposure through attention, interest, desire and action (AIDA). The intent: to posit positivity related to image and identity and provide credible information or ideas. Place brands and communications that are clear, precise, and truthful in their perceived pronouncements certainly help visitors make informed decisions.

When destination experiences delight, visitors and residents are prone to develop place attachment which directly affects their loyalty and represents a mediating factor in intentions to stay, patronize (spend time and money in local enterprises) and return. With positive word-of-mouth conveyed through a variety of validated, honest-to-goodness, storied experiences, destination endorsement is conveyed…an outcome that most marketing programs cannot emulate.

Should destination experiences displease or cause feelings of detachment and discord, place brands inevitably fray or fracture, making it extremely difficult to recover, rebound, or to create future opportunities to reconfigure and remount a charm offensive.

Once the sheen or gloss disappears or isn’t sufficient should the gloss makers (marketers) be held responsible? Or is it likely that destinations and their DMOs are not sufficiently attentive to delivering on promises or, at worst, are ignoring the basic principles and practices of place or destination branding or are relying on commission-based travel writers or influencers?

Let`s be honest, destination brands favor hyperbole. In the hyper-competitive chase for differentiation and distinction, overt attempts are made to convey substance, status, splendor, style, sophistication and superiority. Why not? So long as these claims are deservedly sincere.

But what if insincerity predominates and leads to feelings of betrayal, long-term skepticism, and economic exploitation? Significant emotional, financial, and social repercussions can occur through deception, broken promises or over-promising…even among employees.

With most destinations leveraging their supposed future potential to secure investment and generate patronage and prosperity, one needs to wonder: What does the belief “everybody wants to win” mean, particularly if someone has to lose? How should we go about encouraging destinations to utilize more appropriate metaphorical or colloquial, linguistic and visual cues to signal positivity, probity, and prospective?

After all, the potential for such cues and devices to be misinterpreted is always risky. Extreme care is required when employing depictions and narratives in order to reflect and provide confidence, credibility and authenticity to audiences that may not be well known and are likely to be culturally and demographically diverse.

Broken promises, deceptions or unwarranted hype may not necessarily lead to scandal. But there are occasions when exploiters, pariahs, or bad apples spoil the barrel, thereby unjustly tarnishing the reputation of entire communities-as-destinations. Oh, what damage such shared storied experiences can inflict! Unless there are no other choice than to invoke myths or Oscar Wilde`s reference to “the lost art of lying”, the pleasure and need to fabricate and exaggerate!

Given the limitations associated with truth and the need to anchor imagination in unknown destinations, there is still a need to be circumspect about the part and role of destination brands, especially when conceived as umbrella brands. While they should be symbolic as to what is genuine and good about communities and serve as invitations to partake of varied offerings, we cannot assume that the “umbrella” serves to harbor, let alone guide, a wide variety of branded, corporate and community organizations, each of which play independent roles in helping or hurting economic development, creating or destroying value.

Certainly, destination brands come with privileges of association and immense opportunity but become encumbered when there is not any semblance or exertion of direct managerial control. Unless, of course, sufficient influence emanates through the implementation of carefully conceived tourism or destination plans and strategies. Plans that should signal how best to facilitate and incorporate tourism within communities and establish them as honorable and responsible destinations of merit.

in listening to this podcast what might be broken in branding, the experts seem to have concluded that the basic issue associated with all these problem resides in the ways in which the branding process is executed. Might this provide an explanation as to why so many brands are boring, superficial, similar, and deceptive?

Maybe the problem with execution can be tied to the `unimaginative` in destination plans and strategies. Or could it be the opposite? Branding processes often proceed independently and are neglectful as to the relevance of bold plans or strategies. Whatever the case far too many destination plans merely reflect the selfish interests of leaders of top-tier visitor-serving enterprises, rarely what a community might refer to as the common or collective good.

When destination or tourism plans and strategies are centralized and developed without sufficient participation from all stakeholders, the interests of citizens, neighborhoods and the community-at-large are too often ignored. In such situations, the primary focus and mandate is centered on tourism’s growth, the economic development and expansion of visitor-serving facilities…sparingly on ensuring or guaranteeing sustainability or community shared value.

Unfortunately, too many destination plans and strategies gather dust or are slow to be enacted. Moreover, it is sad and disrespectful when the interests, needs and requirements of so many SMEs that offer substantive variety to tourism clusters are ignored.

When poorly communicated and explained, even the development and execution of enlightened place or destinations brands is weakened. Then again, it is worth noting how planning can undermine the charm and vitality of many communities. This need not be, if only DMOs and their brand specialists found ways to ensure that planning need not kill creativity.

In elaborating on these issues, one has to wonder about the coordinating role played by DMOs. As so-called destination brand managers, what are their over-riding responsibilities? Are they involved in and being responsible for improving symbiotic relationships (typical of effective tourism clusters), the growing need for any community`s resilience governance, and the overall well-being and quality-of-life of their citizens?

There is far more to destination brand management than overseeing the full multi-sensory experience of place brands. Surely, overcoming brand, marketing and campaign incoherence represents a constant irritant; however, as the title to this article suggests, it would appear that even such effort may be misplaced when destination brands are prone to exaggeration that is out of character, presumptuous, pretentious and phony…even when the appeal is to jolt peoples` imaginations of what could be.

I realize how some might disagree with some of these statements; however, it is common and accepted practice to exaggerate and do anything in order to appeal to peoples` imaginations. DMOs operate under considerable pressure and will do their utmost to make sure their communities-as-destinations feel valued and add value.

But if you read the previous article (feel valued and add value) as to why value matters, you might find deeper and more poignant reasons as to why DMOs belief in community shared value needs clarification, if not amendment. After all, `value` is only perceived to exist when the citizens of communities truly feel invested in tourism…when they feel content with their communities being destinations… and when they personally feel valued and feel as if they add value.

There is much to unpack here, as the concept of “MATTERING” lies at the core of hospitality and the achievement of community shared value…value that has more to do with people (as revealed in the following quotes) than it does with places or communities-as-destinations.

Given what is happening in the world, and as expressed in the prior article, `mattering` lies at the heart of so much consternation in society today, especially as we examine tourism within community settings and attempt to improve how its purpose and principles are perceived as being honorable.

“The experience of mattering promotes health and happiness, but it also prevents personal devaluation, relational disconnection, work disengagement, and community disintegration. These four problems define the crisis of our time - the crisis of not mattering or mattering only to ourselves. Devaluation, disconnection, disengagement, and disintegration of the social fabric—the four Ds—can be seen everywhere, and their consequences are devastating, for individuals and the community-as-a-whole.”

“Globally, we face a serious mattering deficit. To face this challenge, we must foster mattering at home, in the workplace, in the community, and in social policies. We can fight depression and disengagement by making other people feel valued and helping them add value. We can build a society where equality and fairness replace nationalism and narcissism. By showing that we care about other people, other species, the planet, and future generations, we will hopefully find a sense of meaning and mattering in our own lives.”

As we know only too well, too many people, communities and cultures feel exploited and marginalized, and not just through tourism. By understanding and appreciating the hidden power of mattering perhaps we can utilize it in ways that will serve to undo so many of our unwise decisions whether associated with branding, marketing, or the management of our tourism-related enterprises. Tourism’s success is totally dependent upon how we treat and communicate with others…for others…so long as we forego all that misleads through exaggeration and exploitation (unwittingly or not).

It certainly would be wise if DMOs (and their communities) came up with a comprehensive framework for ethical tourism marketing (based on advertising standards and efforts to create a culture of the common and collective good, beyond reliance on the typical destination brand assets but with caution in mind.

As a principled approach, such a declaration and codes of conduct would underscore the crucial need for transparency in restoring consumer/citizenry trust…encourage more forthright local community engagement that promotes wellness, fairness, and mattering…and would lead to more exemplary, truthful and authentic narrative and visual content that, of course, would continue to stimulate the curiosity of others.

To encourage DMOs to commit to such a rightful initiative, it may be useful to resurrect and explain Marshall McCluhan`s turn of phrase “the medium is the message or massage”. While the explanation and significance of this phrase offered by Wikipedia is enlightening, we now know that branding in the age of social media and other platforms has changed everything.

What McCluhan would also have noted, if he were alive today, especially in reference to tourism, is that destinations represent the most meaningful and powerful of “mediums”. If you agree that destination brands live in perception that is conceived within the destination, then destinations represent the ‘medium’ in which branding/advertising messages are confirmed or denied. As a medium, destinations represent the place where the ‘massage’ or related experiences and interactions occur. No wonder the success or failure of branding rests on “patterns of behavior, not stylistic veneers” i.e. what happens, transpires, or is experienced within a destination.

Think of the tagline, “What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas” (now, “What Happens Here, Only Happens Here”). It suggests that the community or destination is the ultimate acquisition channel, with the Las Vegas brand representing the ambient style layer. It is an exemplary case of destinations pulling visitors towards them through word-of-mouth and a legible distinctiveness and desirability that is instantly identifiable based on certain cues. Cues bolstered by direct, personal, in situ experiences, performances, qualities, and hospitality, all presented and revealed through a predictable logic.

As Seth Godin has remarked, “marketing is everything that touches the market”. Such a statement should be of core concern to DMOs. With destinations (places) representative of “products” (communities of people) that in turn determine “promotion” and “price”, then it is essential that coherence exists among the 4Ps. Whenever there is incoherence, value propositions inevitably get roughed up and could easily perish or expire.

To say that tourism serves to make people and places matter (feel valued and add value) then efforts must be made to jettison encumbrances that get in the way of this goal. While it is always difficult to subdue adverse events that are beyond a community`s ability to control (unless with assistance from organizations like GTRCMC to bolster resilience), all other forms of deceptions, exaggerations, and outright presumptuousness, pretentiousness and phoniness need to be expunged.

In support of, and as a means toward, strengthening a community`s heart and soul, tourism`s officials would be wise in pursuing the `power of mattering`. By so doing it would provide evidence that the industry is committed to honoring tourism`s social contract that serves to preserve and promote culture, build a strong sense of community and create lasting connections – in other words, be a bridge over troubled waters.

Such relevance to tourism could not be more germane. With conversations about altering perceptions and improving our patterns of behavior, mattering is revealed when we join together and show how, in our communities-as-destinations, that tourism cares, tourism is for all, and tourism can be transformational and meaningful.

So, if we are achieve prominence, stabilize, repair or rebuild the bridges, it is essential we…

· Develop leaders who will pursue the power of mattering to shape the future

· Rebuild trust and un-do vestiges of “lack of respect”

· Be forthright and transparent

· Tell the truth, seek probity, avoid puffery and exaggerated claims

· Work within our tourism clusters to undo operational friction and ineptitude

· Practice an honest approach to communitas, a love of neighbor initiative

· Be brave enough to be truly creative and become masters of our own resonance

· Encourage everyone to embrace our community`s values – unity, respect and harmony

· Be defined not by our struggles but by our strengths in overcoming our struggles

· Master the skill of super-communicating with all key stakeholders

· Learn how to mobilize and organize in order to achieve meaningful goals

· Foster pride of place, improve sense of place

· Own our guests’ entire travel journey

· Focus on cooperating, collaborating and regaining connection through community

· Revise how we should advance on the sustainability front…fund and verify.

Close the brand gap - Master the magic of mattering

Plight happens. Hospitality and tourism organizations may not oversee or be able to exercise control over dangerous, difficult, or otherwise unfortunate situations, but some degree of coherent reaction or response is always required, especially when organizational or industry thrive-ability is exposed. With threat levels on the uptick, trouble is imminent. That’s life.

But if we are to sustain travel and tourism over the long term, it is not good enough merely to be vigilant and hyper-sensitive to all that may befall. Community and destination leaders must be actively involved in and strategically engaged in rectifications and transformations.

The concerns we`re now facing were almost unimaginable a few years ago. We have reached and, in some cases, over-stretched the scaling points in silicone (AI), carbon, and disorder, an era Thomas Friedman has labeled a “Polycene” - a world where binary systems are giving way to interconnected, multi-polar ones across technology, climate, geopolitics, and trade.

When a penchant for doomscrolling and “an appetite for destruction” (Guns and Roses) is unwittingly added to normal everyday plights, many of which have been allowed to linger and go unresolved, the overload compounds and becomes unbearable, if not untenable.

As the Canadian Prime Minister Marc Carney warned In his speech in Davos “we are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition…collective problem solving is under threat …the new approach has to be based on “value-based realism” that aims to be principled and pragmatic…(as a consequence) we must take on the world as it is, not wait around for a world we wish to be…we must rely on the strength of our values as well as the value of our strength…and we must build that strength at home… building coalitions that work…using the power of legitimacy and integrity to remain strong…to build what we believe in…committed to sustainability…building relationships for the long term…(so that) we can build something stronger, better, more just”.

Obsessing about the heft of the world`s problems (tariffs, festering politics, firestorms, flooding, and financial fallout from climate change) may seem to be an unlikely entre into the perpetual normality of plights facing communities-as-destinations. But they represent the proverbial elephant in the room galvanizing attention, intensifying global risks, promoting new trade agreements, altering alliances, ruining reputations (USA as a travel destination), rerouting and curtailing travel and tourism, intensifying and complicating the usual dilemmas concerned with business cycles, seasonality, business operations, inflation and affordability, (financial) risks, demand patterns, supply chains, procurement, capital investments, labor deployment and, in particular, forcing major revisions to business models, strategies and tactics.

Even discussions around family dinner tables reveal how severely the geo-politics of the day are destabilizing the companies we and our families work for. The other evening our daughter, despite being in a very senior position, revealed how her job is being jeopardized due to a cascade of supply-chain issues.

Throughout the world communities-as-destinations and their DMOs are noticeably puzzled and perplexed. Travel and tourism are at tipping points that may be more profound than previously recognized by the World Economic Forum. An erosion of confidence and trust is now intersecting with a weakening U.S. dollar, renewed travel advisories, and heightened geopolitical sensitivities creating a volatile environment in which traditional tourism demand models are becoming less reliable. With hegemonic political leaders being allowed to cause so much havoc, the system dynamics of all industries are being radically disrupted.

Donella Meadows might have put it mildly when she said: “We can’t control systems or figure them out. But we can dance with them.” Indeed, therein lies the shift. The goal isn’t prediction and control. It’s orientation and adaptation. While we will have to learn how to maneuver more cleverly within complex systems that we will never fully understand, we have no choice but to be extremely cautious as the “rupture” that Carney acknowledges is seemingly becoming a tool of repression and dependency.

In this era of unprecedented upheaval, shocks propagate faster than organizations can respond. As the postwar international rules-based order, domestic tranquility, and the democratic order continue to unravel, decisions made in one domain surface unpredictably in another.

This intensification of the squeeze is pushing travel, tourism and hospitality organizations into unchartered territory, negatively in the USA though surprisingly positive in Canada and other parts of the world. But that isn’t the main point. For so many countries and destinations, travel and tourism are vital economic engines that are at the mercy of the marketplace and reliant on a continuous flow of travel and tourism revenues. In a recent report Visit Britain/Visit England supports this fact but worries about how vulnerable they are as the intensification of politics interferes with economics, social welfare and our overall well-being. While tourism cannot remain the same, “gathering will always remain the most fundamental aspect of all humanity”.

Still, with community leaders miffed and industry leaders and managers accused of not trying very hard or not knowing how to rectify adverse situations, POGO’s revelation “we have found the enemy and he is us” should lead us to question the ways in which we are contributing and allowing ourselves to be subservient to what is transpiring…a call-out that should lead us to question how we should go about reversing the untoward effects of our destination’s careless ambitions, our own careless personal and corporate ambitions.

As Remi Carlioz (creative director and place brand strategist) cautions, we have entered an era of finitude capitalism and must find ways to transcend the inherent dangers without falling back on the unsustainable promises of endless growth. Oh, how fragile we have become.

At this point, it may be helpful to highlight the contributions of notable authors who, over many decades, have helped us carve pathways to a saner and safer world:

· Peter F. Drucker, Post-Capitalist Society

· Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Good Business – Leadership, Flow and the Making of Meaning

· Charles Handy, The Hungry Spirit, Beyond Capitalism, A Quest for Purpose in the Modern World

· John Kenneth Galbraith, The Good Society, The Humane Agenda

· Bracey et al, Managing from the Heart

I mention these books because in the prior article, psychological quotients (PQ) in play, I note that we progress and are at peace not through domination, but through caring and being cared for…something that the “good country index” attempts to discern.

Through care and our penchant to be hospitable, we try our best, though it is still possible to be complicit in harm. Though we may understand ordinary complicity and how it can be avoided, the challenges today are more profound. Resolving them will necessitate overcoming our doubts about being able to deliver results, though this will be more difficult than it appears.

Sadly, complicity is often embedded and rewarded in our operating systems, operating environment, community and organizational cultures. Here are some fault lines we allow ourselves to cross: Saying one thing, doing another; engaging in willful deceit; ignoring consequences from bad or misguided policies; allowing scams wrapped in emotional manipulation; embracing pricing schemes (resort fees) that erode trust; failing to regulate and annihilate tourist traps (including the digital ones) and ignoring not just organizational malpractices and misbehaviors, but unheralded participatory experience design opportunities.

Why? It has been argued that we operate in an unhinged market system; are risk adverse and afraid to upset those in power; remain greedy; pursue self-survival; and are lax in abiding by the principles and values, fairness and goodness, that endear us to others.

When we stop caring, allow pernicious victimization to take hold, make brand promises that cannot be kept, allow value to deplete or go uncharted, organizational and destination brand strategies hollow out and become meaningless. The outcome: Strategic shrinkage or sabotage.

Consider what happens to brand perceptions when supply chain decisions and disruptions (e.g. failure to source locally) become brand stories…when unfair labor and employee policies signal community or employer beliefs that quickly become consumer talking points…when our offerings and experiences lead to boredom…when socio-political stances end up as brand narratives that may antagonize various stakeholder groups and segment markets…Brand Gaps!

With everything merging, coalescing and amplifying, strategic coherence becomes much harder to maintain, allowing incoherence to take hold. The result: Strategic models systematically dismantle as the processes, expertise, and culture that are supposed to make destinations and organizations reliable and honorable fall apart…replaced with economic and financial optimization. Nary a concern for compassion, cooperation, and collective problem-solving.

It is not that the severity of this predicament has gone unnoticed, but that it points to a lack of accountability to the communities in which tourism serves. Furthermore, it reframes the whole idea as to what destination or organizations brands stand for and communicate. Brands, not simply communication outputs, but the embodiment of embedded knowledge, (yes, and ignorance too), that guides behaviors, actions and decisions.

Such a clarification should be obvious and troubling, but too many organization and destinations remain oblivious, allowing their brand strategies to be undermined. But that is not all. These brands may already be fundamentally weak or weakened. The multiplicity of problems and plaints, as previously discussed, suggests that few strategies are designed for actions required to meet important challenges or opportunities in disguise.

The most effective and coherent strategies are those designed to coordinate actions aimed at overcoming specific challenges that resist easy resolution. Why, because the underlying forces and logic at work in these issues are rarely obvious, nor are there clear connections between possible actions and real-world outcomes.

By losing the ability to create expansive and effective strategies - “the practice of intentionally integrating thinking, currents, concepts and inspiration from beyond the immediate business context to expand and deepen the strategic outputs” – the effort and investment put into organizational and destination branding is squandered.

Communities and their DMOs should be worried. Their efforts to build and strengthen a sense of community, create and ensure “community shared value” (referenced frequently in previous articles) demand that the effectiveness and expansiveness of their strategies and branding efforts be vigorously maintained and upheld.

Given the complexity of issues facing tourism organizations and destinations in turbulent times, it is unfortunate but there may be no evident alternative choices. Viable options aren`t obvious, they must be searched for, designed, even imagined. We are capable of building new worlds.

Whatever the situation, judgments have to be made: Which issues are of primary importance and which are secondary…which issues have a good chance of being solved by focused coherent action…what and where are the sources of power that can be placed on a selected issue and how can these powers be coordinated so resolution and breakthroughs can occur?

Courage and a commitment to working with and through challenges requires concentrated attention given to the barriers, blockages, opportunities, or other unforeseen issues that might stand in the way. In this regard it is essential to work with the language and culture of challenges rather than goals, collectively and collaboratively.

To ensure confidence in addressability, there must be ways to make significant progress on issues of primary concern. If this cannot be done, the existing challenge or problem might have to be broken into components or set aside. Good strategy requires tackling a sequence of objectives over time, each of which can be surmounted.

In these situations, strategy does not represent a long-term vision. It is an action plan for overcoming critical challenges. While the challenges may have a long-term feel, the action plan must be executable as soon as possible. If not, nothing much will happen, except for the possibility that the problem(s) will morph, magnify, and multiply.

In most high-profile communities-as-destinations there is a public face attached to tourism and destination strategies. Citizens, stakeholders and shareholders expect descriptions of their goals and objectives, purpose and principles, priorities and performance, and the intent to live them. However, when it comes to the goals and objectives associated with key challenges and urgent tasks, it is wise to be circumspect. After all, tourism and destination strategies do not necessarily mention all that is important. Effective strategy is about what is critically important, not about everything that everybody does or wants to do.

For coherence to be maintained, there must be the capacity to make consistent decisions across multiple organizations and people over time, under pressure and without central coordination. Such is the reality facing tourism clusters and communities-as-destinations.

In response to such a concern, it is essential that community leaders and DMOs remain vigilant and develop a framework for maintaining coherence…a framework that functions as a community or organization`s nervous system…a framework that provides guidance when faced with contentious, profound and incomprehensible challenges.

At the heart of this framework must be articulation of an adaptive approach to stress-inducing situations…one that encourages continuous experimentation and real-time adjustment. While identification of options may be premature, having a process for navigating ambiguity is essential, as is a process for sharing judgment.

To optimize preparedness, all communities and their DMOs must be continuously alert and sensitized to slight shifts in their operating environments. In pursuing the upsides and cushion the downsides of a new world order they will have to become far more astute at sense-making as everyone seeks answers to age-old questions: Why can`t we live together? If as many say, it is due to a lack of social connectivity and conviviality, we have to wonder: Are our hospitality and tourism experts falling short? And if so, why? What must be changed?

Given the currency of the “polycene”, in an era of fragility and finitude, geo-political turmoil, ruptures in relationships and trust, and accelerated shifts occurring in business and system dynamics, it is becoming increasingly evident, resilience is taking on new meaning.

A new sense of urgency requiring a shift to real-time governance is essential. More fundamentally, it is time that we recognize that learning to live and be together represents the key to our future…the key to more humane, inclusive, immersive, and sustainable communities-as-destinations. Such a mandate demands our undivided attention to one another. The one that will secure bonded coherence…the essence of inspired hospitality.