Over the past 20 weeks we've interviewed leaders from around the world about the challenges we face in the tourism industry.
Without a doubt the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the need for change in our organizations. As we reported in the Future of Tourism podcast back in July, five key issues have been pushed to the forefront by this crisis. They were already pressing before COVID-19 but now they are essential to our continued existence as destination organizations:
- the need for substantive, tangible and productive stakeholder engagement,
- the urgency for holistic destination alignment and shared community values,
- the ongoing need for DMOs to advocate on their own behalf and those of their citizens,
- the pressing need to properly harness digital disruption and meet the consumer where they really shop,
- and the imperative for continual, partner-driven destination development.
Personally I think it's essential that we add a sixth most pressing need to our reinvention; during this crisis, the spectre of racial inequity and systemic racism has once again come to a head. I don’t need to lecture you, just open a newspaper, turn on the television or read your newsfeed. We must consciously as both individuals and as a society embrace this painful truth and deal with it together. It is long past due.
All that said, this week on the Future of Tourism podcast we switch gears. It is time to move on from the issues we all agree on and to start talking about the tools we can harness to recraft our organizations and our destinations.
Leonard Hoops 3-4-5 model for sustainable business development
In two weeks, we will launch Season 2 of the Future of Tourism podcast and add a guest blog component with a focus on the tools and processes that are available right now or in development to help us on our path forward.
To close out the first series and mark the transition, I have asked my friend, peer and mentor Leonard Hoops to share his proprietary model for sustainable business success. It is a model that he has been crafting and perfecting since he graduated from Santa Clara University with his MBA in 1992.
Leonard calls it the 3-4-5 model, I call it a jet engine, a powerful three stage compressor for thoughtful and sustainable business development. Whatever you call it, it represents the guiding principles that have driven central Indiana’s wildly successful five-billion-dollar annual conventions and tourism industry for over a decade.
Have a listen, and add Leonard Hoops’ 3-4-5 model for sustainable business development to your mindset and toolset as we work towards recovery.
