The Adapters: How the Travel, Tourism and Hospitality industry is adapting and innovating to connect the world!

By Sean Worker

The Adapters is a multi-book and audiograph series written around podcast-style interviews with an impressive collection of GGTs – Gutsy Genius Thinkers. These are the men and women vibrantly engaged in one of the hottest business sectors in the world: Travel, Tourism, and Hospitality and the ecosystem that supports them. While sharing their stories and insights on entrepreneurship and the management skills they are continuously developing to inspire success in themselves, their organizations and their teams, The Adapters adds interpretations, identifies trends and patterns, brings historical context and provides Tips and Takeaways for the progression of the reader. There are even Scribble Zones to capture responses, reactions and that next brilliant idea as you read.

Travel, Tourism and Hospitality are fundamental to how the 4th Age of Change will shape our future. With The Adapters, spend some time with the Gutsy Genius Thinkers in the space as they speak to the real issues trending right now.

Cultivate your curiosity and unleash the Gutsy Genius Thinker in you.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gatekeeper Press
• Release date: Mar 2, 2021
• ISBN: 9781662905414

Book preview

transportation—Allons-y!

CHAPTER 1

Today’s World – Adaptation and Innovation and the COVID Effect

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair."

Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities (1859) ⁷https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wb9_y3MGuRk

The interesting thing about Dickens is that he spoke to and captured the sentiments of both the elite and the general populace because they all related to how he told Life’s story. He included them all to paint the whole picture of a world caught in a vortex of change.

Much of our world is in a state of flux and confusion. There is significant political unrest, with citizenry around the globe demanding to be heard. To add to the scenario, institutions and governments are being tested on how to handle a global pandemic. As of yet, no solution has been found other than trying to keep COVID-19 out of the house with a series of sandbag protocols to stop it from seeping underneath your door.

People and systems are stressed. Change has steamrolled over us. Many of us are fatigued and even overwhelmed by lockdowns, erratic pronouncements, and clashing directives from governments and institutions. In geographical terms, this is the time when the flowing freshwater river of change is meeting the saltwater ocean at the estuary. The estuary is rich with nutrients, but it swirls and swirls with heavy currents and lots of mud. Maybe not the best spot to weigh anchor.

Some people are fighting to swim back upstream and go back from where they came. At least there you had already found a berth and you could usually see to the other side of the waterway. Others are stuck in the mud, paralyzed and uncertain. Should they stay put, try to make it back to familiar waters, or head for the ocean with its equal potentials for life-threatening riptides or the discovery of new worlds of opportunity? It’s the rare few who decide to brave the currents, adapt, and head out to sea to embrace the new vastness and develop their own Blue Ocean strategy⁸ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cVS7YEW2Fk. Many will stay stuck in the mud, but for others, those new worlds await.

Adaption will occur

Upstream, downstream, or stuck in the middle, adaption will still occur⁹. Since the beginning of time, humans have evolved, adapted, and innovated—sometimes in slow increments, sometimes at a dizzying pace. And then came our time, our turn at accelerated change, starting about sixty years ago. This period has delivered a vast array of technological advancements, leading to our increasing dependency on its offerings. Leaving your smartphone at home—or worse yet! losing it somewhere—isn’t only inconvenient; it can result in an actual sensation of emotional loss for some. Our Apple watch or our Fitbit reminds us when to stand, move, and even breathe. Netflix gives us license to binge-watch. Uber offers the freedom to roam, and there can be dinner on the doorstep with Deliveroo, while Amazon delivers everything else!

The BEST way to predict the FUTURE is to INVENT it.

Alan Kay

These advancements (BOX 1) saw most of their creators building more on digital technologies rather than physical materials, beginning their hyper-acceleration in the 1990s. All of these developments have crept into the fabric of our daily lives, almost without our notice; C-19 just highlighted our dependence on platforms to facilitate life’s necessities, with Amazon drivers now defined by some in the same essential worker category as other frontline workers.

BOX 1 As this chart highlights, we have lived through an incredible velocity of change in the last fifty years, more than any other point in our history.

¹⁰What Are the Most Important Inventions of the 20th Century? - YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyAJ_kbdNlE

The COVID pandemic has brought with it a superabundance of doubt and insecurity. It’s something that continues to cause unease in daily lives, in the operation of business, and on the floors of the global stock exchanges. A little bit of confusion here and a bit of chaos there can actually stimulate adaption and positive change, as we will discover as we progress through The Adapters, but an excess of uncertainty can be a confidence killer, shaking the very foundations of societies around the world and, for many, casting a substantial shadow on their confidence in the future.

For better or for worse, the C-19 effect is getting a little easier to bear as we come to accept our new uncertain state and begin our personal adaption to the situations we face. These are the worst of times for millions of middle- and working-class citizens and students, with jobs being lost and college life being upended. Equally, these are, if not the best, at least better times for many, who have essentially recovered initially lost wealth as the stock markets have rallied or whose businesses have profited by providing much needed and/or desired products and services during this upheaval.

This team has long questioned the use of the terms return to normal or finding the new normal. Both Glenn and I wrote a number of pieces during summer 2020 that challenged those phrases and presented the case that we are actually entering a New Reality and need to find our energy to adapt and move forward rather than chasing yesterday’s normal. Better still, be like our GGTs and become an active participant in shaping that New Reality.

Three meters at a time

I am an active cyclist (Lycra included) and have referenced that sport in articles to describe a recommended response to the near paralysis that threatened many during the early stages of the pandemic. Staying fit and focused is hard work, whether that’s athletically or mentally, as the terrain changes with lightning-fast speed. New politics, new global relationships, new job-killing technologies, new life-enhancing medical therapies, change, change, change! It’s no wonder that when COVID joined in, some of us were sorely tempted to just come to a grinding halt and hop off that bike. For sure, physical fitness—and decent gear and kit—is key to climbing a mountain as a cyclist, but emotional strength is what wins the day. Most cyclists maintain it by focusing on just the three meters directly before them to stay in a kind of cycling bubble. You are still aware of the race and your teammates, but you do not worry about that 1800-meter climb when you’re at the base, or else you’ll mentally wash out before you turn over the first pedal. It’s easy to be overwhelmed with change and challenges, new technologies and systems. Like successful cyclists, start by focusing on the next three meters and your plan to attack the mountain; your plan to move forward, adapting as you progress.¹¹

When the legs scream stop and your lungs are bursting, that’s when it starts. That’s the hurt locker. Winners love it in there.

Chris McCormack

Alexi Khajavi, President of Hospitality & Travel at Questex, and one of our GGTs, couldn’t agree more with this strategy. Describing his approach to business operations and life in the time of C-19, Khajavi says, You have to have both the short view and the long view. The short view is necessary to break it down into bite-sized bits of ‘this is what I’ve got to do to survive the day-to-day.’ Because if you start to think about the enormity of this crisis, it’s going to overwhelm you. It’s going to cause indigestion at its best, and it’s going to kill you at the worst.

Forced by the pandemic, the travel industry is at an inflection point. After a decade-long bender of growth, it’s facing multiple crises and an uncertain future. Can the organization that’s tasked with representing the global commercial travel industry (WTTC) adapt to the new challenge?

— Rosie Spinks, SKIFT, September 28, 2020

Alexi Khajavi

President, Hospitality & Travel

Questex

London, United Kingdom

I think the crisis actually brings this opportunity for all of us to start asking questions which were otherwise completely unorthodox and ludicrous just four or five weeks ago.

Credentials and street smarts really help in life, especially as one develops one of the most valuable human attributes: perspective. Having worked in tech in the early days in San Francisco, then airlines and independent hotels in Costa Rica for ten years, followed by a digital travel marketing agency and now the Business-to-Business (B2B) Questex, Alexi has the experience to support his tell it as it is opinions, and he also has a deep international vantage point that few others can match.

B2B companies such as Questex depend on their people surviving through downturns and introducing new-wave entrants to the old guard. Alexi’s opinions on the space are clear. "We are a highly fragmented industry, from consumer to operator to owner to lender to landlord to the technology that fits in between each of those tranches (a French word meaning slice or portion. In the world of investing, it is used to describe a security that can be split up into smaller pieces and subsequently sold to investors)[verticals]. I mean, we are so fragmented that the consumer is confused as to who is who." He is a keen advocate for nudging operators and brands to use technology to create a single point of access for the consumer. They’ve done this at Questex, which is effectively a single-use platform for all content they create.

Questex owns some of the largest conferences in the hospitality space. As an events management and digital media company, the company has been hit considerably hard as a result of C-19. However, Questex continues to expand with conferences like Berlin’s Adjacent Spaces, events that will drive the change conversation regarding the best use of space, and which will therefore drive thought leadership, as well.

Adaption Tips:

• It’s paramount to bring people together, whether virtually or in person.

• Remember what Winston Churchill said: Never waste a good crisis.

• Make your product/service/experience easy for the consumer to consume.

• New investors are joining the space; know how to pitch to them.

• The pandemic provides the opportunity to express ideas that were considered crazy pre-C-19, like Why do we need an office? Start asking why? about a lot more procedures or ways that you have been conducting your business. Crazy Bob in the corner, questioning everything, sounds pretty smart right about now.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/

Company: https://questex.com/

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CHAPTER 2

The 4th Age of Change

To talk meaningfully about today—and to bring a sizeable and much-needed portion of hope to our current situation—we have to flash back and put our now into historical context. We have been evolving, adapting, and innovating since the beginning of our time on the planet, sometimes in almost imperceptible increments, sometimes at breakneck speed, and often during times in the midst of significant challenges.

The 4th Age of Change started to emerge about five hundred years ago. (Although, for most of us, it feels like it just started in the spring of 2020!) The transition point between the 3rd and 4th Ages of Change began around the time of that Renaissance GGT, Leonardo DaVinci. In his day, DaVinci effectively was Google, albeit not as accessible to the masses.

As soon as the fear approaches near, ATTACK and DESTROY it.

M Vilan

It’s been suggested that he was the last individual to amass the most complete compilation of knowledge about everything knowable at one time. By the time DaVinci died in 1519, the Gutenberg printing press had been around for almost seventy years and was gaining momentum, much like a single-page Kindle. The printed word—and thus knowledge—was well on its way to changing everything. The greatest obstacle to capitalizing on the target market of that era was that most of those potential consumers could not read what was being printed! The user base was a little behind the tech. Sounds familiar.

Our path out of the Dark—literally-—began even before the millennia that we humans label the Ages of Change, with the controlled use of fire. There’s lots of scientific arguing about just where to place the consistent use of fire on the timeline of evolution. The bulk of the evidence indicates fire was frequently in use beginning about 400,000 years ago, but paleontologists and other scientists have found sites in Israel that suggest fire was being purposefully used 800,000 years ago! The findings in the Wonderwerk Cave¹² https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdDy_Vru470 have scientists theorizing that there were already isolated regions in South Africa and elsewhere where our early human ancestors had learned to either build a fire or maintain a natural fire for their own use.

Wherever or whenever that adaption to their environment occurred, it was the mastery of fire that really got the whole thing started for humans. The scientists who can’t quite agree on dates or places seem to come largely into alignment on the importance of fire to