Smart green growth will drive out OTAs

May be a losing battle?

New service will forecast disintermediation and point out direct sales options to destination tourism suppliers and travel industry

The global travel and tourism industry will change dramatically as a result of major global green initiatives – a new service will report.

SustainableTourism2015  will focus on the dramatic global changes that will take place in 2015 and 2016 related to sustainability – the changed landscape of tourism development and marketing -and the wide range of opportunities for travel and tourism businesses.

In particular it is strongly forecast that the key issue in travel and tourism marketing will be disintermediation, which will create the background for many potent opportunities for destinations and the travel industry.

The next 12 months will see some significant global events – at the UN in New York this month 169 global sustainable development goals will be agreed, in December at COP21 in Paris country by country emissions targets will be agreed, next year at ICAO the world’s airlines are set to agree their emissions targets.

What’s that got to do with the tourism business?

Within the next few years each country will have emissions targets, and sustainable development goals and each airline’s emissions will be monitored. Looks like emissions strait jackets will be the norm.

As far as tourism is concerned, where does the buck stop? In destinations, naturally, because national agreements will filter down to them.

And what will this mean? The hunt for higher value, rather than higher number (higher emission) tourism, will become even more urgent.

As is already becoming apparent in Spain amongst other top level destinations.

So, the destination ‘pull factor’ will mean that innovative target marketing solutions and social network distribution will replace costly OTA sales.

15%-25% commissions to OTAs (such as Booking.com, Expedia, AirBNB and Tripadvisor) to finance their $billion payments to Google etc will appear over-costly if they bring lower-paying, higher emissions tourism with them.

Whether Destination Marketing Organisations and OTAs like it or not – it’s goodnight for the tourism numbers game.

But after all, that’s what tourists have been asking for, isn’t it? They say they want more authentic, more natural, more healthy, more rewarding tourism and tourism experiences. Visitors are simply demanding better benefits – that’s the ‘push-factor’.

And how will it happen? It’s simple – it’s called ‘Disintermediation’ – the loss of the middle men will release an enormous opportunity for direct engagement between the two real partners in the holiday business – the visitor and the host. Just imagine the better holiday you could get with an extra 15%-25% to play with. Just imagine the better service you could provide with that amount of extra income.

Added to which – who wants a middleman to be in charge of communication to a client you, as a hospitality provider, are already in a relationship with. What’s that connection worth?

And how will it happen? It’s happening already – clever destinations all over the world are branding themselves sustainably and using mixtures of mobility techniques and social media marketing to leapfrog the OTAs, address quality business and direct it to their stakeholders. And where DMOs are not performing? Local entrepreneurs are coming to the fore to do it for them.

And worry not travel agents and niche tour operators, it may well be that your time has come (again). In the new green world quality professional advice and thoughtful solutions will be at a premium and opportunities abound – the new SustainableTourism2015  dossier and updates will outline dozens of them.

Keep up with the rapidly changing business. Smart green tourism growth is on its way.

Find out more at http://www.sustainabletourism2015.com