WASHINGTON, D.C. (April 11, 2001) -- Today�s business world has few geographic boundaries.  Distance is continually conquered by technology, education, travel and the expansion of capitalism.  The ability to compete in the 21st century and beyond requires sophisticated, immediate and consistent responses.

With those realities and inevitabilities at the forefront of businesses today, the Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International (HSMAI) dedicated the first Executive THINK (Travel & Hospitality Innovation, Network, Knowledge) of 2001 to a study of Globalization and its immediate and long-term impact on the hospitality, travel, and tourism industry.

The intensive one-day session united high-level travel and hospitality executives with experts in the world marketplace for an innovative and interactive forum that focused on the concerns, ideas and solutions to today�s most impacting trends and issues. 

The emergence of the global tourism and hospitality industry is linked to the expansion of the world economy.  Globalization has enabled the world to reach individuals and corporations farther, faster, deeper and cheaper than ever before, and competition is coming from places that never existed or competed in the past.  The question confronting every hospitality business is: How in a world without walls, can you effectively market, develop and compete?

What follows are some observations and findings from the HSMAI Executive THINK.
 

PriceWaterhouseCooper�s Cristina Ampil suggests that for the marketing professional, there will be a tighter integration with the overall corporate strategy, and that �new competencies as property, competitor, and customer data are now more available for analysis and use in strategic and tactical planning.�

She further notes the growth opportunities in Europe such as establishing a presence in major capitals in the region; increasing brand range in Eastern Europe; growing budget sector; and product introductions/changes, such as all-inclusive resorts, timeshare, extended stay properties, hotels for seniors, boutique hotels, and branded distribution companies and e-commerce opportunities.

On the other hand, potential challenges in Europe are lack of financing vehicles, restraints on new supply additions and onerous tax regimes and lack of harmonization among varying national legal systems.

�Globalization is a reality, with money and jobs flooding across the waters as futurists said it would,� says USA Today�s Jim Cox.  Foreign companies spent a trillion dollars buying American companies, and nearly 10 percent of people in this country are foreign born.

But, he says that Americans are not globalizing nearly as much or fast as they should, and warns that ignorance is a real liability in the age of globalization.
Globalization makes it hard to market brands, and so easy to mismanage or damage a brand.  We need to put practices in place to serve the global consumer.  Cox notes that USA Today has an international list of people who speak foreign languages on their internal website.

He suggests that at the hotel level, housekeepers who speak languages other than English, for example, can be empowered to �do more,� which would give them a greater sense of worth and assist the greater enterprise above putting a mint on the bed.

It is critical to understand cultural nuances to truly welcome visitors, which also means you have to know who your international visitor is.  And on the marketing side, most important is how your message translates in international markets.

Dr. Lalia Rach notes that globally, the new competition includes destinations not on the radar screen just 10 years ago including Vietnam, South Africa, Poland and Jordan.  Countries, regions and cities that were once overlooked as possible competitors are now actual threats to established destinations.

The psyche of the global consumer today is one of great confidence, underscored by sophistication.  Price, convenience and time are becoming greater factors.  Yet, the biggest thing all global consumers have in common is their fickleness.  And one thing about global consumers is they expect more of everything.

If we look at old ads from the 1950�s through the 1970�s, we see a passive consumer and a time when companies were clearly able to tell us why a product was good for us and we accepted that.  Bell Telephone said � reach out and touch someone,� very clearly promoting the use of their product and telling you how you can use it.  Then came a change in the 1980�s and 1990�s influenced by television, travel and higher education, which helped to create a growing sophistication of the consumer base.

While the Information Age has brought companies closer to their customer more than ever before, the power is now with the consumers.  In the 21st century, the consumer understands their power and companies must listen to them.  They communicate their choices and needs, and will abandon companies that won�t deliver to companies that will.

Consumers more and more demand products tailored to their own personal needs.  They will always want and pay a bit more for the human touch and the service tailored just for them.  The tailored product and personal touch can never be commoditized.  And so it will always earn a premium return.
As expectations rise and you think you know your consumer, think again.  The moment you meet that expectation, they expect you to move on to the next while still maintaining the old.

The Internet requires global language support and having a multilingual site is becoming a necessity.   Fifty percent of online sales will be made outside of the U.S. by 2004.  Clearly the U.S. is not the future of the Internet, and it is even proposed that the major language of the Internet will not be English in seven to 10 years.  Thirty-seven percent of websites operated by Fortune 100 companies incorporate a language other than English, according to Cambridge, MA-based Forrester Research.

The global consumer is a reality because many of the items we share in our life cross borders � music transcends culture, as do clothes, film, television, books, etc.  A teenager in Japan has more in common with a teenager in Columbus, Ohio than they do with the farmers in their own locality.

Loyalty is becoming a global issue.  Are customers doing what they really want or are they being held hostage to loyalty programs?  If programs vanished, would they do something different�something that they really want to do?

Studies have shown that many women business travelers are not members of rewards programs because everything is in the future.  Their attitude is �give us something now to show we are of value, as opposed to making us achieve and you will give us something of value.�  As a sales and marketing component, do we need to rethink how we reward loyalty?

There are new rules of engagement.  We are seeing consumers search for uniqueness in ways never thought of before.  Contrary to what existed at the beginning of the 21st century when the modern hotel industry first started and there was little difference from one moderate hotel product to the next, today, there is a more unique approach to the guest room experience.  �New is in� and developers are answering that with new and unique products such as boutique, timeshare and extended stay.  Fresh, hip and energizing, these products also allow different segments to be targeted.

Among global realities we all share is that our lives are becoming more complicated thanks to technology and specialization of professions.  And in keeping with that is the idea that time is our universal currency.

With that, we see more and more cost-driven combination trips, which allow people to try out a destination free of charge, particularly when time is of issue.  Given the �narrow slices of time we have together,� another trend is the eight-hour vacation.  That means abandoning duties on Sunday, check-in on a Sunday night, and transport to work the next day.

Globally, marketing and sales is taking a youthful direction.  Plastic surgery for men and women is greater than ever, and people are in gyms all over the world.  The idea is that we want to be more youthful no matter what age.  And, global consumers come in more than one color.  We need to recognize the many ethnicities and their differences when you go global.  Every market wants to be invited and feel they are apart of what the product and service is about.
In the past, business would measure its success by how they were reaching the �average� man or woman.  It was an era when the average American was clearly defined by income, education, occupation and lifestyle.  The middle class was marketed as a monolith.  Today, attempting to identify a typical American is almost impossible.

And so while 30 years ago, travelers were more easily defined by and measured against the concept of average, today, the visitor is segmented into a variety of categories: senior, ethnic, gay, adventure, single, etc.

On a global scale, there are great dichotomies of age.  On one end of the perspective is an aging society and on the other we have the likes of a young society as never before.  In the U.S., we are constantly being enamored by what we see as the senior market, but we must treat it like an industry and change our view of the market (like using the name senior).  If we continue to use old ideas and traditions about the senior element of our society, we will be left wondering why our profits are dry.

There is one global generation in the U.S.: the �Millennium Generation� of those aged 6 to 22.  If you look at children and teenagers across the world you see a very definite global reality.  That generation has connectivity and shared cultural experiences, mostly due to telecommunications.  (An example of that is the fact that a Beatles album can be number one in 39 countries.)

They are making decisions at a younger age or they are the main influencer for their parents making it.  We are seeing the influence of brands on young children like never before because when parents buy for their children they do not want to trust the unknown.  We�ve never seen children making decisions and influencing dollars in this way.  We must speak to them now and treat them as a full-fledged global consumer.

HSMAI is the leading organization of sales and marketing professionals representing all segments of the hospitality industry.  With a strong focus on education, HSMAI has become the industry leader in identifying and communicating trends in the hospitality industry while operating as a leading voice for both hospitality and sales and marketing management disciplines.  Members can access a wide variety of educational tools and enhance their skills and expertise to increase business and enrich their careers.  Founded in 1927, HSMAI is an individual membership organization comprised of over 5,000 members representing 76 chapters in 35 countries worldwide.