The rural environment and post-pandemic touristic opportunities
By Pako Rodríguez, consultant specialised in tourism. (Originally published in Spanish)
In the first part of this article, we saw some analysis tools to value a territory in order to turn it into a tourist destination. Now, with the vaccine developed, it is time to analyse how the new reality of tourism will be while this transition period lasts until its application at a global level, in order to be prepared when the population is definitively immunised. And, as Brian Chesky says, "when the trips return, with all their strength, they will be different."
According to a study carried out by Caixabank, the reactivation of the tourism sector will be a reality this year, reaching figures from 2017. This is an encouraging statistic, since we are talking about levels that, according to the UNWTO (World Tourism Organization), have already set travel records, both national and international. If we pay attention to this optimistic study, perhaps the most convenient thing is to begin to glimpse the trends that will mark post-pandemic tourism and how the social and economical effects that we will suffer will be.
Great needs, new options
If we have learned anything during 2020, it is that there is a surplus of value that was underutilised. Throughout this year we have seen how, in the face of the most pressing need, many companies - and also citizens - have activated resources that were idle due to the tourist and general slowdown to solve the situation. In this interesting SmartTravel article we can see a more complete list that we can summarise in the following three points:
In the face of reticences to share the same space with other guests, we have seen urban hotels in the United States turning some of their suites into private rooms for family lunches or dinners.
Hotel alternatives without their own restaurant have emerged, offering a private space in their facilities so that a group of friends or family can order food from outside, through existing apps in the market.
Or, even instead of closing their restaurant due to the lack of customers, some hotels have joined the trend of offering food delivery using the same apps.
If we have learned something from this pandemic, it is that there are multiple combinations when we make use of all our resources together with what exists outside our organisation, and we focus on the needs of the market. These actions should not be forgotten and tourism agents should take notes once the pandemic ends.
As for another of the key activities during these months, remote working, it should be understood that, although the levels will not be like the current ones (in Spain, the figure has reached 34% of those employed workers compared to 4.8% in 2019), a trend that is here to stay. The potential destinations in rural areas, whose supply concentrates a good part of what the demand demands (nature, spaces, better prices...), should be prepared for the race that is already taking place in order to attract these remote workers.
The same situation occurs with MICE tourism (acronym used to define business tourism: Meetings, Incentives, Conventions and Exhibitions/Events), a sector in which, although online events or meetings will continue to have a leading role, human face-to-face meetings will still carry an important weight. Being a very powerful niche (it represents the 6% of national tourism, generating 6,000 million euros per year taking into account a tourist with an average expenditure of 208 euros/day), it is convenient to understand what this client is looking for and how to attract him or her. Again, the rural environment that is better connected to large cities has an opportunity to position itself within this niche.
Finally, the average tourist, the one who has already travelled during the months of the pandemic to more rural and nearby areas, is also interesting to take into account to attract this specific audience through a differentiated offer (outdoor activities, adventure sports, concerts...) which will be adapted to a new reality that will take a few years to become part of the collective memory.
Communication, the key
To reach any of these niches, it should be understood that it is not enough to create an offer. To attract demand in such a competitive scenario as the one presented to us, we must reach it through perfectly designed communication strategies where it is clear who we are targeting (segmenting) to understand what language they speak, what social network they use, which influencers they follow, what media they read and what they think. To get all this information we have technology as an ally, which will also allow us to obtain data to validate -or not- our initial hypotheses.
Marketing through digital platforms relying on social networks, and even digital experiences as a marketing tool, will be another of the key factors in the coming years in which technology and the data it generates, the post-pandemic era and its consequences and the new reality of tourism will have to coexist.
At Ideas for Change, we have launched Destinations that Rock, a line focused on helping territories that want to become tourist destinations and destinations that want to transform themselves, leaving previous and obsolete schemes behind.
If you want to be in the new reality of tourism,
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