Tourism in Pursuit of Progress
Michael Haywood offers his reflections on tourism, growth and prosperity
The growth rate for travel and tourism appears exponential and is not about to cease. The same applies to our near universal desire to travel, which is driven by a multitude of factors: Our innate and collective desire to be out and about; for change of routine, scenery and perspective; for fun, adventure, everyday wonder and awe.
It’s all made possible through advances to our mobility and technocracy, fed by our hunger for leisure, advancement and prosperity. It’s propelled by the rise of easy money, and efforts to stimulate demand by portraying the joy of travel, the joy of living. Oh, the places you will go!.
The growth of travel and tourism, however, has never been smooth or constant. It’s cyclical or subject to relapse (close to collapse during the pandemic). Such fluctuations can have devastating effects on tourism-dependent areas, employment, and financially-leveraged, fixed-capacity businesses.
Tourism-dependent enterprises have suffered a massive hit to their revenues due to the pandemic. Lost income from unsold hotel rooms, restaurant and airline seats can never be regained. Slim operating margins simply cannot withstand too much volatility. Despite partial recovery, the economic fallout from the pandemic remains a major problem for hard pressed businesses.
Major recipients of travel and tourism will need to re-think the dogma of growth that colors everyone’s worldview. The quest to become bigger and better has its limits when the crowds overwhelm, but this is equally true, as too many have experienced, when they simply evaporate.
Whether due to the poor policies, inadequate regulations or weak management practices, the vicissitudes of strong or weak growth can confer extraneous costs and invisible burdens, worsened when the distribution of benefits among all stakeholders remain inequitable.
We can all agree that over-tourism in certain (highly popular and eco-sensitive) locales can be stressful and lead to precipitous degradation, making calls for de-growth understandable. But if policies to deal with these problems are carelessly or indiscriminately applied, they may result in outcomes that can hurt or hinder, rather than heal.
Think of the consternation among travelers and tourists when the right to travel and tourism was taken away, albeit temporarily. The opposition to lockdowns, the resulting socio-political fallout, and the uptick in conspiracy theories should remind us of the discord that can come from good intentions.
Obviously, we need to be vigilant about limiting access to certain precious and vulnerable sites and destinations. It’s essential we ensure their sustainability and regeneration. But, when doing so, we need to ensure that the decisions associated with allocating scarcity will be perceived as fair and honorable.
The pros and cons of economic and corporate growth from travel and tourism are hotly contested. Growth, is a complex and multi-faceted socio-economic process. It includes and is determined through the outputs and outcomes of well-conceived development, associated with improvements occurring within natural, human, social and economic domains.
As Adam Smith once told us: The aim of a healthy economic process is general societal well-being, or ‘wellth’. That means harmonizing the interests of the various stakeholders. The downfall of all cultures, nations, and businesses, however, occurs when one group of stakeholders presses or imposes their own (growth or de-growth) agendas to the detriment of other stakeholders or society at large.
Unfortunately, healthy growth is not assured. It only occurs when the conditions – public policy, market and societal preferences and trends, technological change, and the general state of the economy - are right for it. It’s a process that demands hard work and good judgment, cooperation and collaboration, plus loads of luck. It transpires through the ability to carefully assess, scrutinize and stress test situations, to discover latent opportunities, and have the dexterity to execute at the appropriate time. This helps to ensure that ‘what should come next’ from environmental (sustainability), cultural (diversity of expressions), and economic (employment) perspectives is appropriate, achievable and transformative.
Considered in this broad context, healthy growth needs to be reframed. We need to ask questions of the ‘prosperity’ we are aiming for, including how it can be achieved, measured, and maintained in ever-evolving fast, slow, no, intermittent, or de-growth situations.
Prosperity should be defined not just in overtly competitive, economic, financial or market-share terms, but in the totality of what prosperity means to all stakeholders. This should emphasise how various economic structures provide for what people value, need, and deem important in order to live the good life as they themselves see it. And prosperity is not the same thing as economic growth. It should be aligned with suitable and sustainable development that promotes societal well-being in a nuanced and human sense.
Prosperity that is healthy and multi-dimensional will require multiple measures to identify demonstrable progress. Economic growth should not be an end itself, but a means to ends a society chooses. It should aim for a ‘win-win’ scenario derived from the real work of mastery in affirmation of the drive for deep purpose. This is especially true for business enterprises that acknowledge that their ability to earn returns on investments is becoming increasingly dependent on meeting their societal responsibilities.
But here’s where the going gets tough: We may believe that regress can be stemmed through conscientious reform and rejuvenation, so long as we persevere. But, gaining commitment to ‘deep purpose’ for tourism or communities-as-destinations, and among key stakeholders, is no walk in the park.
After all, if prosperity or healthy growth is dependent on the degree to which the interests of stakeholder groups can be balanced and harmonized, what happens when the self-interest of some stakeholders creates conflict with others? Inevitably, prosperity and progress stall.
To reiterate, the road to healthy growth or prosperity is a process. It’s the journey not the destination that truly matters. If travel and tourism serve to benefit enterprises, economies, citizens and communities, then the magic words aren’t economic growth, but progress toward prosperity and healthy growth.
Nobel Laureate, Willy Brandt summed it up well: “It’s hard to imagine development without growth. But not every kind of growth leads to development, let alone progress.” As an ardent learning and actionable process, progress has to be judged “not through our accomplishments, but by the scale of our ambitions”. These ambitions stem from our desires to follow through on our future-forward, ‘deep purpose’ commitments. But few countries- or communities-as-destinations have really thought about or clarified a deep purpose (as distinct from vision and mission).
This is sad, because these days the world seems to be losing a vision of the future. In a fractious world beset with wars, populism, autocracies, climate calamities, and high rates of inflation (all leading to the curtailment of travel), the future looks a dangerous place. But hasn’t that always been the case?
In these fractious times, perhaps we should heed Fred Polak's warning: “The rise and fall of the images of the future precedes or accompanies the rise and fall of culture…Once the image begins to decay and lose its vitality, the culture does not long survive.” Clearly we cannot allow that to happen.
And yet we must admit that the pursuit of healthy growth and prosperity cannot be possible if we cavalierly prioritize economic growth that discounts the unquantifiable aesthetic, spiritual, social, cultural and environmental benefits, or the costs that individuals and their communities have to bear. Regarding such predicaments, M. Scott Peck reveals: “The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy and unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers.”
Finding our way back from fear to optimism and aspiration requires that we seek new horizons through ‘deep purpose’; by prioritizing value creation and halting value destruction; re- discovering the hope in economics; and learning how to manage in an age of outrage. Doing so will lead us to new and exciting versions of enlightenment now. This may seem like a hard sell, unless we develop the smart leadership skills (the power of options) that will invigorate our resourcefulness and ability to be versatile in a volatile world.
Such an ambition could change the very nature of tourism’s continuing development. As Alan Kaplan notes in The Development Practitioner’s Handbook:
Development is not growth. While growth entails a quantitative increase, and may precipitate development, development implies a qualitative change in structure.
Development is a process in time, is discontinuous, and is mostly irreversible.
Often a crisis is necessary to precipitate development; development is often accompanied by pain; development entails the need to let go of the past, to overcome resistance to change.
As an on-going and constantly updated process, the pursuit of prosperity requires we give far greater attention to properly managing all stages of development and growth, so that the decline stage can be avoided or, at the very least, postponed.
No one wants destinations to slide into oblivion. The future success of communities-as-destinations depends on the discovery or expansion of opportunities; the encouragement of entrepreneurialism; the need for regenerative and distributive economies; enterprises serving different needs and new markets; the rejuvenation of all enterprises; collective efforts to resolve the climate crisis and the regeneration of our natural and cultural resources.
It’s vital that we work harder to create and share prosperity narratives (such as tourism success for sustainable growth) that discuss and evaluate various approaches to, and processes of, progress (including our missteps and failures).This applies also to what still remains to be done, for example, getting 85 % of the global companies that don’t have credible plans, to reduce corporate flying emissions.
Travel and tourism may be challenged by critics to conform or reform, but we should be aware that the exceedingly powerful industry lobby is not about to allow regress. However, alterations as to how it perceives enlightened versions of progress can be nudged, particularly as culture and norms change. As such, we must find resolve to work together; find common ground; provide fresh insights into the progress journey; accelerate the innovation game; avoid the hiccups and inconveniences, and correct our misdeeds.
In examining what’s meritorious, it’s interesting to note the growing and very timely interest in creating a multi-disciplinary science of progress. Wouldn’t it be amazing if we applied this new science to travel and tourism? A science that would necessitate a philosophy of progress as well as a psychology of progress. There is much to think about and debate in this regard. The links and relationships between tourism’s continuing ‘growth’, ‘prosperity’ and ‘progress’, within varied contexts, need to be explored in finer detail.
The intent should be the effective transformation of travel, tourism and destinations. This does not necessarily mean them being reduced in scale, but through a more expansive version of Amartya Sen’s notion of ‘development as freedom’, or at least some equally ethical, inclusive and humane equivalent.
In this regard a total evolution and reframing of economic thought (suggested by three renegade economists, Marianna Mazzucato, Carlota Perez and Kate Raworth) seems worthy of consideration. Their prescriptions regarding the rethinking of purpose, re-directing growth, co-creating value, and harnessing innovation through public investment, represent a fascinating set of ideas, as we revisit and rethink travel and tourism’s involvement and role in working toward progress, prosperity and healthy growth.
The ball now is in our court. How well we progress depends on our desire and determination to work cooperatively and collaboratively, networked to care at scale … businesses, governments, academia, citizens, and communities.
As the Drucker Foundation has declared: We’re obligated to dedicate ourselves to the creation of communities of the future, communities-as-destinations in which travel and tourism can play an even more progressive role, allowing all of us together to be part of our world, truly connected and actively engaged, progressing towards healthier versions of growth and prosperity.
K Michael Haywood is Professor Emeritus, School of Hospitality, Food and Tourism at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada. Find him on LinkedIn.