Based on observations and industry discussions held during the past three weeks in Cairo, Alexandria and on the Red Sea Riviera from the first days of Egyptian Unrest through to President Mubarak’s Resignation.
By Peter R. Classen and Elmira Togliatti
Great challenge; greater opportunity
The steps for rebuilding a country following a nation-change event like the one just witnessed are complicated and thorny. The world applauds the courage of the Egyptian people and recognizes the scale of the challenge that lies ahead. That such change has occurred is both inspiring and daunting, especially to those whose lives and families depend on progress and a return to a state of normalcy. To move forward, at the national political level and on a sector-by- sector basis will be a great challenge, as well as a great opportunity.
What do average tourists think about Egypt as a destination today? The answer is “nothing”; not because of the recent political upheaval has turned average tourists off Egypt but because there is no such thing as an average tourist.
Answers to such questions as “What are the “European Sun & Fun vacationers
thinking of Egypt’s Red Sea resorts today?” or “What are health insurance companies thinking about Egypt and what coverage is available?” and now the answers are knotty, often contradictory, and full of uncertainty – just like the new political environment.
The time needed for the recovery of Egypt’s tourism sector can be accelerated by 30% if a coordinated, and multi-centric recovery program is fast tracked into action. By drawing on the rare and hard-to-obtain lessons from past national tourism recovery experiences and by mobilizing those hands-on leaders who have overcome such daunting national-scale challenges in the past, a recovery plan can be built in hours (not days), and a full program in weeks (not months). By bringing the nation’s tourism marketing & promotion capabilities and workforce assets into a collaborative rebuilding effort, much order and progress can be made in a very short time. If managed correctly, this effort will not only help restore family incomes, investor confidence and generate new jobs, but it will also be a tremendously uplifting experience for the stakeholders in the sector and will leave the Egyptian tourism industry stronger, safer, and more competitive going forward.
How have these tourism sector situations been solved before?
The steps for rebuilding a tourism sector’s productivity following a national disaster – natural or man-made - are known to many “well seasoned” industry professionals who have lived long enough to have been through complete cycles of such situations more than once in their careers. Lessons are found in the personal experiences of the rebuilders and do-ers from the recovery efforts following the terrorist-motivated Bali Night Club bombing, the devastation of New Orleans by Hurricane Katarina, the destruction of tourism-based communities by the 2004 East Asian Tsunami, and even the Tourist Attacks in Luxor. All represent learning experiences and all contribute to a valuable body of knowledge about how post-disaster situations in the tourism sector can best be handled.
Hands-on problem solving experiences and mature perspectives seem to offer the most immediate help, as this brings to any recovery effort, a leadership that is decisive in light of incomplete information, desirable self-confidence in the public and industry’s eyes, and results-oriented action driven by a vision towards building better than what was before. Mature professionals possess an innate knowledge of the mechanics of how other countries and geographies have rebounded, faster than expectation, when certain early steps were taken, and when many distractions were put aside in favor of the ultimate goal: rebuild to be better, stronger, and more attuned to global demand.
To accelerate the Egyptian Tourism Sector Rebound and thus save the owners and employees months of slow recovery, one needs to do five things:
Recruit the right team to fast-track the initiative
Have recovery plans ready in hours not weeks
Create a sufficient positive force by engaging the whole industry
Know the facts and where to focus
Strategically target specific segments with tailored messages
Interact, communicate and travel extensively
What the right team must bring to the table
Knowing how to move quickly and in the right direction, with the benefit of experience, clarity of thinking, and diplomat-level communications skills in their personal toolkits.
Moving quickly is fundamental as tourism demand never disappears after a disaster, it only gets redirected. Today, travel agents in Europe (72% of the travel volume to Egypt comes from Europe) are re-directing travelers to other locations in their basket of available destinations. As these sales are made, the story of “why these alternative destinations are better” gets refined and ingrained. Experts know time is of the essence to counter this negative promotion.
The need to be down-to-earth precise in one’s messages with rifle-precise targeting, not general, dreamy and lofty promotions that do not address bottlenecks and immediate priorities.
There are key points in the tourism value chain that are broken as a result of the recent Egyptian turnover (the travel agent component being just one dimension). These specific breaks are not fixed by general promotion efforts, website revamps or press releases. Insurance company issues, charter flight fleet planning, online image management all require real-time precise dialogues and real-team results to reduce and reverse the negative impact.
The need to leverage all of the sector’s managerial, marketing, selling and customer relations workforce and assets, and to turn what were competitors last month into recovery collaborators for the next year.
While it is necessary to control and direct the national identity from a centralized, national center point, what is often missed is that there is far more marketing and promotion talent and resource available at the hotel and operator levels. The recovery times for tourism can be dramatically reduced if one can effectively harness these dispersed, decentralized resources and then coordinate and focus efforts on communicating a central set of agreed common rebuilding themes and directions. (Example: Excellent opportunity in Egypt today to offer university study tours for political science, sociology, psychology, and even tourism disciplines).
What a plan that is ready in hours would look like
First off, it would be multi-centric, meaning that it will have many centers of focus. It would be ready just-in-time and would not overreach by trying to solve next month’s problems. It will have a number of facets being run by different competent leaders, in a parallel program management fashion; highly integrated and with accountabilities that evolve through daily management and coordination. It would not progress as a series of steps or aim to build stable teams comprised of competing interests (a sophisticated process and a stable team are not meaningful results.) It will be mission-oriented and paperwork- light; it will adjust its daily targets and processes on a very rapid and on a “as the situation evolves” basis. It will push to identify and solve problems immediately at the sub-center level, but will have direct and frequent communication with leadership so progress and focus on the end-game mission would remain everyone’s priority.
The seven centers of activity that will contribute most:
Leveraging and aggregating all tourism marketing assets in a coordinated, non-competing fashion – international hotel brands, independent brands, national Egyptian brands, Egyptian associations, and government bodies.
Taking a proactive stance in the light of heightened competition; repowering the image through advertising and promotion – frequency, placement, conference, and exhibition attendance.
Refining and frequently messaging on national destination attributes – sunny & warm, historic, friendly, serene, safe.
Gathering and communicating the facts, frequently and accurately to the key points in the sales and marketing channels (sales, agents, marketers, promoters, traveler websites) to allay fears and re-stimulate the flow of traveler bookings to Egypt.
Countering promptly any misconceptions ad erroneous claims that run contrary to Egypt’s recovery efforts, removing basic roadblocks at the tourism “hygiene” level – safety for one’s self and property – featuring prominently.
Offering a source of guidance to Egyptian owners / operators on how to strengthen demand, how to communicate with agents, what to say, and how to deal with negativity.
Staying aligned with the new national government and the new national leadership, by offering honest, confidential advice (if asked), and generating success stories for the public and other stakeholder communities.
How to achieve national-scale Positive Force
Isaac Newton and other great thinkers of the Age of Enlightenment could have been very effective tourism consultants. How would Newton, as a tourism expert, solve a national-scale tourism problem? He would deploy a national- scale solution. How would he and his team counter and overcome negative market forces? Newton and his experts would counter with an opposing and superior positive force. (They weren’t called enlightened for nothing after all.)
The vast majority of the assets needed to affect a fast-track recovery for the sector, exist in the country today. This is the scale of the positive force that is required to counter the downturn. What needs to happen is that these vital national assets get aggregated and then carefully directed, so they become a superior positive force.
Global Tourism Industry professionals are needed for their hands-on experience in tourism sector rebuilding in post-disaster settings and their ability to form the leadership team. As with many crisis situations, if the leaders are outsiders they tend to attract “you were there” doubts and negative press, so if at all possible the leadership team should have people that experienced and lived through the current crisis, in order to lend essential credibility to national and international industry professionals. (We make no distinction between country of origin – if the individual has these exceedingly rare experiences and perspectives, and can be engaged as a positive visionary for many teams. Such individuals are worth their weight in gold for this effort.)
Owners, operators, associations and marketing professionals – Those Egyptian tourism professionals already vested in the sector. As other post-disaster recovery situations have shown, there is no substitute for the focus and clarity that can come from local owners, operators, associations and marketing/selling professionals if they can be brought together in a coordinated fashion, and
shown how acknowledging the reality of their situation is a step in the recovery process. (Here we make a distinction – native interests, intuitions, emotions and vesting is important to the team)
Post-Disaster Restructuring Experts - Such people do exist and do travel the world on a moment’s notice. Their knowledge of stakeholder engagement, community leadership building, and fast-tracking of results is what they bring to the table. These are also the people who know better than others, how the national mission is rarely to rebuild what was, but to rebuild better for the future. (Here again, it is experience and knowledge not nationality that matters.
Fact Gathering / Situation Analysis Experts – this includes consumer market research, opinion research, and B2B research experts along with the “commercially focused” analysts that will turn real time data into actionable agenda items. (The rare skills, experiences and knowledge of this type of research are what matter most, as the efforts in this area are what feed information to all team members regarding priorities and roadblocks to recovery.)
Marketing and Promotion Experts - Just as destinations are sold through images, national recovery of a tourism sector is sold by creating an image of a destination with a future and by marketing the fundamental strengths in the destination that remain intact. (These are the do-ers, those who are in touch with potential customers every single day. Here nationality matters, as country x representatives speaking with country x buyers tend to bridge the “trust gap” quicker than others).)
Why “Knowing the Facts” is not only valuable, but critical
It is through extremely fast ad hoc customer surveying that current awareness and current attitudes towards Egypt as a travel destination of the different buying segments can be learned, and clear direction can be produced for advertising and promotion professionals.
Similarly, through this consumer research the positive dimensions of recent traveler experiences can be learned, and inventoried for leveraging in “third party testimonials” advertising efforts.
It is through tourism industry surveying that specific “breaks in the value chain” can be pinpointed and targeted for correction.
It is through stakeholder surveying that national and regional level consensus points can be identified, and subsequently leveraged to mobilize the “grass roots” marketing and promotion talent pool
It is through B2B surveying that “success stories” can be identified, and directed to news and industry writers for publication
It is through online research that the all-important online image and reputation can be proactively managed
Lastly, the sheer act of “calling, listening, and acting” on industry concerns represents a form of corrective intervention, that will help to allay fears, reduce tensions, and create positive reflections that will help the Egyptian national tourism identity.
Interacting, communicating and travelling extensively
Most breakdowns in post-disaster recovery and reconstruction efforts occur because of an intense focus on doing and solving from on high, while leaving the tasks of communicating and listening until later. In this type of setting, where lives are essentially intact, but livelihoods are not, there is a need to talk to people: to understand, to empathize, and also to listen to experiences, priorities and new thinking. In the major demand centers for Egypt’s tourism products, there are misconceptions and rumors that are filling the current gaps that facts and true stories usually fill. Rumors hurt Egypt, as do negative images, so the effort to interact, to communicate face-to-face and to show through deeds and images, a resilient, rebounding Egyptian tourism sector, is vital.
The authors:
Peter R. Classen is an Investment Advisor and Post-Disaster Recovery Expert, who has just returned from Egypt (Cairo, Alexandria and the Red Sea Riviera) Contact: pclassen@grahampton.com
Manuel Knight is a Tourism Sector Development Expert with experience in a number of post-disaster Tourism Sector Recovery settings who has also just returned from Egypt. Contact: manuel.knightconsult@gmail.com
Elmira M. Togliatti is a Strategic Tourism Marketing & Research Director who interviewed several hundred European, North American, Asia-Pacific and GCC travelers over the past three weeks in Egypt. Contact: etogliatti@grahampton.com