Tourists | Owen Organization

The tip of the day

The Economist recently published an article about tipping in the USA. The main thrust was that we Americans are as confused about tipping as the rest of the world is confused about our tipping habits. It made me remember an incident that happened to me way back……

I’ve been in the travel industry since Methuselah was a boy, and have been fortunate to have traveled to a great many places, including here in the US. On this particular occasion I was the host to a group in a New York restaurant. A great meal, good service and an enjoyable if not spectacular experience. I left a tip of 15%, which would be considered very good in the UK. Imagine my surprise at being approached by the Maitre d’ who asked what had been wrong with the meal. I told him nothing was wrong, it had been a perfectly good evening. I was told in definite terms that I should be tipping at 20-25%.

In Europe, 10% is pretty much the norm. In some places in Scandinavia, and certainly in New Zealand, tipping is considered an insult, and may result in a tirade from the person tipped – just don’t do it!

It’s true that we should be aware that different cultures around the world expect different behaviors and we should be aware of that when traveling. But should we be as guarded traveling in our own country? Surely a tip is a tip, wherever we are in the USA?

I’ll let you read The Economist piece yourself (it’s at http://ow.ly/xStZ303ZhdX). It’s worth a look if only to add to your confusion.

This also let me to consider something that’s been happening here on the Northern Gulf Coast of Florida, particularly the piece known as The Emerald Coast.

The area has traditionally drawn tourists from the whole of the South East, anywhere within a 10-15 hour drive to Destin, Pensacola and Panama City Beach. The tourists tend to peak during the period between Memorial Day and Labor Day – the ’90 Days of Summer’. This, due to schools breaking later and going back earlier, has been reduced to about ‘The 60 Days of Summer’, but that’s another story. Suffice to say, the market is mainly families who drive in. They are traditional in their approach and the families have in the main, been doing the same thing for up to 40 years. Things are changing though…

The shortening and concentration of the family travel period has opened up the rest of the year to new markets – people who can travel without kids, and at short notice. Primarily Millennials and Zoomers (Younger Boomers, Boomers with Zip!). These groups have different requirements than the families. They want experiences, great food, the ability have what they want when they want it – now. They also behave differently. Zoomers tend to have more disposable income, and Millennials tend to do more physically demanding experiences – although those are both very much generalizations.

The local Destination Marketing Organizations (DMOs – Tourist Boards, CVBs etc.) have been consciously aiming their marketing up market. Going after more affluent sector of tourists. Their efforts appear to have worked. For the 30A area (South Walton) this has certainly worked. Their area has been inundated with high spending customers. In fact, let’s face it, they’ve been inundated with all types of customers!

The same appears to be true of all the areas along the Gulf Coast. Tourist Development Tax (Bed Tax) is up across the region, and Okaloosa in the center of the region, appears to have had bigger tax growth than other neighboring DMOs. However, many local restaurants, particularly in the Destin area are complaining that tourists are not spending like they used to. Is this a justifiable view?

I’ve spoken to a number of restauranteurs and to accommodation providers. The later have said that their occupancy has been up, and their ADR (Average Daily Rate) is also up. One hotelier told be he goes out into his parking lot on Memorial Day and checks out the kind of vehicles that are there. He said that this year, there were far fewer trucks and many more upscale SUVs. That would surely show that the income group is probably rising. He also said that on the beach there were far fewer cut-off T-shirts and many more upscale bathing suits. There’s no real science in this approach, but he’s been doing this for many years an he can see a distinct correlation to the amount spent.

Pushing the restauranteurs on if they are actually seeing a decrease or stagnation in the amounts visitors are spending led to a revelation. It’s not the amount of the bill that’s declining, but the amount of the tips.

Tips in Florida generally (in restaurants) have been around 14% for some years. That’s a marked difference from other parts of the US. The North East is closer to 25%. The reason for this is possibly due to the number of overseas guests visiting Orlando, Miami and the other internationally visited areas. Remember that overseas visitors are used to tipping less. Up here in the Panhandle though, tipping has been closer to 20% traditionally. Not too many international guests up here, so what’s going on?

Digging further and doing some research I’ve found that there are other factors in play. It appears that Millennials tend not to tip at the same rate – check out the following articles (http://ow.ly/Xd9u303Zprh. http://ow.ly/26Vo303ZpBs) and try Googling ‘Tipping and Millennials’ and see how much confirmation you get.

It also appears that Zoomers will not just tip at 20% regardless. They modify the tip depending on the service received.

…and it’s not just those groups who are modifying their tipping habits. Locals, family groups and The Military are all reviewingtheir habits, subtly and subconsciously.

It’s not as simple as ‘we’re attracting the wrong people’. It appears we’re attracting the right people, but those visitors are not behaving in the way they used to. Another indicator that the tourism market is changing and it’s changing rapidly.

There’s a tip for you!

The one constant thing.

Back in 500 BC, tourism wasn’t much as we know it today. However, in Ephesus in what is now Turkey, a gentleman called Heraclitus was pondering, as ancients tended to do. “Change’ he said (in Greek) ‘is the only constant in life’.

We can’t look into the future with any certainty, and no matter how informed or clever we are, there’s always something ready to throw a wrench (or spanner, for my English friends) into the works.

This certainly applies to tourism, of course. We know that nothing will remain the same. The visitors of today will age, and with age comes changes in needs and changes in desires. Possibly also changes in circumstances. Different demographics emerge – see the rise of the Boomers and how as their children grew and left home, their vacation choices changed. The emergence of the Zoomers – Boomers with Zip – who seem to be mirroring (but with more money) the ways of the Millennials. This Millennial group are always touted as having completely different needs to prior generations, but research seems to be proving that generalization wrong, or at least to be too simplistic.

Then there’s the change from where visitors come. On a local level, that shows up when a neighboring state or country experiences a change in fortune (for better or worse) that increases or decreases visitation. On a world wide level the emergence of new economies has major impacts. Look at the enormous increase in world travel from China and India. Of course the ‘wrench in the works’ law comes into play, and the burgeoning Brazilian market (for the USA in general and Florida in particular) has taken a major hit with Brazil’s economic woes. Same applies to Russia. However in the long game, these are probably blips.

The thing is, tourism is increasing and has been for many decades. It’s an almost unstoppable effect as humans are forever inquisitive and of an exploring nature (even if it’s ‘soft’ exploring!).

The chart above (From the US Department of Commerce and National Travel and Tourism Office) shows the continuing rise in tourists to the USA since just 1999. Yes, the ‘wrench’ effect applied following 9/11 in 2001 and again with the global recession of 2008/9, but the overall effect is ever increasing numbers.

The Skift report chart above shows the trend and forecast for international visitors to the USA. Since the post 9/11 dip and the wobble 2007/9 the results and forecast are ever upwards.

The World Travel & Tourism Council (in their Economic Impact 2015 – USA report
http://ow.ly/N9lX3039BTN) show that recent years have seen travel and tourism growing at a faster rate than both the wider economy and other significant factors like automotive and healthcare sectors. Visitors from emerging economies are now a 46% share of international visitors, up from 38% in 2000. The problems in Russia and Brazil will have a slowing effect but falling oil prices (which affect living costs, increases disposable income and lowers air fares) will provide a contrary influence. So, expansion of tourism is predicted to continue at a stronger pace than last year.

Back to Heraclitus. Change is the only constant. We know that the future will not be the same as the past. If we rely on doing the same things as we always have – if we don’t at least look at the possibilities for change, we’re going to fail. We have to reinvent, and we have prepare for change.

‘Destination Think’ interviewed Jan Hutton, the Chief Marketing Officer of Gold Coast Tourism (The Gold Coast is famous and well established tourist region on the east coast of Australia), Jan said:

“Our world is precarious, many legacy industries are crumbling and amid this mayhem, tourism is flourishing. Tourism is a top priority for every country around the world now, as a means to grow revenue, grow job creation, grow industry, grow investment, grow trade – it is the sharp edge that can lead to so much more for a destination. This means that we now need to be agile, relevant and smarter than ever in an incredibly competitive landscape.”

The whole interview can be found here: http://ow.ly/1tJr3039FsS

Getting back to Heraclitus again, we must be preparing for the change to our business that will inevitably arrive. We must look at where our visitors not only traditionally originate and where they are starting to come from, but where they will come from in the future. We must be ready to adapt to the way people will think not only in the near future, but in 5 and 10 years. We may not be completely accurate in our predictions, but we can make pretty reliable guesses. The one thing we will know for certain – things WILL change.

Can you tell me the way…..

A tourist was driving through the beautiful Irish countryside and obviously lost. He he saw a local sitting by the side of the road and stopped to ask directions. ‘Excuse me’ said the tourist. ‘Can you give me directions of how to get to Dublin?’. The local considered for a while, and said ‘Well, I wouldn’t start from here’.

That probably is exactly the situation many destination marketing organizations (DMOs) find themselves in today.

In the USA and probably many other countries, DMOs grew out of the the local chamber of commerce – the result of concerned local businesses wanting to grow tourist visitation. Eventually, they decided that the skills needed were beyond the chamber and local government were persuaded to take over the role and formed a Convention and Visitor’s Bureau or local tourist board. To fund this they either committed an element of their budget derived from local taxation, or they collected a tourist or bed tax from visitors. Either way, the DMO is now normally administered by a group of interested and knowledgable local citizens, and ultimately controlled by local politicians – City Councilors, County Commissioners or a whole host of other titles, depending on where you’re located.

In an ideal world, you’d set up this organization before any tourists arrived, and before any infrastructure had been built. Your group of advisors and Councilors would all have significant knowledge of tourism, marketing, commercial and environmental issues – and common sense (the least common element in the Universe!) Then you could influence decisions like ‘no buildings to exceed the height of a palm tree’, ‘visitors must not leave items on the beach overnight’, ‘create sufficient car parking to anticipate demand in 20 years’ – you know the sort of thing.

But it’s not an ideal world.

For a start the infrastructure wasn’t planned. Like Topsy it just ‘grewed’. No one really planned much further ahead than next season. The one big hotel in town became the dominant commercial interest and was then bought out by a Chain.

In the ski resort, the lift system was already 30 years old.

To cap it all, the city elected representatives are all retired hydraulic engineers (I have nothing but admiration for hydraulic engineers, the occupation just randomly flew into my mind!) or lawyers. No knowledge of tourism, commercial imperatives, associated technology or marketing, no matter what their other undoubted qualifications may be.

Add to this toxic mix the speed of change in travel technology, emergence of social media, the rise of peer reviews, changing tourist demographics and worldwide political changes and you have, to over cliché this particular pudding, a perfect storm.

In our part of the world (Northwest Florida) this has been highlighted by a couple of recent events.
One is the emergence of Airbnb which has put a strain on how and if Tourist Development Tax (Bed Tax for want of a better name) is collected. This article (http://ow.ly/7QMp302ESAv) demonstrates how Santa Rosa and Escambia Counties are trying to cope. It’s almost as if the Airbnb concept has suddenly appeared. Uber has had the same effect on taxi regulation around the world.
The other issue revolved around the running of a country music event in Okaloosa County. The idea was suggested that the county should run the event as a trial to provide business for the local convention center. If nothing else, they would break-even and learn lessons for future events.

The lessons learned were that the county were hamstrung by their (possibly understandable) complex and long winded purchasing and contract writing system; that having to refer everything to two committees including the Board of County Commissioners slowed the whole system to a snails pace; and that really they should leave such things to people who knew what they were doing.

Oh, and they made a staggering loss on the event.

The latter example resulted in the sensible decision that in future, such events should be outsourced to the private sector. A good lesson learned and kudos to the people involved for acknowledging this.

So, how do we move forward?

Speed and agility are the watchwords for tourism today. DMOs must be able to turn on a dime (or sixpence, depending on your location) to react to changes, developments and opportunities.

The nature of government is that it’s unlikely (though not impossible) to have the knowledge, awareness and nimbleness to recognize and react in a timely manner.

A local government agency that I know has taken a year to create a new website, and it hasn’t been implemented yet. They’re in tourism and have lost a whole season, possibly two. At the same time a private company has created a state of the art website, with different versions for smartphones and tablets; included video, web cams and on-line booking; acquired partners; and all in two months from pulling the trigger. The site will go live on schedule and on budget.

True, some private companies are as slow as government (An accommodation provider has taken 4 years to change a website and no mobile version. Hello?), and not all local government is unresponsive. But you get my point.

The suggestion is that government run DMOs should at least partner with private companies if not outsource the whole business. Visit Florida is a great example of a public/private partnership, although some politicians do want to be more involved which is a questionable move.

It’s a conversation well worth having between the politicos and private enterprise. Locals need to get involved too.

We probably shouldn’t have started the journey here, but that’s the where we are. We just need to get our directions, decide on our route and follow it – fast.

How Micro-Moments are reshaping the Travel Customer Journey – Google report.

Google have just published a report that examines how people plan for travel. It examines the devices (that’s definitely multiple devices!) that they use and when they use them. The report is certainly well worth reading if you’re in any way involved with the tourism, hospitality or associated industries.

It runs to 41 pages and it hones in to what Google terms ‘micro-moments’. It certainly shows that habits are changing fast. If you’re not seeing the rise in mobile bookings in your business, believe me you will – and sooner than you expect. currently 40% of travel site visits in the US come from mobile devices. You’d better make sure that your site handles mobile in a clean and efficient way.

The report has a number of case studies which are worth taking time to study.

These Micro Moments break down into ‘I want to get away moments’, ‘Time to make a plan moments’, ‘Let’s book it moments’, and ‘Can’t wait to explore moments’ . Depending on your business, you could fit into one or more of those. Be assured that you’re not the only site people are looking at for your particular moment.

To be successful you need to actually be in the booking space, and you need to offer a useful service. You need to be part of the ‘experience’.

52% of travelers with smartphones said they’d switch sites or apps if a site took too long to load. 45% said they’d switch if it takes too many steps to book or get desired information. Have you looked at your booking process on a smart phone recently?

Some other stats –

Only 23% of leisure travelers are confident that they can find all of the same hotel and flight information on their smartphone that they can on their desktop.

2/3 of leisure travelers double check prices on a desktop after shopping for flights on a smartphone.

Over 50% make the switch to double check hotel prices.

94% of leisure travelers switch between devices as they plan or book a trip. Where does that leave your tracking systems?

View Google’s report here: http://ow.ly/PaFe302fl37

There’s more and we’re happy to consult on this and other similar issues. Contact us for more information.

I think I need a map….

We took a road trip this past weekend. We needed to be just north east of Atlanta, Georgia, on Sunday morning and to be back in Northwest Florida by mid afternoon the same day. We decided to take all day Saturday to make a leisurely drive, stay in a B&B overnight (more of this in a separate post) and then high tail it back on Sunday.

This day and age, I guess we all reach for our GPS of choice, enter the start and end points and hope for the best. Most of the modern built-in GPS (or SatNav, for my UK readers) systems will allow you to enter preferences – avoid highways, avoid tolls, don’t drive into rivers, etc. – but come up with a single route. The stand alone ones, Google Maps, Apple’s Siri, Waze etc., do offer a number of choices. We looked at the last three systems and they couldn’t agree on common routes. The apps even came up with different routes on the same app on separate devices!

I began to think that we’d be better off with a paper topographical map (again for the UK – an O.S. Map) so we could work out where we wanted to go and not be seduced by the ‘you can save 5 minutes by taking the interstate – unless there’s a wreck we haven’t noticed’ suggestions.

However we finally chose a Google route (which Apple Maps later agreed with) to take only back roads between the Panhandle and Watkinsville GA. It was glorious! Small but fast roads through beautiful farmland, small towns that don’t appear to have changed since 1940 – maybe 1840 in some cases – and virtually no traffic. Total travel time was only 40 mins longer than if we’d travelled interstate and gone through the center of Atlanta.

The downside was that there were few fast food joints on the back roads. That may be a good thing, but when you just want some fast Human fuel…. We did find a Huddle House somewhere in Back of Beyond Georgia. What a gem. Virtually empty and staffed by a group of Deep Southern Ladies who cooked everything to order, great sized portions, tasty and very inexpensive. Best of all, they were blown away by my English accent and kept on asking me to repeat the order just so they could all giggle – y’all! Thanks ladies, you did a great job in making this tourist happy.

We also saw a sign advertising Georgia Peaches for sale. Thinking this would be a roadside stall we went to investigate. We found Dickey Farms (founded 1897). Their website is at:
http://gapeaches.com/ and they’re on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/Dickey-Farms-100232761473/.

They are peach farmers and packers, and their packing plant is also a store and visitor’s center. It’s a great place. Grab some fresh peach ice cream, take one of their free fans (like Southern Ladies used to keep cool while sipping mint juleps on their front porch swings!) and watch the packing line – see the photos. You can buy peaches of course, but also cobbler, peach cider, peach sauces, jellies, candy, you name it. If it can have peaches in it, they’ve got it. The whole area around the packing plant is a mini theme park. Again, look at the photos.

All this added to my thoughts on the drive up that Agri Tourism is a growing (sorry, pun intended) and vital part of the rural economy. There is a current movement to preserve the rural way of life in Florida. Despite the impression that Florida is the theme park and beach capital of the world, agriculture is vital to Florida. Farm cash receipts from marketing Florida agricultural products in 2012 amounted to $8.22 billion, a slight decrease from 2011. Nationally, Florida ranks second in the value of vegetable and melon cash receipts with a value of $1.42 billion, 13th in crop cash receipts with a value of $6.38 billion and 10th in total cash receipts. In 2013 Florida had 48,000 commercial farms, using a total of 9.55 million acres; Florida ranked second in the U.S. for value of vegetable production; first in production value for oranges, fresh market tomatoes, watermelons, grapefruit, fresh market snap beans, fresh market cucumbers and squash; second in the production of greenhouse and nursery products, bell peppers, strawberries, fresh market sweet corn, spring potatoes, tangerines and avocados; 12th in beef cows; and accounts for 63 percent of total U.S. citrus production. Florida ranks eighth in agricultural exports with over $4 billion. (Source: Florida Department of Agriculture).

Florida has a vibrant Agritourism business (http://visitor.visitfloridafarms.com) as does Georgia (http://georgia-agritourism.org), which offer everything from pick-your-own to farm-stays. Many farms we passed in Georgia had signs offering ‘on farm accommodation’. Of course, the Dickey Farms operation is a part of this agri-tourism movement.

There’s much more to tourism than that which immediately comes to mind. To the counties of Northwest Florida (for example – this applies worldwide) there is a compulsive economic reason for promoting beach tourism. There’s a duty also to promote agriculture and to protect rural life by encouraging tourism to the inland areas. This may also get those inland residents ‘on board’ with tourism issues.

Anyway, off the soapbox! By taking the back roads we added 40 minutes to our journey but added to our knowledge of the country, the enjoyment of our trip and learnt more about peaches than I thought possible. It was a great stress reducer too.

‘Siri, directions to a more enjoyable journey please’

The visitor centre and store at Dickey Farms

The packing line from the visitor center

I’m not a Grockle*, I live here!

I live in a tourist town. It’s a great feeling actually living somewhere that people save up their cash and time to visit on vacation. Well most of the time! I do sympathize with other locals who find their lives disrupted during ‘the season’ by what they perceive as traffic gridlock, full restaurants, and sometimes inflated prices, but I have a slightly different view, brought on by my lifetime obsession with tourism and the fact that my income is directly dependent on it.

Growing up, I lived near London and just ten miles from Windsor Castle and a host of other tourist centers. At one time it was common for residents to wear button badges saying ‘I’m not a tourist – I live here’. I must confess that when you’re trying to get to a business appointment, or just grabbing a lunchtime sandwich and you’re held up by a bunch of visitors with no perception of time, personal space or local customs it can get a mite, shall we say, irritating!

Having it pointed out to me that if it wasn’t for the tourists, I probably wouldn’t have a job, or the local amenities I enjoyed, didn’t initially help, but gradually I got the message and came to be tolerant and then respect (I think love may be going too far!) the visitors.

So, living in a tourist area has its challenges but what can those of us in the industry do to convince our fellow residents, who may have no immediate connection to tourism, that it’s a good thing to be in a place that others want to visit?

Destination Marketing Organizations have a duty to promote their areas to tourists. It’s their whole raison d’etre, but it’s my feeling that education of the locals is also a duty. DMOs do need to firstly let their residents know how they are promoting, what they’re promoting and importantly, why. Many residents think that visitors know an area exists and therefore promotion isn’t needed. It’s a fair point, but obviously incorrect to those of us involved.

It’s pretty pointless running ads in local media if you’re trying to attract visitors into a market, but you should at least share the ads you’re running out of market so that your locals know and understand what’s happening.

It’s also no bad thing to tell your locals why tourism is so important. Here in Florida there is no state income tax. That’s because 24% of sales tax is paid by tourists, so for locals that’s a very good thing and something of which they should be aware and not forget. It also matters that for someone who doesn’t think they work in tourism, that they see how their income is invariably linked to the success of local tourism, however indirectly. Nobody but the DMO is in a position to share that information.

A wise hospitality professional once referred to a line of visitors cars clogging a road as ‘every one being a credit card on wheels’

Lastly, there’s room to involve the locals in helping tourists. Who but a resident knows the best restaurants, or best attractions? Who else would know the history of a place, or indeed where to avoid!

Perhaps the DMO should issue button badges that say ‘I’m a local – ask me’!

*’Grockle’ is an informal and often slightly derogatory term for a tourist. It was first popularized because of its use by the characters in the film The System (1964), which is set in the Devon resort of Torquay during the summer season. Some older dictionaries suggested that it might be an English West Country dialect word.