New business models in tourism are needed

Executives in the travel, tourism and hospitality industry are faced with difficult times. The company has to grow, save costs and in the same time should take care about a sustainable development. Furthermore, todays challenges are much more complex then they used to be years ago. Tourism is one of the classical cross-sectional industries where many topics are touched; mobility, sustainability, architecture, urban and regional planning, financing, etc. As a result, today challenges can’t be solved independently. It needs a common understanding of what has to be done and furthermore, a common action is needed to make sure that the taken actions have the expected effects. In other words a global approach, a cooperation or “one voice” (as Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk, the South African tourism minister calls it) is needed (http://vimeo.com/23266801). If we don’t take this seriously, the travel, tourism and hospitality industry will never get the power it needs and will never show the necessary results it should.

To make that happen, companies and CEO’s have to rethink the existing business models they used during the last 20 years. New business models have to be discussed, evaluated and than implemented in the industry and companies. Therefore, the World Tourism Forum Lucerne takes care about these issues and brings together the relevant persons to discuss about these new business models. In the last years a lot of top level platforms and summits concentrated on the discussion about new business models such as World Tourism Forum Lucerne 2011 (http://www.wtflucerne.org/programme-2011/) or World Economic Forum in 2012 (http://www.weforum.org/events/world-economic-forum-annual-meeting-2012). Who else should be as well present to such discussions about the future challenges than the ones who have to face them: the talents of the next generation? That is the reason why World Tourism Forum Lucerne concentrates so much on the talent management issue (http://www.wtflucerne.org/storage/Young_Talents_Concept_e_2013.pdf.).

 Prof Martin Barth, General Manager World Tourism Forum Lucerne