“TOURISM TIDBITS”
Posted on May 22, 2025
“TOURISM TIDBITS”
FROM
TOURISM & MORE, INC.
The goal of “Tourism Tidbits” is to provide travel professionals with a monthly, easy-to-read overview of creative ideas. With proper referencing, we invite you to quote or reproduce “Tourism Tidbits” and to pass it along to friends.
“Tourism Tidbits” is published monthly in English. Spanish, and Portuguese. The Spanish translation is from Ferran Anguera of Barcelona, Spain. The Portuguese translation is by Lillian Donati Godinho of Lisbon, Portugal.
Wishing everyone a happy and healthy New Year. May 2025 be a year of prosperity and peace!
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Tourism & More’s
Tourism Tidbits
for January 2025
Looking Back at 2024 and
Hoping for a Better 2025!
The past year has been a year of challenges and successes throughout the world’s tourism industry. Despite the reactivation of tourism after the Covid-19 pandemic many people in the tourism industry will not be sad to say adieu to the year that has just ended. We might call 2024 a year of hope and despair, a year when we thought we might saw an end to the fear of travel due to the pandemic, but at the same time a world beset by war and violence. This past year was a year of challenges, both economic and political. We saw nations grappling with issues of illegal immigration, war, crime and violence. Inflation became an economic cancer that gnawed at the very fabric of the tourism industry, but at the same time, stock markets hit all-time highs. When we combine inflation with aging populations in Europe, the United States, China and Japan, it is clear that the tourism industry will face major challenges Perhaps the economic challenges were best exemplified by the fact that although unemployment fell from its Covid-19 levels, due to inflation many people had to work two or even three jobs and had no money left over for non-basic necessities such as travel. Price inflation was especially noticeable in both the travel and hospitality sectors of the industry.
The year 2024 then was a year in which for some the rich became richer and too often the middle and lower classes became poorer. To add to the contradictions of 2024, low-cost airline flights permitted travel for those who struggled economically and these flights often resulted in overtourism.
In 2024 throughout the tourism industry many nations continued to suffer from supply chain failures and a continued decline in customer service. Crime and terrorism were also a problem, especially in some Western nations. Throughout 2024 the tourism industry suffered from wars in the Middle East and Europe, threats of war in the Asian pacific, and gang violence in many parts of Latin and North America. Additionally, the tourism industry has had to face the problem of human and sex trafficking, with children, women, and men having become a new servant of even slave class.
As the world’s economies face new challenges, from high inflation to employee shortages, tourism leaders are having to rethink their assumptions and world views. It seems hard to believe that only a few short years ago tourism leaders believed that tourism was indestructible. Prior to 2020 international tourism was on the rise and many locales, such as Barcelona, Spain, Venice, Italy, and the United States national park system faced what was called “over-tourism”. Then, almost in the blink of an eye, the world of tourism changed, and the fear of over-tourism became the fight for tourism survival. Now in the post-Pandemic era overtourism has become a problem in some areas of the world, while other areas lack both visitors and service personnel.
To help you determine your own strategy Tourism & More presents the following ideas and possible future trends although emphasizing that we live in a highly fluid situation and what might appear logical today might be invalid tomorrow.
-Be aware of potential tourism challenges in 2025. Among these challenges are:
Threats of war throughout the world
Unstable workforce
Unstable or social media
Creating healthy travel for senior citizens.
-In a world beset by high costs, daily regulation changes, and poor service freebees are more important than ever. Even when people are feeling good about their economic situation travelers still love to receive something for nothing, even if they have to pay for it! In these challenging times, a welcome drink or cookie, a small gift or souvenir can turn a simple experience into a memorable one. Combine basic costs into the cost of an admission ticket or a free night’s stay. If hospitality is based on the idea of being taken care of and pampered than charging for extras may be a poor strategy. Avoid extra sur-charges. In the new world of travel, personal service is essential.
-Be appreciative! All too often tourism businesses act as if they are doing the customers a favor. This is the time to develop creative ways to show appreciation. For example, locales may want to develop “welcome passports” to be used at restaurants and hotels where visitors are provided with a free “extra” as a way of showing appreciation. Showing appreciation is especially important in an era where long-haul travel may decline. Tourism businesses will become dependent on local, short-haul and regional travel if they are to survive during the initial recover phases. Follow-up letters may also be sent in which the local tourism industry thanks people for visiting. The letters can even be e-letters and used as a way to encourage visitors to return for another visit.
-Smiles cost nothing. The travel and tourism industry might have to cut back on products offered or raise prices, but a smile is a commodity that never runs out and costs the industry nothing. Having employees with dower looks on their faces is the last thing that the travel and tourism industry needs.
-Be realistic. That means keep up with the news, follow guidelines and use common sense. In these trying times it is all too easy to become despondent. Face the world with realistic optimism. Have confidence in yourself and your industry and be prepared to find creative solutions to whatever problems 2025 might have in store for all of us. Tourism professionals will have to face reality, begin to prioritize problems, and seek solutions one at a time. Be dignified and honest with both employees and customers. The worst thing is to lose credibility.
-Inflation means additional travel costs! In a world where prices rise faster than wages visitors and travelers will be seeking ways to economize. Visitors tend not to see each part of their tourism experience (hotel, transportation, food, attractions) as separate experiences but rather as a single unified experience. The tourism industry needs to do the same. Each of tourism’s components needs to work with the other sectors of the industry to find ways to increase the quality of the tourism experience despite higher prices. If visitors do not see the total experience as worthwhile, then all of the tourism industry’s components will suffer.
– Think local especially in these times of high food and fuel costs! Consider expanding your market by finding more visitors closer to home. This solution will help not only the local hotel industry, but also permit retailers to weather the storm by adding to the community’s economy as tourism revenues from outside of the local region begin to fall. Buying and featuring local products adds a unique quality to the travel experience. In areas where there are geographic limitations, such as many island destinations, develop creative pricing, along with creative airport hospitality.
-Surveys and asking people to fill out on-line recommendations can become counterproductive! Many frequent travelers are over-surveyed and see right through surveys that are designed to avoid negative feedback. Surveys have become so common in tourism that they have become not only meaningless but a new annoyance. The best surveys are oral survey where the tourism business not only listens but acts.
-Get to know your product again! Tourism professionals need to rethink what they are selling! Ask yourself: Are we selling experiences, leisure, rest, or history? Are we selling basic transportation or the travel experience? How does our business fit into the total travel experience in this post-Covid-19 world? Do our past marketing efforts reflect current realities?
-The last impression is often the lasting impression, so consider being creative when people leave a destination. For example, hotels can give a restaurant coupon to departing guests, passport controls can hand out a come-back soon brochure or gas stations can offer a free cup of coffee-for-the-road. The cost of the item is a lot less important than the memory and positive word of mouth advertising that it will create.
The Tourism & More staff wished everyone a happy and successful 2025
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The Art of the Assessment Study
Assessment studies are to tourism what medical check-ups are to people. Every locale needs to have a full assessment study to determine both tourism strengths and weaknesses, to build a better industry and to avoid future problems. Please contact Tourism & More for details.
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TOURISM AND MORE’S WIDE RANGE OF SPEECHES AND TRAINING SEMINARS
For a complete listing of topics and information, please check our web page http://www.tourismandmore.com/contact or e-mail us at ptarlow@tourismandmore.com
Please contact us at ptarlow@tourismandmore.com for more information regarding costs and available dates.
All seminars and speeches can be presented in English, Portuguese, or Spanish.
1) Tourism challenges in a post-Covid world.
2) Political advocacy through tourism: Using tourism to change the perception of your locale, business or nation
3) New forms of tourism: from agro-tourism to dark tourism
4) Tourism and Heath: Surviving the Next Pandemic.
5) Surviving man-made and natural disasters
6) Successful and failed tourism marketing strategies.
7) Avoiding tourism crises by using good risk management techniques
8) Dealing with over- and under- tourism, how to match the number of visitors to your locale’s capabilities
9) Tourism Confronts Terrorism: What You Need to Know to Maintain a Viable Industry in the Face of Terrorism
10) Training Your Police: Tourism Oriented Policing (TOPPs), how it works and why it is essential for a viable tourism industry.
11) Generational Marketing: How to market tourism to diverse age groups
12) Medical tourism: its advantages and the challenges
13) Something from Nothing: The Art of Creating New Attractions.
14) Dealing with the Media: Transforming the Media into your friend
15) Selling to the Latin American Tourism Market: No, they are not all the same!
16) Selling to the US Market: One country and lots of niche groups
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Books on Tourism in English
In alphabetical order by title. Most of these books are available at Amazon.com or from the publisher
(see below for Spanish and Portuguese language books)
1) A Supply Chain Management Guide to Business by Betty Kildow; BettyKildow@comcast.net
2) Beach Safety and the Law, Edited by Jeff Wilks published by Queensland (Australia) Law Society
3) Challenges to US and Mexican Police and Tourism Stability: Peter E. Tarlow, Emerald Publishing. Available at the Emerald Book store or at Amazon https://books.emeraldinsight.com/book/detail/challenges-to-us-and-mexican-police-and-tourism-stability/?k=9781803824062
4) Event Risk Management and Safety (ISBN 0-471-40168-4) by Peter E. Tarlow, published by John Wiley & Sons. Presenting theory and practical applications. To purchase this book, visit http://www.wiley.com or http://www.amazon.com. If you would like Dr. Tarlow to speak or train people in this area, please contact him at ptarlow@tourismandmore.com
5) Leisure Travel: A Marketing Handbook, by Stanley Plog, Pearson Prentice-Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ, 2004. Available through the website of Pearson Prentice-Hall for $25.
6) Marketing for Hospitality and Tourism (7th edition) by Philip T. Kotler (Author), John T. Bowen (Author), James Makens Ph.D. (Author), Seyhmus Baloglu (Author). Available on Amazon.
7) Media Strategies for Marketing Places in Crisis, by Eli Avraham and Eran Ketter Published by Elsevier
8) Personal Reconstruction, by Peter E. Tarlow, Tom Marrs, Nathaniel Tarlow & Eduardo Leite. How to prevent or recover from a personal crisis. Available at Amazon.
9) Personal Resilience, by Peter E. Tarlow and Séverine Obertelli, Quest Publishing, Miami, Florida
10) Restoring Tourism Destinations in Crisis by Dr. David Beirman: Published by Allen & Unwin (Australia & SE Asia) and CABI Publishing North America/ Europe 2003. For more information contact david.beirman@uts.edu.au
or go to: https://au.sagepub.com/en-gb/oce/tourism-crises-and-destination-recovery/book256475
11) Sports Travel Security by Peter E. Tarlow, published by Elsevier
12) Terrorism and the Economy, edited by Karin W. Glaser, For more information please go to: http://www.elevenpub.com/law/catalogus/terrorism-and-the-economy-1#
13) The Economics of Tourism Destinations, by Norbert Vanhove, Published by Elsevier
14) The Ethics of Terrorism: Innovative Approaches from an International Perspective. Eds Thomas Albert: Publisher: Charles C. Thomas, Springfield, Il; USA.
15) The Sage Encyclopedia of Travel and Tourism; Three Volume Series, Published by Sage
16) Tourism Crises and Destination Recovery, by David Beirman, Published by Sage Australia. For more information contact David Beirman at David.Beirman@uts.edu.au
17) The Tourism Gaze 3.0 by John Urry and Jonas Larsen. An all-new updated version of a great classic. Published by Sage.
18) Tourism: Principles and Practices, by John Fletcher, Alan Fyall, David Gilbert, and Stephen Wanhill. Published by Pearson
19) Tourism and Mobility, Burns, P. and Novelli M. eds. (Wallingford: CABI)
20) Tourism Development: Growth, Myths and Inequalities, Burns, P. and Novelli, M. eds. (2008). (Wallingford: CABI)
21) Tourism Safety and the Security for the Caribbean, Drs. Andrew Spencer and Peter E. Tarlow, Published by Emerald
22) Tourism in Turbulent Times. Toward Safe Experiences for Visitors. Edited by Jeff Wilks, Donna Pendergast, and Peter Leggart. Published by Elsevier.
22) Tourism Management: Analysis, Behavior and Strategy, edited by Woodside and Martin, published by Cabi, London, England
23) Tourism-Oriented Policing and Protective Services, Peter E. Tarlow, published by IGI
24) Tourism Security: Strategies for Effectively Managing Travel Risk and Safety by Peter E. Tarlow, Elsevier, ISBN: 978-0-12-411570-5
25) Tourism Security & Safety, from Theory to Practice. Edited by Yoel Mansfeld and Abraham Pizam, published by Elsevier.
26) The 2020 Election: A Survivor’s Guide; Peter E. Tarlow and Steve Vincent, Doppler Printing
27) Twenty Years of Tourism Tidbits: by Dr. Peter E. Tarlow and Dr. Tom Marrs. Available now on Kindle and Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/TWENTY-YEARS-TOURISM-TIDBITS-ebook/dp/B004Q9TIWW/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=books&qid=1299276788&sr=1-2
28) 24 Sustainable Cultural Tourism: Small-Scale Solutions by Susan Guyette, Ph.D. ISBN: 978-0-9858788-0-1, On Amazon.com
29) 25 Marketing Strategies to Build Your Outdoor Recreation Business by Evanne Schmarder and Peter Pelland. Published by Train Rec Productions. Please contact E. Schmarder at evanne@roadabode.com to purchase this book or find it on Amazon
Libros en español/ Livros em Português
1. Abordagem Multidisciplinar dos Cruzeiros Turísticos (A Multi-disciplinary Approach to the Study of Cruises) por Dr. Peter E. Tarlow, Ericka Amorim, Cyntia Andrade, Nina Cardona Valéria Mariotti. Por favor contato Ericka Amorim: erickaaa@msn.com.
2) Antropologia e Turismo. Teorias, métodos e praxis, por Xerardo Pereiro e Filipa Fernande. Para comprarlo dirijase a
<http://www.pasosonline.org/es/colecciones/pasos-edita/151-numero-20-antropologia-e-turismo?
3) Desarrollo del turismo en América Latina: fases, enfoques e internacionalización por Wallingre, N. Disponible en http://eyapublicaciones.web.unq.edu.ar
4) Geografía y Turismo. Aspectos territoriales del manejo y gestión del turismo. Editorial Félix Varela. La Habana, 2013, 295 páginas. Autor: Eros Salinas Chávez, contacto: esalinas@ftur.uh.cu
5) Inversión Hotelera, por Alfredo Ascanio. http://etrillas.com.mx/trillas/busqueda/php
6). La Nueva Fiebre del Oro. Las otras ciudades del turismo en el Caribe (Varadero, Bavaro-Punta Cana). Para obter uma copiea deste livro, visite: GGU-AGE: http://www.uib.es/ggu/publicaciones.html OCDS UIB:http://cooperacio.uib.cat/digitalAssets/221/221991_Las-otras-ciudades-del-turismo-en-El-Caribe.pdf
7) ¿Ocio o….Neg-Ocio? por Abelardo Pagani
8) Principios, Organización, y práctica de turismo, Ramón Martín, Editorial Felix Valela, Havana, Cuba
9) Productos Turísticos, Medina, Santqamariana, y Salinas, Escuela de Altos Estudios de Hoteleria y Turismo, La Habana, Cuba
10) Turismo en el Caribe, por “Jesús Manuel González Pérez y otros. Contacto Dr. Gonzalez por información adicional]: jesus.gonzalez@uib.es
11) Turismo Sustentable, por Alfredo Ascanio y Marcus Vinicius. http://etrillas.com.mx/trillas/busqueda/php
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About the Author:
Peter E. Tarlow, Ph.D. is the President of Tourism & More, Inc., a founder of the Texas chapter of TTRA, and a popular author and speaker on tourism. Tarlow is a specialist in the areas of the sociology of tourism, economic development, tourism safety and security. Tarlow speaks at governors’ and state conferences on tourism and conducts seminars throughout the world and for numerous agencies and universities.
If you know of anyone else who might enjoy “Tourism Tidbits,” please send his/her email address to ptarlow@tourismandmore.com, Please let us know of any topic that you would like to see covered by “Tourism Tidbits.” We invite others to submit articles for consideration for publication.
You are welcome to reproduce “Tourism Tidbits” or any part of “Tourism Tidbits” with proper referencing. We hope that you will see “Tourism Tidbits” as a place where tourism, visitor, and travel professionals exchange ideas and information. “Tourism Tidbits” does not offer or provide specific legal or financial advice. Our goal is to provide a “review” for industry personnel and discuss provocative issues. We remind all readers that every specific business decision should be made only after you have done the proper research. The authors accept no responsibility for any loss due to any information published in “Tourism Tidbits.”
All articles sent to “Tourism Tidbits” and accepted for publication are owned by “Tourism Tidbits” and may be subjected to editorial review and rewriting (with permission of the author). All questions about “Tourism Tidbits”, suggestions, or cancellations should be addressed to Dr. Peter E. Tarlow at ptarlow@tourismandmore.com.