The heads of finance, operations, and public relations walk into their boss’s office … 

The heads of fin­ance, oper­a­tions, and pub­lic rela­tions walk into their boss’s office … 

It might be the setup for a joke — feel free to sug­gest a punch­line — but it could per­tain to a very ser­i­ous matter. 

What is the most import­ant issue that they could talk about? And how might they come to an agreement?

Your cor­res­pond­ent put this hypo­thet­ic­al to a range of travel & tour­ism stake­hold­ers — “GT” Insight authors, “GT” Part­ners, and their invit­ees — and invited emailed writ­ten responses of no more than 300 words. 

I also put it to Chat GPT, adding that it was in the con­text of the tour­ism industry.

Thanks to the two human respond­ents who chose to par­ti­cip­ate. Their answers appear in the order received. 

Click/touch a name to go to their answer:

• K Michael Hay­wood — The post-retreat meeting
• Sham­iso Nyajeka — The miss­ing chair
• Chat­G­PT — ‘There’s no vaca­tion from a crisis in the travel industry’
• What do you think?

Pre­vi­ous “GT” Insight Bites:

• Yes, Tour­ism Minister
• What are tourism’s biggest chal­lenges & threats over the next five years?
• ‘Tour­ism is built on the back­bone of white suprem­acy’. What do you think?
• Really, what’s the dif­fer­ence? ‘Sus­tain­able tour­ism’ vs ‘regen­er­at­ive tourism’
• Want a career in tour­ism? Import­ant things you should know
• Diverse per­spect­ives on travel & tour­ism and a fairer world
• Diverse per­spect­ives on eco­nom­ic degrowth and tourism
• Diverse per­spect­ives on vis­it­or dispersion

The post-retreat meeting

K Michael Haywood, Professor Emeritus, University of Guelph, Canada

The heads of fin­ance, oper­a­tions, and pub­lic rela­tions walked into my office yes­ter­day unan­nounced. They appeared out-of-sorts. 

I had my sus­pi­cions as to what might be amiss: The seni­or man­age­ment retreat, dis­cuss­ing stra­tegic change neces­sary to pre-empt the future, had frayed nerves.

As expec­ted, each of the VPs unloaded a lit­any of concerns. 

Not about our responses to cli­mate change or being ESG com­pli­ant, nor about the neces­sity of DEI, and com­mit­ments to com­munity shared value. 

No, their frus­tra­tions revolved around man­aging dual strategies: The CEO’s (my) attempt to pre-empt the future, versus the VPs’ struggle to mas­ter the present.

As a major inter­na­tion­al cor­por­a­tion with prop­er­ties in 35 coun­tries, and still expand­ing, we are emer­ging intact after a long and very tire­some struggle with COVID lock­downs and dimin­ished travel. 

But now, with mar­gins and profits sta­bil­ising, frus­tra­tions around regain­ing resi­li­ence and oper­a­tion­al sta­bil­ity is boil­ing over. 

Under­stand­ably, the VPs are frustrated. 

They have no clar­ity as to how organ­isa­tion­al change will be mani­fest, activ­it­ies redefined, and essen­tial new cap­ab­il­it­ies built. 

Moreover, I am unsure as to how to com­mu­nic­ate ideas and change through­out the com­pany, from the VPs to region­al and loc­al managers.

As I reflect on how to respond, I know we have to:

• Keep the “change pro­ject” on everyone’s agenda;
• Com­mu­nic­ate strategy in clear, con­cise, oper­a­tion­al, and action­able terms;
• Ensure col­lab­or­a­tion and coher­ence of action;
• Cre­ate coher­ence of action through consensus;
• Give people the power to act; and
• Guide the for­mu­la­tion of oper­a­tion­al plans.

For the Board, I have to explain our new stake­hold­er man­age­ment approach; how strategies to derive net-pos­it­ive impact will cre­ate mean­ing­ful value for every­one, includ­ing share­hold­ers, com­munit­ies, employ­ees, and customers.

That’s my job.

Back to menu ^

The missing chair 

Shamiso Nyajeka, Head of Tourism Management, Kirirom Institute of Technology, Cambodia

It is a typ­ic­al meet­ing of the top brass. Over the next two hours, the quar­tet will ‘chart the way for­ward’ for the district’s development. 

The agenda focuses on man­aging com­munity resources and the inter­ven­tions of NGOs involved in vari­ous devel­op­ment­al pro­jects. Of note is the fund­ing and imple­ment­a­tion of a train­ing pro­ject to enhance the sus­tain­ab­il­ity of vil­la­gers’ small han­di­craft busi­nesses. Many house­holds thrive on selling han­di­crafts to trav­el­lers drawn to the serenity of this rur­al community.

The agenda appears noble as it dwells on pro­jects that will improve rur­al com­munity live­li­hoods. They are pro­jects that will con­trib­ute to sus­tain­able devel­op­ment, save for one subtle flaw; plan­ning for and not with the community. 

For example, plan­ning for the train­ing pro­ject did not involve the villagers. 

The dis­trict admin­is­trat­or ini­ti­ated the pro­ject based on what he thought would help the loc­als, while experts designed and planned the training. 

It is highly likely that the train­ing will be insight­ful. How­ever, there is no guar­an­tee that it will address com­munity needs. 

It has become well-recog­nised that involving loc­al com­munit­ies is essen­tial for sus­tain­able devel­op­ment. Yet, in many parts of rur­al south­ern Africa, full com­munity par­ti­cip­a­tion, from plan­ning to imple­ment­a­tion, and eval­u­ation is yet to be achieved. Polit­ics, tri­bal­ism, and oth­er social con­flicts do not help the situation. 

Sev­er­al coun­tries in the region acknow­ledge the value of the com­munity and have provided for it in their stat­utes. How­ever, not even the legis­lature could con­vince the four exec­ut­ives to cre­ate an extra seat at the table. 

Per­haps a reori­ent­a­tion towards Ubuntu will influ­ence the powers-that-be to engage the community.

Back to menu ^

‘There’s no vacation from a crisis in the travel industry’

ChatGPT Jan 30 Version

[The depart­ment heads and their boss] could be dis­cuss­ing a poten­tial crisis that could neg­at­ively impact the com­pany’s repu­ta­tion and fin­an­cial stability. 

This could be any­thing from a nat­ur­al dis­aster affect­ing one of their des­tin­a­tions, to a pub­lic health scare that affects travel plans, to neg­at­ive media attention.

The head of fin­ance would present the poten­tial fin­an­cial impact of the crisis, includ­ing any losses or costs asso­ci­ated with man­aging the crisis. 

The head of oper­a­tions would dis­cuss the logist­ics of respond­ing to the crisis, such as evac­u­at­ing guests or can­cel­ling book­ings, and the impact on cur­rent operations. 

The head of pub­lic rela­tions would out­line the plan for com­mu­nic­at­ing with stake­hold­ers and the pub­lic, as well as man­aging the com­pany’s repu­ta­tion dur­ing and after the crisis.

To come to an agree­ment, the group would need to pri­or­it­ise the safety and well-being of their guests, employ­ees, and partners. 

They would also need to con­sider the poten­tial long-term effects on the com­pany’s repu­ta­tion and fin­an­cial stability. 

They may reach out to out­side experts, such as crisis man­age­ment con­sult­ants, for advice and guidance.

To ensure a uni­fied response, the group would also need to estab­lish clear lines of com­mu­nic­a­tion and decision-mak­ing processes. 

This could include reg­u­lar check-ins with stake­hold­ers, reg­u­lar updates to the pub­lic, and a crisis response team in place to man­age the situation.

A good punch­line in this scen­ario could be: “Looks like they’re all in this togeth­er, because there’s no vaca­tion from a crisis in the travel industry!”

By work­ing togeth­er, the heads of fin­ance, oper­a­tions, and pub­lic rela­tions can help mit­ig­ate the impact of a crisis and ensure the suc­cess and sta­bil­ity of the com­pany in the long run.

Back to menu ^

What do you think?

What do you think? Share your own thoughts in a com­ment below. Or write a deep­er “GT” Insight. The “Good Tour­ism” Blog wel­comes diversity of opin­ion and per­spect­ive about travel & tour­ism, because travel & tour­ism is everyone’s business.

Fea­tured image (top of post): A DALL‑E-gen­er­ated “impres­sion­ist paint­ing of a busi­ness meet­ing in a boss’s office”.

Back to menu ^