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WTM LONDON DOUG LANSKY
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Tourism expert Doug Lansky looks at innovative best-practice solutions to many of the key issues impacting DMOs.
DOUG LANSKY
Doug Lansky has been living abroad and traveling for the last nearly 20 years in over 120 countries.
He is the author
of 10 books, including 2 for Lonely Planet and 3 for Rough Guides, had a weekly syndicated travel column in over 40 newspapers for five years, hosted a Travel Channel show, served as a correspondent for Public Radio’s Savvy Traveler show, served as travel editor for Scandinavian Airlines inflight magazine for three years and contributed to publications such as National Geographic Traveler, Reader’s Digest, Esquire, Men’s Journal, The Guardian, Huffington Post, Skift and Tnooz. He advises destinations and is currently part of Singapore’s five-year strategic planning group. On the speaking circuit, Doug has given acclaimed lectures at nearly 100 universities, spoken to a sold- out audience at National Geographic Headquarters, for the United Nations World’s Tourism Organization, at TEDx Stockholm, and at tourism conferences around the world.
“We’re getting desensitised to terror… bounce-back is quicker.”
“A destination is only as strong as its weakest link.” Doug Lansky
Delivering his Keynote in the WTM Inspire Theatre, acclaimed travel writer and speaker Doug Lansky looked at ‘Tackling the Toughest Issues Destinations Face’. The industry’s resilience was highlighted by Doug. By looking at hotel searches for Paris, Brussels and Orlando, he found it took two to three months for interest to return to pre-incident levels and in some cases as little as three weeks. “We’re getting de-sensitised to terror… bounce-back is quicker,” he said.
Lansky suggested that
destinations needed a crisis plan in place before the crisis happened, and that one useful strategy is to know which source markets are “the bravest” and to devote marketing resources to these destinations. Lanksy opened his keynote with an exploration of the concept of ‘Visitor Experience Design’. Noting that DMOs need to “book-end” the visitor
30 WTM Review 2016
experience and “remove the worst experiences”.
“A destination is only as strong as its weakest link,” he observed. Over tourism was a theme explored at length during the question and answer session – and indeed one he returned to in a separate talk during the Responsible Tourism Day – with the subject of timed ticketing being proposed as one solution for destinations facing surges in visitors at certain times of the day and season. Listening to feedback
and responding to visitor complaints also energised Lansky.
“Listen to Tweets and social media,” he told his audience. “Solve small problems. Be creative. Creativity goes further than a big budget any day of the week.” He also recommended bringing in a tourism influencer to help get a message across.
The session was moderated by the BBC’s Henry Golding.
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