Session parallle 1 - Stratgie internationale / Global networking
for accessible tourism: challenges and possibilities
Forming Expert Networks to Build Destinations for All
Scott Rains, [email protected]
Destinations For All World Summit, 19-22 October 2014, Montreal,
Canadahttp://www.destinationsforall2014.com/en/index
Session parallle 1 - Stratgie internationale / Global networking
for accessible tourism: challenges and possibilities
I was given five minutes to answer the question:
How to put our expertise together to help destinations that want
to engage in an inclusive tourism offer?
To save time let me streamline the question by making some
assumptions:
I assume that we have been contacted by experts in a particular
destination. They want to position their destination as a
destination for all. They want our help both to conceptualize then
to put into practice a value proposition that is economically
sustainable. They probably dont yet understand what that means in
terms of changes to their established business culture. Thats ok.
Neither do we. Thats why we need each other.
My response to the destination would start with an offer to
re-problematize the issue and to negotiate the scope of a project
together. Id start something like: We are your guests in a
destination where you are the experts. Give us a thorough verbal
tour of your destination through the lens of your expert knowledge
and a physical experience of it through a familiarization tour. We
will reflect this back to you as an Opportunity Audit by examining
what you have through our expert lenses that give different answers
for Deaf, Blind, Cognitive and Mobility-Impaired travelers.
To summarize in slogans, geek shorthand and bullet points where
we would go next Ill say: Think globally; act locally: Apply Actor
Network Theory, Service-Dominant Logic and Universal Design
principles. Generate a seamless itinerary for each disability.
Stress test those supply chains. Unite your expert / supply chain
network through a continuous improvement cycle that involves
customer feedback, customer-to-customer value creation, and
transparency to the destinations disability community through DPOs
and their experts.
[2]
OK, thats an approach customized to a request for assistance
from a destination. I wanted to start there because the
historically unique value of this Summit is that we are claiming
that now is the time to put into practice in destinations, as good
practice in destination management, what so many of us have
developed and taught for decades on a smaller scale.
Let me end my five minutes with a second take on the
question:
How to put our expertise together to help destinations that want
to engage in an inclusive tourism offer?
This time Ill put the focus on our problem as the experts.
Now it is a question touching on knowledge management, expert
network curation, the development and strategic placement of new
experts, and packaging what our expertise can offer into what
others need as a service.
Let me lay out that path as weaving between Macro-Problems &
Solutions and Micro-Problems and Solutions so that once again we
are thinking globally and acting locally.
Macro-Problems generally ask us to provide Solve Once, Use Many
Times SolutionsMicro-Problems may spur us to find Macro Solutions.
More often they can be those tedious Solve Many Times and
Hope-You-Can-Use-Them-More-Than-Once Solutions because they show up
in the nitty-gritty of getting the job done in the real world.
Macro / Global SolutionMicro / Local Solution
Build a library of existing key documentsTranslate the
documents; Adapt and localize the contentsEstablish an association
of qualified expertsEngage them in a destinations problem;
Replicate experts in a specific destinationDefine world-class
standardsAnalyze gaps with local standards & practice; Feed
forward local standards conflicts Outline a core curriculumWrite
local courses; train local instructorsEngage thought leaders in
Inclusive Tourism within their specializationsEncourage, supervise,
and curate data from local studies; Award local innovators
If we want to structure a sustainable solution to our question
we need to structure a sustainable market for and a trusted supply
chain of our expertise. As you can see by who is on the agenda and
attending, we have begun at the macro level by aligning global
associations, standards bodies and other networks. That momentum
needs to be carried forward as destination-based networks sharing
the same vision, institutional support, and skills sets of those
gathered here.
I have offered one possible approach from two complementary
starting points.
So heres a 60-second case study of the online global level
network that was known as Tour Watch. Tour Watch used the Ning
social network creation engine which means that basically it had
everything that Facebook does: Profiles, original posts open to
member comment, links to outside articles, photos, private chat,
public comments, etc. It existed for about 5 years and in the end
had about 750 members from around the world.
With this network we did all the above but three reasons that
Tour Watch succeeded so well:
Credibility: I published every day on the topic of Inclusive
Tourism from 2004 to 2014 in my blog or publications where I was
contracted. Enculturation: I was embedded in the relevant expert
networks working in many languagesEfficiency: I had personal direct
access to experts, their publications and the articles I had
written so that mentoring and problem-solving with good information
could be extremely rapid
Thats the 5-minute answer. If you want to see it in action as
the 5-year answer, hire me and well build some world-class
destinations-for-all.
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