“I’m as proud of many of the things we haven’t done as the things we have done. Innovation is saying no to a thousand things.” ~ Steve Jobs

We have a strange relationship with the word “No.” From childhood, we don’t like hearing the word, and as business people, “No” often signals the premature end to opportunity. Hearing a refusal can be painful.

Unfortunately, our dislike of the word too often means many of us have problems saying “No” ourselves. We have a bias to taking on tasks, of saying “Yes” when at all possible. As a result, we overcommit our time and limited resources. Trying to be positive and agreeable, we find ourselves increasing our own overhead beyond a safe point. Read the rest of this entry »

Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated failures. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. ~ Calvin Coolidge

All manner of personalities take on travel consulting. Those who remain in the business more than a couple of years, however, share some common traits that serve to explain their ability to remain in place in an industry so challenging. As President Coolidge indicated, if you are not persistent, there is no other quality to take its place.  There are seldom any shortcuts, just the love of what you are doing and the determination to do it well, taking great pleasure in little successes and not being devastated by the many failures and disappointments. Many people cannot handle failure; they give up, switch course, and head off in a new direction. Even the best, most talented, graciously-gifted people require persistence to succeed. Read the rest of this entry »

There is a lively, ongoing conversation about the role of “artificial intelligence” (AI) in article and blog writing. While there is little doubt that ChatGPT can be incredibly useful as a tool for generating content, some people object to using it for a variety of reasons. One common concern is that using AI-generated content may be seen as a disingenuous outsourcing of your writing to a machine, leading to a lack of authenticity or originality in the content produced by AI. Others point to the potential for errors or inaccuracies in the output generated by AI.

All of this is true, there are risks involved in new technologies. It is also true that the paragraph above was written with ChatGPT. I want to emphasize it was written “with” ChatGPT, which is different from it being written “by” ChatGPT. Read the rest of this entry »

True story: I once asked directions from a man I met in Dublin.  I asked him how to get to a particular address in the city.  He told me, and I quote, “You can’t get there from here.”  For a moment, however brief, I thought all was lost.

Many of your clients feel the same way. They can’t travel because it costs too much.  They can’t travel because they don’t have passports. They can’t travel because they are afraid of terrorism, foreigners, all things German, and strange food. They need some new appliances. Really!

No, not really. In reality, they can’t travel because of you.  They don’t think they can get there from here.  Read the rest of this entry »

Hashtags are an essential, but sometimes misunderstood, tool for growing an Instagram following as they allow users to discover new content and increase the visibility of their own posts. Hashtags work by categorizing posts under specific topics, making them more discoverable to users interested in those topics. Instagram creators use hashtags to track trends and enhance search. Simply speaking, hashtags are words or phrases about a specific topic, with a hash (#) before it, e.g. #traveltuesday. Read the rest of this entry »

Slump? I ain’t in no slump… I just ain’t hitting. ~ Yogi Berra

I hope nobody told you the travel business was easy.

I’m just back from a travel conference in the great city of Dallas.  The travel professionals in attendance seemed upbeat about business prospects, affirming the general sentiment that pent-up demand for travel is taking hold of the general public. One agent, however, indicated things had not been going her way lately and everyone else’s enthusiasm was just making her feel worse. Her business was down and she didn’t know why.

We have all experienced a slump in our business activity.  Suddenly things grow quiet… too quiet.  The reasons for a slump can be purely individual and unpredictable, but down-turns in business can be reversed if you take appropriate measures. Immediate action is the key. The worst thing you can do is “wait and see”- a slump is psychologically tough to handle, but giving into depression is self-defeating and prolongs the misery.   Read the rest of this entry »

Habits are powerful factors in our lives. Because they are consistent, often unconscious patterns, they constantly, daily express our character produce our effectiveness or ineffectiveness. ~ Stephen R. Covey

As Stephen Covey indicates, habits are powerful forces, perhaps even more so than we suspect. Good habits we often perceive as difficult to form and bad habits impossible to break. Ironically, the reverse also appears to be true. Good habits seem as flimsy as the first excuse to disrupt a routine and bad habits arise before we notice their presence. Read the rest of this entry »

Slow travel is a grassroots approach that emphasizes sustainability, intentionality, and quality over speed and mass tourism. Slow travelers prioritize taking their time to get to know a place in its entirety – not just the main points of interest but also the culture, people, and everyday life. Unlike traditional mass tourism, slow travel emphasizes spending more time in each destination, experiencing local culture face-to-face. Rather than an effort to “tick off” as many places as possible, the slow traveler instead focuses on getting to know one place deeply Read the rest of this entry »

“New Year’s Day is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions.  Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.” ~ Mark Twain

New Year’s resolutions often are a topic of derision. We treat the annual ritual of making promises to ourselves as a joke, a light-hearted acknowledgement of our inability to keep a commitment.

Something about that sits poorly with me. Read the rest of this entry »

U.S. air travelers who have faced a tumultuous week of cancellations and delays due to poor weather conditions will have to wait a bit longer for the skies to clear. The situation is particularly difficult if they’re planning on taking a flight with Southwest Airlines.

Approximately 2,850 flights have been canceled for Tuesday, as reported by the flight tracking website FlightAware. Of those canceled flights, 2,500, or 88%, are operated by Southwest. Many passengers have been informed rebooking may be delayed for days.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has announced that it is conducting a review into the airline’s handling of its operations in light of its recent series of canceled flights, which has seen thousands of disgruntled passengers unable to make their desired journey. The FAA’s investigation follows complaints from customers and employees about how Southwest Airlines responded or failed to respond when bad weather forced them to cancel hundreds of its flights over the past week.

This latest incident marks yet another setback for an airline already struggling before the onset of this chaotic period caused by the turbulent winter weather patterns.  The latest incidents put further pressure on Southwest Airlines as more and more customers take to social media to express their dismay at the airline’s increasingly poor service standards. Customers are lashing out against what they perceive as sloppy responses from both frontline staff and executives in particular. There also seems to be a certain amount of confusion regarding how many passengers can be rebooked or provided refunds for their canceled flights; some people are reporting that they were told there were no available seats left on other flights operated by Southwest Airlines, while others said that no refund was offered despite having purchased travel insurance policies meant to protect them against such situations.

The FAA is currently taking all these complaints into account while attempting to figure out what exactly led to such extensive flight cancellations within such a short time frame, including whether or not Southwest Airlines made full use of any technology available in order to minimize disruption and inconvenience as much as possible for impacted passengers. All involved are hoping that whatever findings emerge from this review lead to solutions so as not only to prevent similar incidents from occurring again but also to help restore trust in the airline among customers.

Driving down a canopy-covered road in northern Florida yesterday, I spotted a sign at a Methodist church that indicated an “Alternative Christmas Market” was being held. The parking lot was filled with cars, and it looked like a good opportunity to pick up some interesting presents.  The very thought that I would actually have any shopping done prior to the absolute last minute was a source of peculiar pride. The word “alternative” suggested to me that I would be able to find some most unusual gifts, something never before seen under a Christmas tree by any of the people on my list this year.

Indeed.

As I walked through the doors of the church, I saw immediately that I had misunderstood the nature of an “alternative” Christmas.  Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

“To change ourselves effectively, we first must change our perceptions.” ~ Stephen R. Covey

The end of a year inherently is a time of transition, a good time to assay our perspective.  Each of us has just spent another year in our business and personal lives moving forward, back, laterally and standing still in turn. Hopefully we have progressed a bit on whatever journey  we earlier set ourselves and feel as though our time has been well invested. Inevitably, however, we have our regrets, things we now want to do differently, take more chances or perhaps fewer depending on circumstance.  Read the rest of this entry »

Home to one of the world’s most prestigious universities, Oxford is an architectural, intellectual, and historical gem of England. This small city has the distinction of hosting every style of English architecture starting from the late Anglo-Saxon period forward… (Read More)

It is a land with little soil, where 96% of its mass is covered in ice, with no indigenous people, no indigenous government. No economic activity exists, except for that in small isolated encampments of scientists and from the incursion of tourism to the island continent. (Read More)

Recently, I was speaking to a colleague about a new salesperson he had just employed. The salesperson was complaining the company did not have a  presentation brochure. If only the company would produce a professional presentation, the salesperson assured his boss, the sales would come flying through the door. My friend wanted to know what I thought, and I told him.

Good sales materials are important, but more important are the clients’ needs.  Company-produced literature, particularly in a 1:1 scenario like travel consulting, was secondary to speaking intelligently and compassionately with the client.
Read the rest of this entry »

Solo travel has become increasingly popular in recent years as more and more people are choosing to explore the world on their own. While it can be an incredibly rewarding and liberating experience, there are also certain considerations that need to be taken into account. The concept of solo travel is sometimes misunderstood  (Read More)

Your clients will mislead you. Most often, they will do so unintentionally, but they will give you bad intelligence and expect you to work with it. If you are not careful, you find yourself sending clients off to invade the wrong country. It can happen.

Clients do not always know what they want. They say they do. The truth, however, is clients are influenced by advertising, word of mouth, friends, and other resources that do not take into consideration the real needs of this particular individual. Read the rest of this entry »

Carnival Cruise Lines did a study several years ago indicating 80% of cruisers booked their second cruise with someone other than the travel professional with whom they booked their first.  However, the clients must have been satisfied with the cruise experience, because they took a second cruise.

So how to explain this rather startling statistic?

Read the rest of this entry »

Way back in October of 2004, Chris Anderson published an article in Wired Magazine called “The Long Tail.”  Anderson later elaborated the concept of the Long Tail in his book The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More. The theory is that while every industry has its blockbuster products, there is a “long tail” of product sold in much smaller quantities that, collectively, is often larger than the most popular items.  Anderson went on to explain how technology, like online access to thousands of suppliers by millions of consumers, was making it possible for niche businesses to thrive in the new economy.

Read the rest of this entry »

“Why doesn’t anyone ever try softer?” ~ Lily Tomlin

Last week I received a call from a business associate who was expecting a spreadsheet from me.  With the best of intentions I had promised to have it to him mid-week.  Then suddenly it was Friday and the half-finished project was still, well, half-finished.

If I had to tally the partially complete projects on my desk, I’m afraid the number would point to a revealing fact – I’m easily distracted and try to do too much. It is always tempting to over-commit to any number of personal and professional activities with the result that none of them are done as well as I originally intended. I sometimes manage to convince myself working harder is the best way to achieve my goals.

I hear there is a road somewhere paved with nothing but good intentions. Read the rest of this entry »