Long tail or ghettos? First Day Thoughts from PhoCusWright@ITB Berlin
March 6, 2008
Post Summary
Does increased choice, perversly, decrease choice? Does the Long Tail indulge our preconceived desires to the exclusion of chance, serendipity and, more importantly, having a really great travel experience?
Can the long tail narrow choice instead of enhancing it?
When I’m not following trends in tourism, I’m a keen follower of UK politics and, even more geekishly, American politics . In this capacity, I regulalry listen to the interviews on the www.bloggingheads.tv as this is an excellent environment in which ideas can be nurtured, discussed, grown or discarded between two knowledgable people in a time frame that allows the debate to mature.
Usually, my politics and tourism interests don’t collide but this excerpt in a recent post made my ears prick up.
The speaker is Cass Sunstein of the University of Chicago Law School who, in terms of the public political dialogue, wonders whether the internet communities are all their cracked up to be. His argument can be paraphrased that, in terms of politic discourse, people tend to congregate with like-minded people who then reinforce their views (and indeed often make them more extreme). This effect is known as the ‘echo chamber’ and it has the effect of making the participants hear what they only want to hear or, in other cases, to work them up into a righteous frenzy that previously didn’t exist.
But Cass sees value in experiences that go beyond the categories imposed by such closed groups as these experiences give an individual both competing views of the world as well as delivering insight into things that they might not previously considered. One example he uses is that of a traditional newspaper where, although you might only be interested in sport, the chances are that you will also read about politics, regional affairs etc - things beyond your narrow interest. He also uses the (borrowed) metaphor of walking through a city, seeing something you have never encountered before and thinking, “Hey, that looks cool, I would like to do that!”
Essentially, Cass is saying that serendipity is a good thing and your life is less without it.
So…what the heck has this to do with tourism?
Well, it made me wonder whether blindly serving the tourism ‘long tail’ niches could be the equivalent of the narrow interest groups where you get exactly what you want…and then miss out something you really would have enjoyed because it has simply been filtered from your view. In other words, we become so niche and exact in our demands for experiences that we miss out on the fuzzy elements that can make a trip really enjoyable.
I don’t have a definitive answer to whether this is the case but I thought I would look for clues at ITB in Berlin and the PhocusWright summit. From what I’ve seen so far, my fear that tourism could be getting too fixated on answering every known traveller’s desire (and in doing so are leaving no room for the enjoyable other serendipitous experiences) is something that some industry leaders are keen to avoid. At the bloggers press meeting this morning, we were given the chance to interview Hugo Burge of hereorthere.com. One of the key aspects of the hereorthere.com seems to be a desire to ‘inspire’ travellers at a stage when they have not yet selected the destination or the form that their travel might take - an area of the travel purchasing process Hugo believes has so far been underserved online. Which to my mind leaves open the possibility that even in a niche environment, potential travel bookers can be exposed to ideas that they might not originally have sought.
I suppose what I am moving toward here is the need for ’slightly imperfect’ information flows for customers that can give them clues about what there is on offer beyond their intended search parameters but which are not so wild as to be meaningless. Amazon.com of course do it in their recommendations lists (”Readers who bought this also bought this…”) and their ability to serve up interesting but not-quite-right recommendations can sometimes lead to more profitable avenues of exploration and enagagement.
Like Mr Rumsfeld said, their are ‘unknown knowns’ and tapping into the potential of a persons full spectrum of travel desires (however seemingly unknown they may be to that individual) is, I believe, key in a really excellent holiday experience.
Lets see what the other participants at the conference tomorrow have to say about this…!
Comments
2 Responses to “Long tail or ghettos? First Day Thoughts from PhoCusWright@ITB Berlin”
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Excellent article Stephen, something to think about. What I can say is that the travelling public is as diverse as the general public itself. There’s every kind of traveller for every kind of experience or niche. Those who are looking for serendipity and spontaneity will strive for it and might not even do much research on the Inernet beyond getting a plane ticket and a few night hotel from where to start an adventure. I think travel research on the net may be directly proportionate with the researchers need for control so the opposite might be true as well - in this case the net may be limited. Case in point. Over two years ago, my wife, my daughter and I went to the South of Spain for a Holiday. The trip was very important to us as a family and my wife and I wanted to make sure everything we needed for the trip was taken care of (as far as our itinerary, car rental, how much time in each spot, hotels with swimming pools, air conditioning and an extra bed for our daughter). In this case not only did we research on the net, but also got input from our Spanish Canadian friends (with whom we were to meet in Salobreña), and offline research (had to personally call the hotels in Spain to make sure they had what we needed, since their websites were not helpful enough). For this trip to Berlin, for example, I was not emptionally invested. It’s a business trip for very few days and my focus is PhoCusWright (no pun intended) and ITB. So all I cared about was an accessibe airfare, a modest hotel with a its own washroom and shower, not too far from ICC and not too far from the airport. Research was minimal. On Saturday I will let serendipity and spontaneity take over and see where in this great city they take me.
Cheers,
Jaime
Thanks Jamie,
I would gree that there are different imperetives operating at different times depending on which ‘personality’ the travel has and I think that your insight has added a new level of consideration to this idea. I think the idea of ‘personalities’ has been something that has been coming through at the conference a lot today and this is something I’ll probably write about as a follow up to this post shortly.
Cheers
Stephen