The best tourism businesses aren’t the busiest

The best new tourism businesses won’t be the busiest.

Business models that purely rely on more people is not strategic.


Here's a few reasons why.


- Busy businesses are process driven: its groundhog day for a lot of staff - opening and running the same thing day in, day out.


- This is a burden on staff and the experience.


- Big teams of staff doing repititive work often comes with lots of churn. This comes with ongoing, increasing recruitment and training cost.

- They have high costs driving the growth - relying on paid marketing that's often inauthentic and selling in bulk to trade markets and their never ending chase for fat commissions.

- They're slow to move on new opportunities, afraid to rock the boat or upset their board of directors. Change is slow.

Niche, high value tourism businesses are increasingly more attractive.


- They create authentic experiences that are high value often driven by passionate staff.

- They have small teams of adaptable people who are capable of doing most jobs within the business.


- All their staff are in touch with what's happening at the front line.


- Being in touch with their ideal guest means their marketing is authentic and user generated.

- They're able to test, validate and move on new opportunities or changes to the business without going through layers of beauracracy.


More visitors isn't always the answer to a better tourism business.