This summer is certainly seeing interesting changes to holiday habits. With high oil prices and the credit crunch at the top of the agenda this summer, the holiday industry is going through a challenging period. Whilst many consumers are choosing to spend money more locally, others have elected to stay put for their vacations. Meanwhile, airlines’ profits have shrunk and some have even gone out of business.

But while the downturn is affecting holidays in the short term, the fundamentals of travel are also being challenged.

Over the next few decades the world’s new middle classes will increasingly travel internationally. According to the United Nations World Tourism Organisation, tourist visits are going to double from 800 million now to 1.6 billion by 2020.

This staggering level of growth exposes the tourism industry to a classic sustainable development challenge - increased demands on a limited resource, in this case holiday experiences, be they exhilarating activities or the destinations themselves. The Harvard Business Review translates this into a ‘scarcity of place’.

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment tells us that many of the natural resources on which tourism relies are being depleted. And if you also factor in climate change, CO2 emissions and related water scarcity then you have a tourism time bomb.

Given these factors, our latest tourism project, Tourism 2023 could not be more timely. The project aims to help the UK outbound industry and some of its key destinations understand more about their future and be able to plan for it.

Here’s a bit more information on why we, and others, think this project is so important and has such potential to create change. Addressing key challenges and creating a more sustainable tourism industry is an exciting prospect - our first workshop was so popular we had to move it to a bigger location!

Why futures thinking is important

We can’t predict the future. The amount of changes that have taken place even over the last few years, let alone the last 15, show us that it would be foolish to even try. But that does not mean we cannot and should not think about how to prepare for and shape our future. Rather that just reacting to events as they occur, the most successful organisations and industries think in advance what they might be, and how they might respond. Tourism 2023 will explore a range of possible future scenarios for the UK outbound tourism industry. This will help the industry to develop business strategies that can be robust in any future.

Using scenarios for futures thinking was a technique developed during the 1980s by Shell. Crucially, one of the scenarios anticipated the Soviet Union collapsing and the end of the Cold War. This thinking enabled the company to rapidly capitalise on new opportunities during the dramatic events of 1989.

Scenario planning is now used by a large number of governments, businesses and organisations around the world. If you haven’t seen them already, you may be interested in some of the work we did last year with Tesco and Unilever: Retail Futures

The language of sustainable development where assets are protected and enriched for ‘future generations’ – is highly relevant to an industry whose resources are so under threat. Futures thinking is integral to this approach as decisions made on the basis of short-term thinking only, often produce unsustainable results. By asking challenging questions about the long-term, we are forced to consider many of the environmental and social issues which will have dramatic impacts in time to come.

Engaging the industry and creating change

Instead of just responding to trends that threaten our future, we can shape them ourselves and create the change we all want to see. That’s why the Tourism 2023 project includes not only scenarios and an inspiring vision, but also a carefully developed strategy detailing how to get there.

During the project, we will document the wide variety of sustainability initiatives already happening in the industry and highlight the gaps where more needs to be done. Hopefully we’ll achieve consensus and clarity on where the industry wants to be in 15 years time and establish what sustainable tourism looks, sounds and feels like. We can then use this understanding to collectively engage and influence government.

No element of this project should distract from the important decisions needed here and now, but they should help make those decisions more considered and effective in the long-term.

Tourism 2023 is supported by a number of key players – TUI Travel, Thomas Cook, ABTA, The Travel Foundation, Carnival UK, The Co-operative Travel and British Airways. Our other collaborators include tour operators, transport providers, government, destinations, academia, technical specialists, travel media and innovators.

A senior level project Advisory Board is driving the project and taking forward recommendations. Ultimately, the proof will be in results – the project’s ability to inspire and then deliver change in the industry and a more sustainable future.

For more information on Tourism 2023 click here or email Vicky Murray.