I was privileged to be on a panel this morning at the Mountain
Travel Symposium in Banff, Canada. Moderated by Olympian Kelly VanderBeek, the
session was titled ‘Crossing Borders’ and focused on the international skier
market. I was joined on the panel by Kristi Kavanaugh from the Aspen Skiing Company
and Sammy Salm, CEO of Best of the
Alps. Of course, the international market is more important for some countries
than others. For example, Andorra (92%
of total skier visits), Austria (66%), Switzerland (50%), New
Zealand (36%) and Czech Republic (35%), are all heavily dependent on overseas
skiers, whereas in the US, international skiers only account for about 6% of
visits. However, this doesn’t mean they are not a significant market to go
after. If we look at international tourism visits overall, the 75 million
visitors America receives each year spend over $250 billion. In fact, each
overseas traveler spends approximately $4,400 when they visit the US and stays
an average of 18 nights. The fastest-growing international market – the Chinese
– are particularly big spenders, dropping about
$1,000 a day when they visit the US. The Chinese are only just getting into
winter sports, but with today’s 5 million participants expected to grow to an
incredible 300 million by 2022 (the year they host the Winter Olympics), they
are a market that cannot be ignored. Other important international markets for
North American resorts are the Australians, the British, and Germans, all of
whom send about a million skiers around the globe every year. The South American market is also growing,
with the Colorado resorts seeing more Mexicans and Brazilians each year. For
more on this subject (and anything you ever wanted to know about this dynamic
industry) check out my book – Winter Sport Tourism.
The brand management literature has long
acknowledged the strategic importance of managing brand identity. However,
prior research has largely ignored brand attractiveness in building such
identity in the eyes of consumers. In a recently published article in Tourism Management, HRSM and SmartState
team members Kevin So, Simon Hudson, and Fang Meng investigated the role of
brand attractiveness in fostering customer brand identification. Focusing on
the airline industry, the team found strong support for critical role of brand
attractiveness in identification development. They also found that brand
prestige, brand distinctiveness, and memorable brand experiences have a
significant indirect effect on customer brand identification through brand
attractiveness, while brand social benefits contribute directly to such
identification. In fact, memorable brand experiences formed the most important predictor of brand
attractiveness, suggesting that while brand identity
characteristics primarily constructed through external communications (e.g.,
brand prestige, brand distinctiveness) enhance brand attractiveness, memorable
brand experiences play a more important role in forming consumers’ perceptions
of the attractiveness of the airline brand’s identity. This finding reinforces
the well-established thinking of Berry (2000) that for service
brands, “regardless of how well the brand is presented, nothing will salvage a
weak brand experience.” Perhaps this explains the success of Richard Branson
with Virgin Atlantic Airways – for Branson, flying with Virgin is all about flying
in the face of ordinary.
The article can be downloaded HERE
Prices for a knee
replacement vary between $21,976 in Arizona to $57,504 in California according
to Health
News NPR. So why not shop around? In a new book chapter about domestic
medical tourism just published by Apple Academic Press, Simon Hudson discusses
how a growing number of US patients are traveling for medical care within their
own country, in order to save money or receive better care. To date, the
literature on medical tourism has focused almost exclusively on the international
side of medical tourism – and in many cases Americans who travel to developing
countries for medical services. However, Hudson suggests that the shape of
medical tourism is not confined to customers traveling abroad for their surgery
or wellness treatments. There is a growing number of patients who shop around
for medical care within their own country. Such tourism is expected to grow
significantly in the US, as more employers and insurers are offering financial
incentives to encourage workers to consider domestic medical travel. Hudson
believes that domestic medical tourism could be even more critical for the
health sector now fewer international medical tourists are coming to the
country. Hudson cites a recent article in Time
that discusses how the ‘Trump
Slump” - the anticipated decline in foreign
travelers to the US due to the reality of Donald Trump as president - could cost
the US well over $10 billion per year in lost tourism revenues - including revenues from medical tourism. The
US, with its strong pharmaceutical industry and high-tech hospitals, has
traditionally been a destination for inbound medical tourists. Cutting-edge
research institutions, like the Cleveland and Mayo Clinics and John Hopkins,
have been targeting an international clientele for decades. But they may have
to start looking closer to home for their clients.
