Lately, there's been a lot of blogging and talking about the Long Tail and Long Tail economics and what this means for tourism. I was a bit mystified by the concept when I first heard about it during the Canada-e-Connect conference last November (And I'm sure I will hear more about it at the PhocusWright Bloggers Summit in Berlin next march). I wondered, if this was just another business buzz word? Does it relate to a person's travelling history and relationship to a particular trip? Does it refer to the "long tail" of a traveling continuum that begins with the dream (of going somewhere) followed by the research, the planning, the actual trip and the sharing of memories (good or bad) and recommendations (or criticisms)? I decided to go to the source of the phrase and see what it may mean to the tourism business, particularly small businesses like B&B's, restaurants and attractions.
The term Long Tail appears to have been coined by Chris Anderson, editor in chief of Wired Magazine, in his essay called The Long Tail (now a book: The Long Tail: How Endless Choice is Creating Unlimited Demand). Mr. Anderson focused his article on the world of entertainment and its products, be it DVD's, CD's, films or TV programs. The term refers to markets that until now where difficult to reach because of the limitations of the physical world (e.g. record stores, book stores, video rental outfits, etc.), a world that has traditionally been driven by hits. Basically, the assertion is that before the Internet as a channel of distribution, entertainment products where limited by distribution challenges and costs, therefore only products with mass appeal had a chance and consumers would gravitate naturally to the hit record, the hit TV show or the hit film. With the advent of the Internet this has changed. He starts his essay with the example of a book that was almost out of print, but that could still be found on Amazon. This book was recommended on the site to people who were buying another book with a similar topic and the result was the the almost out-of-print-book started selling very well. The book had been a miss when it first came out and now it was becoming a hit because of a recommendation of Amazon and the endorsement of buyers who purchased the old book. ("the emerging digital entertainment economy is going to be radically different from today's mass market. If the 20th- century entertainment industry was about hits, the 21st will be equally about misses.")
But how is this Long Tail concept applied to tourism? One way of looking at it is from the long tail of the travel experience which does indeed have a long tail. This long tail can manifest itself in personal conversations with friends reminiscing about good and bad travel experiences. It manifests itself online in traveler reviews, recommendations and rants (as in Tripadvisor), shared travel stories (as in consumer destination blogs like The Bay of Fundy blog) and audiovisual pieces (as in YouTube videos or Play Montréal podcasts). The travel experience can come up in conversation (online or offline) years after it took place. The stronger the experience the longer it will stay in the mind of the traveler. This aspect of the long tail, if we wish to call it that, is the one that seems easiest for businesses and DMO's to address, i.e. encouraging the conversation and/or even being part of it (as HelloBC.com does in its blogs area). These memories could be the equivalent of old out-of-print books that Chris mentions in his essay, albeit, in this case people don't buy memories, but are rather influenced by them.
Another way of looking at the Long Tail from a travel and tourism perspective is in the area of niche markets, whether we are talking about an activity (snowboarding, fly fishing, ice-climbing, shopping for Inuit art, etc.) or a place (e.g. cottage country, a vegan restaurant, a dim sum establishment, etc.). I equate this with the out-of-print book or obscure band's CD that is discovered or rediscovered by a niche audience who can now have access to it because of the Web. Niche tourism products or services (or markets or population segments) can drive business to larger destinations. Chris' Long Tail essay dealt mostly with the long tail as it applies to physical products that can be purchased online (or rather digital products in the case of eBooks or music downloads). Chris rightly points out that even though there is certainly a place for mass markets driven by hits (hit records, blockbuster movies and bestsellers), there are also big markets in the misses - or niches (provided the cost of distribution/acquisition is accessible). The opportunity I see here is in tourism marketing: opportunity for large DMO's to take advantage of niche and unique experiences that will drive travelers (and creat buzz, of course) to their destination and opportunity for small tourism businesses to access online communities that are attracted to their kind of offer.
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The challenges of distribution. Travel products and services are obviously not like MP3 music downloads, ebooks or even books on print and CD's that can easily be shipped. Destinations are not out-of-print books that can be reprinted in limited numbers. The Long Tail of travel thus, has its own characteristics (experiences being perhaps easier to grasp). Airlines for example cannot establish niche routes just because there is a niche market of tavelers interested in flying to a small town, unless the "niche" is large enough so that the airline can make money. I have seen this upclose over the last few years observing how the Mexican state of Campeche has had a lot of difficulty convincing an airline to increase and improve its service from Mexico City to Campeche City (let alone direct flights from Toronto).
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Small tourism businesses that want to attract visitors may benefit from the long tail as long as they can be found online (SEO, SEM), can make it easy for their potential guests to understand what they offer (good navigation, relevant info, images) and make it easy to book or purchase the service (using low cost booking services like Rezgo, for example). I have learned over the past few years that many small tourism businesses (and some not so small) are still behind in understanding how to use Internet technologies to improve their visibility and sales in the marketplace, let alone getting involved in the new Tourism 2.0 space, e.g. blogging and social media. At the present time it's the large entities that dominate whatever the current travel long tail is. It's companies like Orbitz, Travelocity, Expedia, Tripadvisor, Virtual Tourist and even Google (Google Maps) that take advantage of this "long tail," phenomenon (be it experiences, recommendations, reviews, and product as in Tripadvisor or selling niche products to extend the travel transaction like Expedia does by selling activities after you select your hotel). Recently I was contacted by a small resort in Alberta interested in the inbound Hispanic markets, but they are not sure whether it's a good market for them and how to address it. This is an example of a business that could benefit from the long tail addressing a niche of travelers online. But how to do it at a low cost, i.e. without spending thousands of dollars in sales trips to other countries or investing in potential partnerships with larger entitities like receptive operators and wholesalers?
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Vicky Brock of the Tourism Research Blog posed the following question on an interesting post called Long tail or critical mass? Is niche enough for tourism in online social networks? :
“Is a potential visitor, and the tourism businesses trying to engage with that potential visitor, likely to be served better by a long tail of niche travel communities and social networks, or by two or three “full service” players whose very scale means they have achieved the critical mass to serve niche interests?”
I think it may be the case that some businesses might be better served by the large "full service" players and some by the niche travel communities. But given the nature of the Web, I think that tourism businesses should explore and make use of all available tools, i.e. if they can make a profitable deal with a large player to be included in the mix, they should go ahead and do that, but they should also explore social networks where they can have exposure to potential customers predisposed to purchase their product. As Vicky Brock points out: "And what of individual small business? Fiscal and time constraints mean that participation in existing communities is likely to be more practical for most businesses than opting for social network development. But where does a business choose to invest its time in its two-way conversations with potential customers?"
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In the case of the Alberta resort, for example, if it's not cost-effective for them to be listed on sites like Expedia, they should explore social networks that could expose them to potential guests. For example, I have been working on a Social Network for Hispanics and Canadians, called Canadamigos, where the common interest is friendship and travel centered mostly on Canada. There is a group on the site for Adventure Tourism. This resort could become a member of the network (for a fee) and thus be exposed to Hispanic (and Canadian) travelers that might be looking for a place like theirs. Canadamigos is an example of a social network that fits into the concept of the long tail when it comes to sharing experiences, tips, recommendations, etc. It still has some way to go on the supplier side in order to complete the circle and make the site "tourism abundant" to use a term from Edu William's The Abundance in Tourism (Tips from the T-List) More on Canadamigos on future posts.
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Last July, Philip Caines, a fellow Tourism blogger, listed PhoCusWright's predictions about the Long Tail in his blog Tourism Tide:
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Prediction 1: The Long Tail era will drive a new economy.
Prediction 2: The Long Tail facilitators – content providers, software suppliers and ASPs – are in pivotal positions. Prediction
3: Technology and standards will evolve. Prediction
4: The democratization of supply will open up new marketing and packaging opportunities. Prediction
5: The success of the Long Tail in travel is directly proportional to the quality of search - making metasearch, geographically-oriented search and vertical search key enablers.The potential for tour operators and software developers to great greater access to the end consumer is growing every day, you can only imagine what types if niches will be catered to.
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In conclusion, this "long tail" concept, while not perfect, is influencing tourism marketers everywhere. The use of social media is becoming more important, but many businesses are not sure how they can take advantage of the phenomenon yet. My recommendation for the small tourism business out there is to explore ways in which they can insert themselves in the "online conversations" taking place, whether it be by blogging themselves, joining a relevant social network or advertise in either of these. Advertising and marketing are not going away. Rather marketers must look at how the marketing mix (price, product, promotion, place/distribution, people and profit) fits into all this.
saludos,
Jaime Horwitz
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