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Failure is part of personal growth. Still it hurts.

The travel industry suffered big time during the pandemic and still today the levels of global tourism are lacking behind. Many attendants were just happy to be still in business and eager to be back to a networking event.

Having arrived there together with the diverse crowd of attendants like travel agents, tour operators, airplane companies, insurance brands, cruise operators, etc made it clear to me, that it wouldn’t be an easy crowd to convince of my message to transform your business and care for people, planet and prosperity.

In my perception, I failed in convincing them during my keynote to start to transform their businesses.

It’s tough to share this, but my CARE Principles are about honesty, transparency, and openness so I need to admit that I had a feeling of failure.

Why did I fail in passing on the message of CARE?

✔️  As a keynote speaker, it is crucial to understand who is in the audience and what their worries are. I didn’t dig deep enough into this diverse crowd and my message was mostly for the bigger organizations in the room.

✔️  Escapism and the joy of finally being back in business is a very normal human reaction in a sector that was closed for too long. I should have anticipated the psychology of this. Escapism is no stranger to me 😉

✔️  Consumers are also in an escapism mood when it comes down to travel. Let’s be honest, we all missed traveling, so the sector receives today little demands to go green. Traveling became expensive and the price is the most important trigger for tourists today.

✔️  When a keynote talk is scheduled right after a lunch where alcohol is served, one should know that people will feel tired…and yes I predicted it, someone on the first row fell asleep. A horror scenario for any keynote speaker 🙄 I should have anticipated that by bringing more humor and lightness in my messages.

It’s hard to admit that I failed at such a great opportunity and for such a nice crowd. However, it learned me more than probably what I take with me from a positive crowd. So, next time I’ll be even more prepared, and in the next blog article, I’ll share some concrete tips for the travel industry 👊 👊 👊

Have a COOKIE, they are free and they will make your web experience taste sweet.
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