Читать книгу Global Experience Industries - Jens Christensen - Страница 20

Since the 1990s, several factors have radically changed the preconditions of world tourism. The world economy has globalized and liberalized, creating a global division of labor and accelerating economic growth and prosperity. Mass production of consumer goods at lowest possible costs is no longer the driving force of business, although productivity is rising more than ever and enabling radical price cuts. Nowadays, people want customized products that adapt to a dynamic age and individual lifestyles and because of globalization and economic growth consumer alternatives are bigger than ever. To meet these changing demands, companies have to change fundamentally from supply-driven to demand-driven organizations and products must be differentiated according to changing demands.

The transformation of business was accompanied and driven by a globalization of competition and markets that created dramatic economic growth and changing conditions of competition and consumption. To stay in business, companies had to organize on a global scale. Economies of scale did not disappear, they were just woven into a global network like system of interrelated organizations. Inside this network, an increasing number of industries emerged and eventually, each industry came to be dominated by a handful of corporations. The revolutionary breakthrough and accelerating developments of information and communication technologies since the 1990s created the tools needed to make globalization come true. Furthermore, the universal digitalization of business and any other social activity brought to life new kinds of goods, services, communications, and business combinations. Especially, the Internet set a new standard that really gave the customer the upper hand and created a buyer’s market.

Hand in hand with the business and technology revolutions that have developed since the late 20^th century, radical social and cultural changes have taken place. Increased wealth, higher educational levels, a social dissolution of traditional relations and norms, huge information and communication potentials of the digital age, all this has contributed to bringing about a more individual lifestyle. People want to differentiate according to their personality and will no longer accept to be an anonymous member of a group or the masses. They want more quality in life, too, and each person is eager to decide for himself what is good for him.

As an integrated part of globalized business and individualized markets, the tourism industry was forced to reorganize and adapt their strategies to this changing world. The supply-driven pre-1990 mass tourism had to be customized according to the individual and upgraded demands of new and much more critical and demanding customers.