Gary Bowerman: Hello and welcome to the High-Yield Tourism Podcast. I’m Gary Bowerman. On today’s show, Dr Jens Thraenhart and I will be debating an alternative model for strategic destination planning. So let’s get started. This is High-Yield Tourism.

Hello and thanks for listening in on today’s show. Jens is with me again, and we’ll be discussing the SOAR framework, S O A R, and why this might help tourism destinations around the world think differently as we enter a new era of travel and tourism headed towards the 2030s. Jens, good to have you back with me. So first and foremost, the SOAR framework. Tell us what it is and why it matters.

Jens Thraenhart: Yes. Hi Gary, good to be with you again and SOAR stands for strengths, opportunities, aspirations, and results. It’s actually a fifteen-year-old business framework that was published, or introduced, by two economists in 2009. And it was there really to move the strategy conversation, you know, from problem finding to possibility seeking, if you want to call it that, to address fundamental challenges in organization development. So it was really something to strengthen your organization and to leverage the strategies to build on strengths rather than focusing on weaknesses. Gary, you may remember, many years back, I don’t know, when it was published, I think it was around ten, fifteen years ago. Or even longer, the StrengthsFinder book came out, and we were also around, you know, a personal development. And I think many, many listeners probably have read it or were forced to read it when they worked in an organization or a company. It was really around, you know, focusing on your strengths and not on your weaknesses. And so in the end, the premise is very similar to that.

Gary Bowerman: Okay. So one of the reasons that you’ve been thinking about this recently is two reasons, really. One is why does tourism need its own strategic framework. You referenced there that previous frameworks and even saw itself was originally developed in terms of organizational development, in terms of business structural planning. But tourism itself is both exceptional and non-exceptional in the fact that tourism isn’t really an industry. It’s a bunch of different services, but also at the same time, it doesn’t have its own strategic framework. There is no real model that is specifically developed for tourism. Is that a fair starting point?

Jens Thraenhart: Yes, exactly. You know, what I’ve done is when I came across this framework, more by accident, working on my passion tourism book, you know, I thought, well, you know what? If you want to focus on, let’s say, micro-niches in a destination, you need to start with your strengths. You need to see what is unique in your destination. If you are, let’s say Finland or Chile or Alula in Saudi Arabia. I mean, you have dark sky. That’s one of your strengths. And you now, once you have identified that strength, you can now move into the opportunity and say, okay, what do I need to build to really attract these passionate travelers, these passionate stargazers or dark sky enthusiasts? And then I have this aspiration and saying like, now I want to become one of the top dark sky destinations in the world and then you have the results, which is not just counting arrivals and spend, but it’s a whole holistic approach around it. So what I’ve done is I looked at this fifteen-year-old business framework, saw and I adapted it for tourism. I almost rebuilt it. I feel while this is not for everyone, and you can’t put your, head in the sand like an ostrich and ignore all your weaknesses and challenges. But yet I do believe it is a very powerful, if applied in the right, aspect to really making sure, like the Strengthsfinder book, that you focus on what you have and how you can leverage that to differentiate yourself from other people. Because to go back to your questions, why do I believe tourism needs its own strategic framework, which it doesn’t have, right? Because, you know, tourism borrows frameworks from, the business world like the SWOT strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. I think the reason is that number one, tourism is unique. You know, it has multiple stakeholders. It’s a very complex ecosystem. And that’s that’s very different from many other industries. It is around a living heritage. It’s around focusing on authenticity, which you can’t manufacture or you cannot control culture. So, there’s there’s aspects to it which makes it very unique from that aspect. Um, and people are looking to be transformed. Right. The reason why do people actually travel is many times forgotten. You know, when I look at many strategies and I say what did anyone actually put into account? Why do people want to travel? And in many cases it is now around transformation. People want to either give back to the community, making sure that tourism, that travel is a force for good. But on the other hand, they also want to change themselves. And this is where it kind of links into this concept of passion tourism. You know, everyone has a passion. And if I can link the passion into the assets of a destination, you know, leveraging the source framework, then I can build a resilient, foundation where these passionate enthusiasts of a micro niche become actually advocates for the destination.

Gary Bowerman: Yeah. So you make a good point. There is that most traditional business frameworks don’t really apply to tourism, and I guess that’s probably one of the reasons for that anyway, is because destinations are just not alike. When you look at an organization or an enterprise or a business, they tend to have similar goals, okay, they’ll be differently structured, they’ll have different goals and objectives in terms of where the business is going to go in future. But they are and we’ve become accustomed to this over years that there are certain ways to build a business that you can you can either be left field or you can be center field or you can be right field. But there are certain things that you do and don’t do with time. It’s very different because countries are geographical concepts. And as you said in the article that we’re going to publish is no two countries are alike. And therefore it’s very, very difficult to compare like for like anyway. But when you do look at a destination or tourism boards, tender, when they’re looking for consulting work or when they’re looking to build a future strategy, planning a SWOT analysis is always pretty much always included in what they would like to achieve. So why would a destination use a SOAR analysis rather than a SWOT analysis? Or would you combine the two?

Jens Thraenhart: Well, as I said before, I think you know you should not ignore your weaknesses and your challenges or your threats, right? I mean, as I said, you don’t want to be that ostrich that puts the head in the sand and ignores everything around it and then puts the head out and says everything is perfect. And that’s normally not the case. I think let’s take one example just to make it a little bit more tangible. If we look at the Faroe Islands, which is a destination, if you look at it, it is not a sunny beach destination. It is remote. It doesn’t have a lot of air access. So in other words, it has a lot of challenges. And if someone were to say, well, you know what? Because with all these challenges, the Faroe Island shouldn’t even try to be a tourism destination. Who would ever go there? But yet what they have done is they focused on their strengths, which is that uniqueness of being remote and having that scenery and so on, and where rain actually becomes part of the experience. And all of that made Faroe Island a very successful tourism destination. So, I think if we go back and saywe just want to look at tourism planning and strategy in a different way. You know, I think because it is very traditional now and many of these strategies are cookie cutter, using the same templates and have a SWOT analysis. But in the end, many times the SWOT analysis is just basically something that needs to be in there, but it’s not being leveraged. I think maybe we need to look at leveraging this whole framework. Who are we actually attracting? You know, not how many. Not always looking at volume, but focusing on the quality over the quantity. What experiences are we creating? Not what amenities are we building, but emphasizing, let’s say, the authenticity and value of the destination. AVC, a venture capitalist told me once the most successful startups don’t start with the product, but start with the distribution. He said, never start with the product, because in the end, you might not even be relevant. So here’s that’s what we’re saying. Like, well, you know, who are these, enthusiasts, you know, and that becomes the distribution and then work back and say like, okay, now we build the infrastructure and the product around it, and then why does it matter? I think I believe it’s better than to be loved by some, than liked by many and really building that passion around it, where people then become advocates.

Gary Bowerman: So where we’re at is tourism is changing, landscapes are changing. It’s a very competitive environment that there is a reason that some countries focus on volume, others don’t. So we’re in this this landscape of change after Covid, we know that regions, countries, were affected differently by Covid, and that’s impacted or influenced how countries think going forward. Do you think that the SOAR analysis can be used for destinations that are looking to grow their arrivals, those that are looking to cap arrivals, those are actually looking to attract less arrivals because all countries aren’t the same, are they? They’re at different stages of their tourism development.

Jens Thraenhart: Exactly. Gary, I completely agree. And you make an important point. I mean, every destination is different. Either they’re different in terms of where they’re located, in terms of size and whatever it might be, or they’re different in their life cycle. If we look at Butler and how a destination develops and then go into decline and then how do you kind of look at avoiding that decline. In the end, yes, you need scale, you need, you know, to build your infrastructure and that costs money. I’m currently in Saudi Arabia, and Saudi Arabia is a five-year-old tourism destination that was closed before. So what Saudi Arabia has to do, it needs to build infrastructure. In order to build infrastructure, you need to drive scale. You need to bring people in. So of course there is a focus visitation and on spend, you know, no question around it. However, on the on the other hand Saudi Arabia also has the challenge of, what’s unique in Saudi Arabia, right? I can ride a camel in Qatar and Oman, in Egypt, in Dubai, in many places. You know, why would I ride the camel in Saudi Arabia? What’s unique around it? So building that authenticity around it that builds that value proposition. I think that’s important to compete, in a different way, because otherwise if you’re just competing on numbers and you’re competing on price and then you become a discount destination. And we see that many times with campaigns where it’s just like what? Get the second night free or twenty percent off. And while that is potentially effective to bring people in and introduce them to a destination, over the long term, it doesn’t sustain.

Gary Bowerman: Let’s break it down. The SOAR model is s.o.a.r. Strengths. Opportunities. Aspirations Operations and result strengths and opportunities. We can define what those mean. What what is aspiration standpoint? How would a tourism destination, for example, or a region or a city incorporate aspirations into its model for strategic development?

Jens Thraenhart: I look at the, the aspiration piece really like what do you want to be? You know it has quite a few pieces around it. It’s like, it could be around transformation of the visitor journey, community prosperity, destination stewardship. So what do you stand for? You know, and I think this is one thing we talked about in our authenticity episode as well. What does a destination actually stand for? And many times you don’t know what a destination stands for anymore, right? So I think that’s what aspiration is all about. And you can stand for different things for different, let’s say micro niches. If I say I want to be the top, you know, stargazing, dark sky, destination, what do I need to do? That’s where opportunities come in. What do I need to build to align, my assets to the purpose of these, enthusiasts of micro niches? So what are these most promising opportunities? So this is also where we can look at not just building the infrastructure, but also what’s the right airlift. And many times people say, okay, we need to get the big planes in with more seats and the better load factors. That’s it. But when you look at, let’s say Faroe Island, it’s a different, air connectivity strategy all along because, the ones that work for the Maldives. It is not the same as would work for Faroe Island, just as an example. And then going back to strengths, you know, it’s almost like what makes you irreplaceable. What are these strengths? Cultural leadership, natural assets, unique stories that really make you different, you know, and that’s why I said why should I ride a camel in Saudi Arabia? This is where these unique, natural assets, the unique stories, really, come to place where you say, well, you know what? It’s not just about riding a camel, but it’s around this whole experience that that makes it a unique experience, a unique IP for Saudi Arabia, where normally riding a camel is not a unique IP for Saudi Arabia. And then finally, the results piece is and this I think is the most interesting stuff how do you measure purpose and meaning and not just money. Because you know, many destinations just about arrivals and spend, you know, and again, it depends on the stage where you are. But even when you’re at the beginning stages, I think looking at purpose more than just the the money in the end, that I think becomes really meaningful what do we actually celebrate in terms of tourism, that tourism really becomes a force for good community support, advocacy, sustainable growth. When I look at visitations, I would actually say repeat visitations. That’s powerful. I mean, Barbados, for example, had one of the very high repeat visitation ratios. And that was one of the competitive advantages for Barbados.

Gary Bowerman: I’m going to throw a bit of a curve ball at you here. Jens. When destinations are thinking about strategy, whether looking at one, two, three, five, ten, fifteen years. It’s natural to cast your net around. It’s natural to cast your eyes around and look at the aspirations, the opportunities, the strengths of other countries. And that happens in everything. You know, consumer brands do the same, luxury brands do the same. Everybody does competitor analysis. But when you’re building a strategy from what you’ve been saying in terms of the SOAR frame, you have to be more narrow-minded. Is that fair? Should you mentally build a kind of wall around the country so you focus only on the aspirations and the strengths of your own destination? Because the challenge and one of the weaknesses, I would say, and you see this particularly in parts of Asia, is everybody looks at everybody else and they either kind of steal or improvise or genetically modify ideas that other countries have had, because some of the landscapes are similar, because some of the cultures are similar, there are overlays. How do you do this? Do you build it in isolation, or do you have to respect that? You have to look at the competitive challenges.

Jens Thraenhart: You know, this is a very interesting point. And maybe you or other people will disagree with me. But I look at it more from a collaboration standpoint. Let’s go back to our martial arts episode that we had last time. So when you look at martial arts, if I’m an enthusiast for martial arts and I’m not just looking to go into, kind of go to learn taekwondo or Muay Thai for fitness purposes, but to understand the culture behind it, then I’m a passionate enthusiast for martial arts. Now, if I’m a destination that has a unique martial arts as part of my culture, I can now look and see number one.What do other destinations do that also have, let’s say, a martial arts fight uniquely embedded into their culture? How can I learn from that? So it’s not just about competition, but it’s about learning. And then number two, I could partner with them. Even I could say, hey, you know what? You know, because these enthusiasts they’re going to be in Korea today. Then, in Japan, how can I get them into Thailand? Because they also want to learn about Muay Thai boxing. So again, I don’t think it’s about isolation. I don’t think it’s around putting your blindfolds on and only say, okay, what do I have in my destination? I have Muay Thai boxing in Thailand. So now how can I make this work? I can be more strategic around it. Right. stargazing. Right. You know, we had an episode on that also with high yield tourism. So, for example, if I’m looking to build a stargazing or dark sky strategy for Mongolia in the Gobi Desert. I might look at top destinations that have done a good job, like Finland, that have built these glass igloos. You know where you spend, whatever, two thousand US dollars a night, and then you can be there and see the dark sky or Chile or other destinations. They’ve done a good job and potentially partner with them. So I think it’s just a different mindset. So I think the SOAR framework kind of opens up a little bit, your opportunities. Yes. You’re competing but look at it from a strengths based strategy framework. Not ignoring your weaknesses but not necessarily focusing on your weaknesses.

Gary Bowerman: That’s a good point, Jens. So to wrap up, one of the interesting quotes that you, referenced in the article is what you call destination beige, the beige identification trap. And I guess it’s to some degree human nature to be risk averse. You know, destinations generally are risk averse because when you’re even if you’re looking to create experiences or ideas or concepts in tourism that are very different, there are very few countries that do that, and those that do tend to be the ones that have the most investment. Most people are dealing with relatively constrained budgets. Do you think that that will continue, that we will still have this, everybody, you know, using similar ideas and concepts, or will it move that everybody really focuses much more on how they can be different? I mean, is that even possible?

Jens Thraenhart: Yeah, I think it goes back to what what we said at the beginning of this episode is sometimes I feel people forget the reason why we travel. Right. You want to be inspired, even when you’re laying on a beach somewhere and there are millions of beaches, how can you make that experience unique and exciting and transformative. Let me take Barbados as an example. It’s a beach destination, like there are many beach destinations, especially in the Caribbean. They are all beach destinations. So how do I compete? How can I make that beach experience different? How can I link it then with these unique stories? This is then where the social framework comes in. Because then I can say, well, you know what other strengths do I have? You know, in addition to the beach that is beautiful how can I now differentiate it based on the strength framework? How can I build the right infrastructure around it through an opportunity? How can I bring the right people into really a strategic air connectivity strategy? How can I then position myself from an aspirational standpoint? So I think destination beach is one of the most dangerous things that can happen to a destination, because when you are beige, you know you’re starting to compete on price, and then when you’re competing on price, you know, then you’re you’re draining the destination of their value. That’s where, you know, money doesn’t flow into the economy, right? If you have passionate people coming for micro niches, they spend money in the destination because these micro niches live in the communities, for the most part, right? But if I just beige, then I compete on price. I want to bring in numbers, you know, and in the end, it’s almost like the beginning of the end, going back to Butler’s destination life cycle when that happens, that’s the start of the decline of the destination.

Gary Bowerman: That’s interesting. Once it becomes very, very commodified. So let’s just wrap up with one final point. I wanted to ask you, how would the SOAR framework deal with advocacy differently? How would it put advocacy more as a center point of the metrics that you would use to determine your results?

Jens Thraenhart: The SOAR framework, for me, the reason why I founded it was really because it is a way to make passion tourism work. As we talked about focusing on strengths and building it around it, even though you still may want to have scale and you want to have growth and you want to have that foundation there, building a passion tourism strategy on top of it. That’s where you get resilience. Now, why do you get resilience? This comes back to your point around advocacy, it is because whatever happens, if it’s political turmoil, if it is any other crisis that may happen. If it is that air access is being cut and suddenly I have a much more complicated way of getting to the destination. These people who are passionate about your destination now because they can live their passion, they not only will come back, but also they will become advocates and tell other people in their passionate communities. Now, if you have various communities, various micro niches that you can focus on, you know, based on your strengths, strategy, strengths based strategy, leveraging the SOAR framework, then suddenly you have a very resilient infrastructure. I want to give you one example which I thought fascinating when I did my research, many destinations or even hotels, they focus on the influencers with um, with a million followers. Right. The more followers, the better. And I kind of pay them a lot of money. And I hope that they’re going to bring all these people that are following them on Instagram and TikTok and Facebook and wherever it might be. But I would say, well, you know what? You know, this travel blogger with five hundred thousand followers, maybe, the micro niche champions who have just five thousand followers but command absolute trust within their tribe might be even more powerful. I think in the end, if we can turn these passionate, enthusiasts of a micro into actual advocates, even if they only have, let’s say, five thousand followers, but they are actually true influencers because they are actually influencing their tribe. Then I think that becomes very powerful. And also what I’ve been posting on LinkedIn over the last couple of weeks is this whole thing. If I can also activate the actual creators of these experiences to become storytellers as well, then also they become, ambassadors for their destination, for this particular activity. I think it’s just a different way of how you’re structuring your marketing, instead of just doing a top-down push approach, where you’re doing advertising and still you have to do advertising. You gotta do what you got to do. But also building a pull strategy, where these advocates really pulling people in because of their influence, because of their passion, because it is real, it’s not fabricated.

Gary Bowerman: Yeah. So thanks for that, Jens. That’s the SOAR Framework. I think we’ll come back to this in a couple of months time and we’ll revisit this because that’s basically an introduction. There’s so much more that we could have talked about, but we’ve run out of time. So thanks, Jens for that. That’s a wrap for this edition of the High-Yield Tourism Podcast. Please join our conversation on our LinkedIn page at High-Yield Tourism. That has a hyphen in the middle at high hyphen yield tourism and visit us online at HighYieldTourism.com. We’ll be back soon to talk more High-Yield Tourism. Look forward to seeing you next time.