Supervisory Meeting 22/3

I prepared a 5000 word piece for the meeting on CSR.
Looking at history, development of CSP, and the relationship between CSP and CFP.

I was unsure where this was going to lead to and was keen for some strong guidance.
I suspected Harrold might provide this.

The idea of some sort of reputation index for tour operators did seem flawed. I struggled to see the link between 'most admired' and consumers or profit and felt this was probably beyond me or anyone really. How could you measure this? Do consumers really care? TOs are made up of dozens of small companies and products range from cheapy to 5star - what consumers care about is the individual product.

So - new focus.

One way in which CSR/Responsible actions can impact tour operators is through repeat bookings. If they can win customers over through non-price, they can save money and keep customers. The focus of soft-adventure companies on non-price competition has grown hugely - why?

So, the study of consumer trends to tell us why this has happened is required.
Mintel and the Co-op produce some stats - secondary data.

The overall trends in consumer behaviour should give a good indication of what has changed over the past 10 years. There are some key articles that can hopefully back this up.

This should provide the link to how soft adventure TOs have identified this change and are marketing around it.

On an advanced train of thought I think there are huge options when looking at the primary data collection. I am going to look at Egypt until someone tells me otherwise, looking at tours going through Cairo or Dahab. But I feel the big advantage could be the access to small groups with some time on their hands. I feel this could give much richer data-sets than just emailed questionaires. We shall see.