NB: This is a guest article by Jonathan Alford from Seattle-based consulting firm Lenati.
The Olympic energy from London 2012 was thrilling as usual – taking me back to the privilege I had of working for the 2002 Salt Lake Olympic Committee on our executive turnaround and operations team.
Now that London is basking in its well-deserved post-Olympics glow, it’s good to recognize what most Olympic fans don’t get a chance to see: the effort to stage a successful Games by managing the scale and complexity of working across:
- hundreds of Olympic operating functions
- security agencies
- national organizing committees
- sport federations
- media organizations
- sponsor bodies
In other words, stakeholders that often compete as ruthlessly for resources and attention as the athletes compete themselves.
What many people also don’t get the chance to experience is that the blood of hospitality and travel also courses through a Games - through thousands of volunteers, Games staffers, athletes, and vendors, as the Olympic brand and experience are ultimately geared to three things: delivering an great experience for athletes and guests, providing inspiration to the world, and, of course, making money.
In fact, an Olympic Committee’s model of integrating multiple components of the transportation and in-destination experience could serve as a framework for today’s emerging trend for airlines, hotels, and other travel providers to extend their customer relationships through the total trip – via mobile technology and personalized content and services.
Into travel
Olympic Committees coordinate closely with airlines and gateway airports not only to ensure appropriate levels of security, but to facilitate a seamless immersion into the destination through the inbound flight, airport experience, ground transport, and by providing relevant destination content.
Hotels, while enjoying the Olympic REVPAR spike, strive further to deliver a guest experience both core to the hotel and complementary to the overall Olympic destination experience.
Olympic host cities themselves work with airlines, hotels, and the Olympic brand organizations to deliver a consistent and unified message to guests and media alike.
But for an Olympic Committee, like for any travel experience, it’s a challenge.
As soon as I started in Salt Lake, I was asked to take over an Olympic Media Transportation system – scrapping and rebuilding a system four years in the making to serve about 13,000 broadcasters, journalists, and photographers.
No matter that I had zero transportation experience, but I did find that transportation would rarely be viewed by media members as enhancing their jobs, but could easily detract from them if executed poorly by putting arrival times, capacity/demand matching, deadlines, and other elements of their work schedules and plans at risk.
Travelers may think similarly – the transportation part of a vacation or business trip may not enhance it, but can easily detract from it.
Integration
Airlines could probably – and unfortunately - relate to this, perhaps justifiably in that safety, security, and operations will always be the top priorities in an industry already shaped by a tough structural and economic model.
But an Olympic Committee has similar priorities, and since media influences the perception of the powerful Olympic brand and host city in the eyes of the world, London, like Salt Lake, needed to ensure the media could do its job without fail.
My goal was to avoid having transportation mentioned in the news at all – cynical, but realistic, since it’s typically mentioned only when things go wrong.
Sound familiar?
But whether it’s an Olympics or an everyday travel experience, it doesn’t have to be that way.
In this age of digital engagement for everyday information, entertainment, productivity, social engagement, and commerce, airlines could work with other travel service and content providers to create a better experience, whether it’s relevant content, airline partnerships with hotels to offer last-minute hotel bookings and upgrades in-flight, or more.
Amazon’s engagement with Delta and Gogo is a good example of not only a better in-flight experience than what Delta-Gogo offered previously, but also a good revenue share opportunity.
Amazon, in turn, benefits by using its powerful retail model as a Trojan Horse to establish a customer acquisition channel from Delta’s passengers for its digital entertainment businesses.
From a personal experience perspective, in Salt Lake, we even coached on-ground transportation volunteers and staff to help deliver a positive experience by being able to recommend restaurants and provide other relevant destination content.
In travel, rather than thinking of airplanes as a "flying mall" with a "captive market", who on a flight could better engage with people in a positive way to provide recommendations than flight attendants who fly to certain destinations consistently?
Reality
A mobile app for Olympic transportation staff would have been great, much like it would (and is maybe already in the works) for airline and hotel staff.
On the other hand, I recently flew a red-eye to see ailing grandparents, choosing first class to sleep better, but when connecting through Chicago and switching to a regional jet without 1st-class seats, why was the experience not carried through – like simply being able to board first (at 6am)?
And why wasn’t the change indicated when I bought the ticket (directly on the airline’s site)?
I’m not at all a first class diva (like the "Olympic Family" VIP in Salt Lake who kicked a volunteer because he wouldn’t immediately stop traffic on a busy street for her to cross), but now I don’t trust that airline to deliver the experience it charged me for, and I’ll probably choose a competitor next time.
Sebastian Coe said of the London Games, which also applies to travel:
"Moments are what people tend to remember."
Every Olympian has a tremendous story to cherish once the immediate ecstasy or disappointment of the competition dissipates, and every Olympic visitor from around the world has a once-in-a-lifetime experience to share, much like many travelers in general.
So what can your website, your airline, your hotel chain, your destination, or your tour operator do to work together, and help deliver those positive moments across the travel experience, while avoiding the moments people don’t want to remember?
Knowing that if you do, unlike the airline I just flew, there’s a good chance you’ll benefit economically even more in the long run?
NB: This is a guest article by Jonathan Alford from Seattle-based consulting firm Lenati.
NB2:Racing icons via Shutterstock.