Silos in the Travel Industry

Addressing the opening session of the 2005 ICAT at the UN in Bangkok I emphasized that we will see the tourism industry develop a patchwork of disability policies and practices if the disability community did not surface with best practice and policy recommendations of its own (article).

E Turbo News has published an editorial on the disarray of the industry:

According to BTC, at the root of many of the industry's problems, and a major reason there is no national air transportation policy, is that the overall travel and tourism industry rarely acts like a real industry. Unlike many industries, travel and tourism is a collection of independent-minded suppliers of inputs to the travel experience such as hotels, airlines, labor, rental cars, and airport authorities, among many others. The industry is an assemblage of interests toiling away on issues within their individual silos that correctly looks to outsiders, including governments, like it is highly fragmented and seemingly incapable of agreeing on and prioritizing its own problems, let alone solving them. The industry needs to turn away from these constricting silos and toward inclusive coalitions organized around issues of strategic importance to the entire industry.