Building a business that is both successful and sustainable during both good times and bad demands more than a focus on short-term profits, cost-cutting activities, or jumping on the latest ‘new, new thing’. This is particularly true for the travel and affiliate marketing industries, as each also tends to blindly rely on legacy business thinking and practices to get them through the tough times.
The current worldwide economic meltdown has wreaked havoc across virtually every industry. To be sure, the banking and financial services industries have taken the brunt of the impact, but the travel industry has also been hit hard.
The global recession’s impact on the travel industry - the world’s largest industry by most economic measures - is being felt by countries and economies large and small, whether they are positioned in the travel arena as ’sun and fun’ or business, meeting and convention destinations. So too are the companies that serve these leisure and business travel markets, be they multinational corporations with operations across the globe or small businesses located on a street corner in a small town. As was the case following past exogenous global events (e.g., 9/11, SARS), the travel industry once …