Seth used the idiocies of Wile E. Coyote when chasing the Road Runner to highlight the failings of short-term thinking when compared with creating and committing to a long-run strategy, and then sticking to it.

For the many of you too young to have enjoyed Wile E.’s hapless attempts to catch and eat the Road Runner, allow me to let Seth explain.

“The coyote is always looking for the quick win. Because he doesn’t persist with a plan that builds over time, all of his outlandish stunts add up to nothing but frustration. The coyote picked the wrong goal. Even though it’s clear he can’t succeed, he doesn’t switch, obsessing about sunk costs instead.

“And even though he has experienced the frustration of the short-term selfish shortcut again and again, he never pauses to consider what would happen if he created something of value instead.”

While our industry was being decimated by the pandemic, we often talked about building back better – so why does it feel, to me, like we’re instead embracing our inner Wile E. Coyote all over again?

If ever travel should be putting the sanity of profit ahead of the vanity of turnover, it is now, and yet – as more and more of the industry has come back to the market since the turn of the year – the same old discount mentality has returned and margins are once again being squeezed downwards.

Race-to-the-bottom marketing is back, luring customers away from service, knowledge and expertise where good margins and profit hang out. At a time when we need to strengthen and replenish, we instead trade price blows that only weaken us.

If we have a vision to be a modern, attractive industry, then we must also be a profitable industry. If we take sustainability seriously enough to make a meaningful difference, there will be a cost. If we want to bring talented people into our industry and keep them, we will need to pay and train them better. If we want to stay relevant to the next generation of travel buyers, we will need to vastly improve how we use technology. We can only do all of this when we build the funds to reinvest.

’Harsh truth’

These key challenges that face travel are all going to need money. If we don’t first generate that money, we are going to fail those challenges.

When I started in travel a few moons ago, people used to say it was a badly paid industry. And it was. For many, it still is. Why? Perhaps the harsh truth is that for too long, it has been a badly run industry. We cannot afford to stay that way.

Many of Wile E. Coyote’s pursuits of the Road Runner ended with him sprinting off a cliff edge to his cartoon oblivion. Travel can build back better, but to do so, we first have to bid our Wile E. Coyote tendencies farewell for good.