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Why Indigenous Travel Matters Now
Why Indigenous Travel Matters Now
Presentation to WINTA, Luzern, October 12th, 2012Presentation to WINTA, Luzern, October 12th, 2012
Anna Pollock, Founder of Conscious TravelAnna Pollock, Founder of Conscious Travel
Scope
1. Anna: What does Indigenous Mean? Why the time has come for Indigenous Tourism
2. Ben: Indigenous Values – the Contribution
3. Anna: The Role of Indigenous Tourism Going Forward
Definition
Why The Time For Indigenous Tourism Has Come
1.The state we’re in2.Why we’re in this state3.Who Will Fix the Problem?4.How is the Customer Changing? 5.The Keys to Success
Accelerated Consumption
Climate Change
Energy & Fuel
Material Resource Scarcity
Food scarcity
Water Scarcity
Ecosystem Decline
Disparate Prosperity
Government Debt
Lack of Global Governance
Political Instability
Pandemics
THE PERFECT STORM
The State We’re In
The State We’re InTourism now supports 1 billion international trips a year
It can produce income, economic growth, jobs, foreign exchange, conserve wildlife, preserve cultures..but it doesn’t always
Are we at a tipping point?
Metaphorically speaking, we’re about to experience a tourism tsunami + galeforce winds + earthquake
Will the tourism capsule hold out?
Mass Industrial Tourism Hangs on the Edge
Industrial tourism is producing diminishing returns for nearly everybody
This graph shows the fate of individual destinations - could it apply to industrial tourism as a whole?
If yields decline industrial tourism can only succeed by growing in volume
Are we at the inflection point?
More volume = more congestion If margins don’t grow, mergers & consolidation are inevitable and lead to concentration of wealth.
Can we handle another 400 million tourists in just 8 years?
The Island Where Tourist Garbage is Stored in the MaldivesSource: Daily Mail
The Queue to Climb EverestSource: Guardian
• see: Can Tourism Change its Operating Model?
How will we handle congestion?
How will we handle waste?
How will we handle emissions?
How will we manage our thirst for water and land?
How will avoid residents’ backlash?
Protest Sign Erected by Young BalineseSource: ABC They Paved Paradise
Source: China Daily
How will we protect vulnerable people and cultures?
Industrial Tourism Grew Up In the Age of the Automobile & Mass Everything
It borrowed its operating model from manufacturing
WHY are we in the state we’re in?
Based on Assembly Lines, Specialisation & Hierarchies
Focus: efficiency & productivity - producing more for less
Standardisation, Order, Planning
Economies of Scale - consolidation, more & bigger is better, growth
Economies of Scale - consolidation, more & bigger is better, growth
Economies of Scale - consolidation, vertical integration
Mass Industrial Tourism Started with Great Promise
But Is Now Producing a Different Reality
Based on a mindset of boxes and lines
The Hotel Box
ProductizesStandardizesHomogenize
sCommoditizes
In summary, this is a box that....
Who Might Come to help?
Who has to Fix the Problem?
Who has to Fix the Problem?
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has
Margaret Mead
What’s Needed to Solve The Challenges
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Tourism is Human System Embedded in a
Biological-Physical System
A worldview or mindset acts like a lens
These lenses are made up of the values beliefs and assumptions that we use to make sense of our world
Many are changing their lenses & waking up - becoming conscious
We’re often not aware of our lenses - live in a trance
They are very powerful
When the lenses change, everything else changes
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when our values and beliefs changeso does everything else
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What values and beliefs filter your perception and guide your actions?
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Tourism Through an Industrial Lens
Guests are segments to be targeted and the prize is share of wallet
Both parties (consumer and provider) attempt to win at the cost of the other. Adversarial
Guests seek to get the best or cheapest deal; producers try to maintain their marginRugged independence + materialism creates a mindset of exploitation - animals, landscapes, plants are resources, then products that can be used to produce profitThe Industry is fragmented - each provider looks after his piece of the guest experience and larger agencies are divided into functional silos.
Disconnect from nature - it’s the economy, stupid! Lack of appreciation of limits or consequences.
The tourism industry resists paying for the ecosystem services it has enjoyed for free in the past
•many customers are thinking differently
•emergence of the conscience consumer
•On average just under 50% of consumers prefer to buy from responsible companies
•In South America that average is 75%
•In Australia - 35%
Mindsets Are Already Shifting
•other businesses are thinking differently”
•growth in “conscious business” and “conscious leadership”
•“Business as Usual” is over
•Huge opportunities for those who adapt
Mindsets Are Already Shifting
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surely there has to be a better way?
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Why Indigenous Travel Matters Now
Anna Pollock, Founder of Conscious TravelAnna Pollock, Founder of Conscious Travel
Part 2
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Higher margins for hostshigher net benefit from tourism to their communities,
while increasing resilience and stability
and.....
Desired OutcomesDesired Outcomes
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Welcome Signs of Change
something new is emerging
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The two Keys to Success
mindset place
Becoming conscious of the way we filter our perception based on
unexamined assumptions
Valuing each place as unique and sacred and refusing to discount it
like a commodity
How?
Practical • Celebrate uniqueness of place – the only antidote to commodification• Slow down & Savour – increase length of stay; sense of value• Integrate adventure with culture, conservation, revitalisation and
knowledge/expertise exchange• Create ambassadors, viral marketing, reputation
For the Greater Good – self interest (protecting your future)• Wake up your customers – help them change their lenses• Create opportunities for wonder & awe – as Jacques and Alexander Cousteau
said “we protect what we love; we love what we know”
• Stop being passive and become active community change agents.
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We travel, initially, to lose ourselves;
we travel next, to find ourselves.
We travel to open our hearts and eyes and learn more than our newspapers will
accommodate....
And we travel, in essence, to become young fools again---to slow time down and
get taken in, and fall in love once more
Pico Ayer
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