Presentation given to host delegates at the Airbnb Open 2015

1. Anna Pollock, Founder, Conscious Travel
Becoming a Conscious Host:
Catalyzing Change in Your
Community

2. Paris: City of Romance
or Revolution?

3. Today
A mere 225 years
ago

4. The Art of Hosting
The Heart of Hosting
=
Putting heart and soul back into Hospitality

5. Conscious
Travel
Strategist, thinker, “sense maker”
Purpose Today
• Why change?
• Why YOU?
• What can YOU do?

7. “We are at that point of time when a
four-hundred-year-old age is rattling in
its deathbed and another is struggling
to be born – with a shifting of culture,
science, society and institutions
enormously greater and swifter than the
world has ever experienced….
Dee Hock, Founder of VISA and author The Birth of a Chaordic Organization
A Contemporary View

9. "It was the best of times, it was
the worst of times, it was the
age of wisdom, it was the age
of foolishness, it was the epoch
of belief, it was the epoch of
incredulity, it was the season of
Light, it was the season of
Darkness, it was the spring of
hope, it was the winter of
despair, we had everything
before us, we had nothingA Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
1859
An EarlierView

10. "once a photograph of the Earth, taken from outside,
is available…a new idea as powerful as any in
history will be let loose.” Fred Hoyle, 1948

11. What is “Conscious” Travel about?

12. Wake Up

13. “We have one
generation in which
to shift human
consciousness”
Jeremy Rifkin
A profound shift in perception is required

14. How do YOU see this?
a piece of real estate?
a floating lumberyard?
spaceship earth?
a living organism?
Home?

15. This report shows the world is on a
development trajectory that is not
sustainable.
If we fail to alter our patterns of
production and consumption,
things will go badly wrong.
10 mega-forces, all connected in
ways we don’t fully understand.
What “Business” now knows

16. • Systemic breakdowns are breakdowns
that occur in an entire system, as opposed
to breakdowns in individual parts and
components. Systemic risks are
characterised by:
• Modest tipping points combining indirectly to
produce large failures
• Risk sharing or contagion, as one loss triggers
the chain of others
• Hysteresis or systems being unable to recover
after a shock.
EMERGING: Everything and everyone
is connected

17. Change Drivers

18. We are living through one of the most fundamental
shifts in history – a change in the actual belief
structure of western society. No economic, political,
or military power can compare with the power of a
change of mind.
By deliberately changing their images of reality,
people are changing their world.
Willis Harman, Founder World Business Academy 1970s
Awareness has been growing over 40+
years

19. Waking Up to the Real Nature of Change

21. Grow Up
Don’t ask what your
country can do for you,
ask what you can do for
your country.
John F. Kennedy

23. Transformational Leadership
The transforming leader looks for potential motives in
followers, seeks to satisfy higher needs, and engages
the full person of the follower. The result is a
relationship of mutual stimulation and elevation that
converts followers into leaders and may convert
leaders into moral agents
James MacGregor-Burns

25. A Collective Values Shift

28. We are growing up!

29. Step Up
You never change things by
fighting existing reality
To change something build a
new model that renders the
existing model obsolete.
Buckminster Fuller

30. On Power
Power is a verb – “to be able”
NOT a noun, a thing to be hoarded
Power WITH versus Power Over
New organisational structures warrant new forms
of power

31. Shifting from Hierarchies to Networks

32. Two Powerful forces
climate change and demand growth
Community resilience, adaptability and capacity to manage these forces
requires empowerment at the grassroots

35. Empowerment is happening- power shifts
From company to customer
From company to employee
From politicians to citizens

36. New Power – with not over

37. New Power – with not over
Old power works like a currency. It is held by a few. Once gained, it is
jealously guarded and the powerful have a substantial store of it to
spend. It is closed, it is inaccessible, and leader-driven. It downloads and
it captures.
New power operates differently, like a current. It is made by many. It is
open, participatory, and peer-driven. It uploads, and it distributes. Like
water or electricity, it’s most forceful when it surges. The goal with new
power is not to hoard it but to channel it.
Source: Jeremy Heimans and Henry Timms, Understanding New Power, HBR Dec 2014.

38. Another Harvard Voice on Power
“maybe strength in the 21st Century isn’t about
dominance but the capacity to evoke…the ability to
spark the enduring bonds of shared values, intrinsic
motivation, and mutually committed perseverance….
…the power to inspire, animate, infuse, spark, evoke
– and then connect, link, and collaborate
..the power to evoke consists of four other E’s: the
power to engage, ennoble, elevate, enlighten.”

39. Engagement isn’t the right word – It’s Passion

40. Passion ignited by a sense of meaning and
purpose
The Purpose Economy is
quest by people for more
purpose in their lives. It is
an economy where value
lies in establishing
purpose for employees
and customers – through
serving needs greater
than their own, enabling
personal growth, and
building community
Aaron Hurst

41. Hosts as Alchemists?
Water is H2O
Hydrogen two parts
Oxygen one
But there is a third thing that
makes it water
And nobody knows
what that is..
DH Lawrence

42. 42
STRETCH BREAK
(Time permitting)

43. The Tourism Success Story: 1.2
billion

44. More to Come!

45. The Island Where Tourist Garbage is Stored in the Maldives
Source: Daily Mail
The Queue to Climb Everest
Source: 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 Balinese
Source: ABC They Paved Paradise
How will we protect vulnerable people and
cultures?
Can we handle twice the volume in less than 17 years?

47. Mass Tourism Showing Signs of Breaking
• Volatile demand – boom & bust
• Price discounting – cheap travel
• Declining margins, yield and
benefit
• Pressure for volume growth
• Congestion
• Less satisfaction
• More cost cutting
• GROW, GROW, GROW

48. Where’s the fun in this?

49. We can do so much better
Dying OLD “INDUSTRY”
• More
• Exclusive, benefitting the few
• Gross revenues
• Tourist – wallet, $
• Financial Transaction
• Heirarchical, “top down” leadership
• Silo’d, separate
• Disempowering
Emerging NEW “Visitor Economy”
• Better
• Inclusive, benefitting the many
• Net benefits
• Guest – meaning, delight
• Human Encounter
• Networked, grassroot, leadership is
shared
• Integrated
• Empowering communities

50. I HAVE A DREAM

51. A Dream of PEAK PLACES…..
….of People performing at peak in peak enterprises
to create peak Places

52. PEAK PLACES are places where
• All life flourishes; tourism is the means not the end
• There’s a distinct, feeling, character, “spirit” and personality
• Hosts are in love with their home and look after it with a shared passion
• Guests experience an authentic welcome that inspires and transforms
• Hosts help each other and collaborate to create sustained livelihoods
• People in service to others take pride in showing they care and are valued
by the community as a result
• Hosts are “passionate, smart, resilient, trustworthy, original”
• Visitors generate sustained net benefits to the community as a whole
• Where the community determines direction, pace and type of tourism that
is right for them.

53. H
e
r
e
’
s
o

54. From here
To here?
YOU Can Help us Move

55. • In a globalised, knowledge economy,
connecting people is the vital, core
function – YOUR PURPOSE
• Value now lies within PEOPLE with
diverse passion, intelligence, courage,
curiosity
• For you a destination is not real estate,
it’s HOME; it’s YOUR PLACE
• Because you love your home, you will
protect it and celebrate it. PROTECTION
comes naturally
• Because you love your home; want to
share its uniqueness, you can slow the
PACE, enable them to SAVOUR
• You are the resident, you have skin in the
game, can feel the pulse, create
community, & collectively have POWER

56. Let’s host a party!

57. What skills and characteristics are
needed to host a successful event?
1. Humility: host knows she can’t do it well by herself
2. Curiosity: who has the skills and “know how” required?
4. Creative capacity to Inspire
5. Inclusive – create a sense of ownership among diverse groups
6. Alchemists – create and hold spaces for magic to occur: 21st Century Alchemists!
7. Excellent Listeners AND decisive
8. Responsible, Considerate, Passionate
3. Confidence in the capability of community members

58. These are also the characteristics and
skills of 21st Century leaders
1. Humility: host knows she can’t do it well by herself
2. Curiosity: who has the skills and “know how” required?
4. Capacity to Inspire
5. Inclusive – create a sense of ownership among diverse groups
6. Convenors – space creators
7. Excellent Listeners and decisive
8. Responsible, Considerate
3. Confidence in the capability of community members

60. The Foundation Exists

61. The Foundation Exists
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhjL6XM_Qq8

62. The Foundation Exists

63. So What’s Next?
• From Superhost to Community Leader helping to make your
community a PEAK PLACE!
• Better understanding tourism dynamics – how do we ensure it’s
a force for good.
• Personal and professional development – The Art of Hosting
• Build bridges with mainstream industry and wider community
• Practice the art of community leadership
• Identify projects and issues
• Create a tourism that serves the Common Good
• Link up with other initiatives – Transition Towns, BALLE

64. YOU are the ones we have been waiting for
YOU ARE NOT ALONE
For if not YOU, then Who?

65. What role do you wish to play?

67. Thank You!
Anna Pollock, Founder
www.conscious.travel
theconscioushost@gmail.c
om
Download the FREE book here: