Why tourism needs a new regenerative operating model and key features of the latter

1. Anna Pollock, Founder,
Conscious.Travel
A TOURISM THAT DOESN’T COST THE EARTH
Bay of Plenty
March 18th

2. Nature evolves in response to Crises
We cannot let this one go to waste
Nor return to “business as usual”

3. Five key points in my story
1. RE-PLACE, a broken system
2. RE-DEFINE SUCCESS
3. RE-FRAME TOURISM
4. RE-BALANCE POWER & CONTROL
5. RE-GENERATE and RE-MEMBER

4. 1. RE-PLACE, a broken system

5. We’re Here!
WHAT’S REALLY GOING ON?
VUCA

6. Environmental Distress Economic Instability
Technology – that’s
promising & terrifying
Socio-Political Unrest
EXTERNAL PRESSURES
6
Systemic Flaws
Overtourism

7. Tourism is a derivative, secondary economy subject to damaging booms
& busts
Home Truths Not Faced
We’re not in control!

8. We cannot turn on demand We cannot turn it off
We can only try to re-distribute
We’re surfers
Home Truths Not Faced

9. 2. Tourism is an extractive economy dependent on finite resources
Home Truths Not Faced

10. 2. Tourism is an extractive economy dependent on finite resources
delivering diminishing returns!
Home Truths Not Faced

11. 3. Our operating model is designed for machines that could be controlled
by one vertically integrated industry – in tourism no one is in charge
Travelers
Places
Experiences
Guests
Hosts
Partners
Fulfillment
Value
Tourists
Products
Packages
Consumers
Suppliers
Wholesalers, retailers
Efficiency
Price (cheap)

12. 4. We don’t sell things, we sell an experience for a specific unit of
time in a specific point in space
Home Truths Not Faced
that can’t be stockpiled or warehoused

13. 5. Tourism & Hospitality have virtually no barriers to entry, the product is
perishable, competition based on price = dependent on volume growth
Home Truths Not Faced
dependent on volume growth

14. Every destination seeks to grow the # of visitors
14
WHY?
More visitors =
More spending =
More businesses =
More turnover, more jobs =
More = taxes =
More Gross Domestic Product =
More well-being
What’s wrong with that?

15. Six problems with the GDP argument
15
1. GDP & well-being don’t stay
correlated for long
2. No accounting for costs
3. Trickle down = trickle up
4. Success hurts
5. We don’t know how to turn
demand off
6. Nothing Grows Forever

16. Maybe our Operating system is obsolete
We’re vulnerable, underperforming and out of

17. What else is
changing?

18. 2. RE-DEFINE SUCCESS
From MORE to community NET BENEFIT
From wealth to WELLTH, WELL-BEING
From NUMBERS to FLOURISHING
because

19. ”AFFLUENT” Consumers are Changing

21. More People Are Caring

22. Unipolar Depression –
persistent sadness or lack of
interest in outside stimuli – will
surpass infections, heart disease
and cancer as a source of
healthcare costs by 2030.
Many are Suffering

23. “Don't ask yourself what the
world needs. Ask yourself
what
makes you come
alive, and go do that,
because what the world
needs is people who have
come alive.”
Howard Thurman
“I don’t think people are
looking for the meaning of
life as much as they are
looking for the experience
of being alive”
Joseph Campbell
Perhaps what people are looking for is
LIFE!

24. What do we wish for our children,
for our loved ones?
Well-being, Wellth
Health
Vitality
Resilience
Creativity
Aliveness
Peak performance
Joy
To To 24

25. Business is Changing

26. Some Governments are Leading

27. So Is Sustainability the Answer?
• Shrink our footprint
• “Does less harm” or maybe
• “Does some good”
• Cope – can we manage our way
out?
• But is this enough?

28. Then if sustainability is not enough…

29. 29
We must deal with the Root Cause
We must deal with the Root Cause

30. ot incrementalism but TRANSFORMATION!
+
S.S. Titanic Symphony of the Sea
Slowing down is not enough

31. 31
and seeing
Source: Richard Barrett, The Values Centre
Adjust Business as Usual

32. “The world we have created is a product
of our thinking; it cannot be changed
without changing our thinking.
No problem can be solved with the same
consciousness that created it.”
We must learn to see
the world anew…
32
That lies within ourselves
But where do we start?

33. Recognise: “it’s all in our heads”
Doing
Being
Seeing
Action
Values
Perception
Waking up
Growing up
Stepping up
33

34. see Tourism differently
Not as a Machine but
as a living system
See Earth differently
Not as an it, a thing or a commodity
but as sacred
See Ourselves differently
Not as irrelevant & insignificant consumers
But as vitally important stewards
3. RE-FRAME TOURISM

35. Industrial-Machine Thinking (1950 –
2020)
• Take, make, sell, discard
• Perfected by 2 world wars
• Parts, things, categories
• Fixed linear, cause-effect relationships
• Standardize, replace
• Command & Control = EFFICIENCY

36. What’s Missing in these Images?
Nature PeopleLife!

37. Re-framing = Seeing ourselves differently
Old extractive New regenerative
NOT as a collection of industrial
production and consumption
machines made up of independent
separate parts competing to expand.
BUT as Living human ecosystem of
interdependent self organizing
participants who have learned to
collaborate in order to create and
co-evolve
37(c) Anna Pollock, Conscious Travel

38. Supposing a destination acted
like a forest?
How would it be different?

39. 4. RE-BALANCE power and control

40. Top-down, bottom up
Competitive
advantage
Collaborative
advantage

41. Start by Building a Healthy Community
Populated by “indigenous” hosts who care

42. 5. RE-GENERATE
Create the fertile conditions for life to thrive
Build the capability for individuals, business, communities to
flourish
RE-MEMBER & RE-CONNECT
With ancient earth wisdom

43. To REGENERATE means
“to give new life or energy ”
“to re-vitalise
“to realise potential”
“to create the fertile conditions for LIFE to thrive/flourish and evolve”
to live by nature’s rules

44. The Journey from Degeneration to Regeneration

46. Why and what is Regeneration?
If sustainability is doing less harm, then
regeneration is about developing the
innate capability of a destination
to self-organize, thrive and evolve
It’s about creating the conditions for LIFE to flourish
Individual
Business
Community

47. What is Regeneration?
A PARADIGM
A new set of lenses
A PRACTICE
nourishing LIFE!
A PROCESS
A Learning Journey
In partnership with and by learning from
NATURE

48. 48
Let’s re-frame a destination
Machine
to
Living System
Assembly Line
to
Community
Silos & Hierarchy
To
Collaborative Network

49. 49
A COMMUNITY OR A FOREST?
Do trees do a better job of taking care of their young?

50. WHAT does a “Successful”
Living System in Nature look like?
It FLOURISHES IT THRIVES
• It’s self-organizing
• Creates conditions for other life to exist
• Adaptable, constantly changing, resilient
(learning)
• Balance with all other parts – harmony
• Productive – generates ABUNDANCE
• Efficient - Zero waste
• It’s evolving – greater order, complexity,
beauty - dynamic equilibrium
• Unique, distinctive
It’s ALIVE!

51. Some critical questions
What will it take to restore a healthy relationship with Nature and serve life ?
Are we going to be an economic sector that serves life or kills it?

52. What will it take to have them fall in love with life?
What will it take to have our guests feel their kinship (connection) with nature?
How do we evoke wonder, awe, fascination, passion, reverence ?
How can we learn to live by nature’s rules?

53. What will it take to unleash the untapped potential within the human being
and nurture our capacity to flourish?
How do we put the HEART and SOUL back into tourism?

54. How do we shift from mining to gardening?
54
How do we become the stewards &

55. How do we shift from a Transaction to an
Encounter?

56. 56
Joy, delight, empathy, warmth, belonging,
welcome, delight, aliveness
Wonder, awe, meaning, purpose,
fulfillment, connection
Calm, peace, excitement, challenge,
exhilaration, challenge, all senses alive &
functioning
HOW DO WE ENRICH THE ENCOUNTER?

57. What HUMAN skills are needed?

58. How do we create and sustain a Visitor Economy that tangibly enables
resident individuals, businesses and communities to thrive, flourish and
be healthy in every way?
Individuals Enterprises Places

59. The Benefits of Using Flourishing as an Indicator of Success
Applicable to individuals, businesses, destinations (nature, culture and society)
Encompasses human well-being, financial performance and environmental health
Delivers: increased productivity, resilience, adaptability and innovative capacity
Can be measured using indicators developed in psychology and ecology
Allows for growth, development and evolution

60. How do we grow Net Benefit ?
Conceive wealth as “wellth” Ensure the benefits “stick”
Localise
Capitals or Capacities?
Bring everyone along

61. Start by Building a Healthy Community

62. PERSPECTIVE – seeing tourism through
a living systems lens
PURPOSE/SUCCESS
defining success,
purpose,
role
PEOPLE
Realising human
potential
RELATIONSHIPS/VALUE – enriching,
enlivening, enchanting
ENCOUNTERS
COMMUNITY – tapping into
collective intelligence
ENTERPRISE/ECONOMY
Flourishing Businesses
PLACE WHO is this
place and how do
we love & care
for it?
That become flourishing places that care

63. Re-member & Re-connect
With ancient earth wisdom
Kaitiakitanga
Manaakitanga
Kotahitanga
Could Aotearoa brings us back to

64. Thank you – please join us on this
Journey
Anna Pollock, Founder, Conscious Travel
For more please ask!
anna@conscious.travel
+44 7799758672