This document discusses the emergence of a new model for sustainable travel and tourism. The current industrial tourism model is producing diminishing returns and is unsustainable given population growth, resource depletion, and climate change. A new alternative model is emerging based on conscious consumerism, collaboration, sharing value with local communities, and embracing technology to change mindsets. If deployed properly, technology can help tourism move towards a model focused on sense of place, engaging all participants, and adapting to manage demand sustainably.

1. Conscious Travel: A Better Way
Anna Pollock, Founder of Conscious Travel
Travel 2012, Bruges, November 21st, 2012
1

2. Scope
–The State We’re In
–Why Are We in this State?
–Emergence of a New Model
–Role of Technology
2

3. 3

4. “We have to
continually be
jumping off cliffs
and developing
our wings on the
way down.”
Kurt Vonnegut
Are you ready?
4

5. Let’s Start With A Story
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCAYto7Svwo
5

6. Keys to remembering the spell!
VALUE * MINDSET * PLACE
6

7. Business is Getting the Message
“ population growth,
exploitation of natural
resources, climate change
and other factors are
putting the world on a
development trajectory
that is not sustainable…if
we fail to alter our
patterns of production
and consumption, things
will begin to go badly
wrong”
7

8. • Concur with UN
Secretary General that
current growth model is
a form of “suicide pact”
• Promoting concept of
Zeronauts working on
Zero Impact; Zero
Waste sector by sector
8

9. • To keep below 2
degrees Celsius we’ll
now have to reduce
carbon emissions by
5.1% per year.
• Between 2000 and
2011 we’ve achieved
reductions of just 0.8%
per year.
9

10. Accelerated Consumption
THE PERFECT STORM Climate Change
Energy & Fuel
Material Resource Scarcity
Food scarcity
Water Scarcity
Ecosystem Decline
Disparate Prosperity
Government Debt
Lack of Global Governance
Political Instability
Pandemics

11. The State We’re In

12. Can we handle another 400 million tourists in just 8 years?
How will we handle congestion?
How will we handle waste?
How will we handle emissions?
Protest Sign Erected by Young Balinese
How will we manage our thirst for water The Queue to Climb Everest
Source: Guardian
Source: ABC They Paved Paradise
and land?
How will avoid residents’ backlash?
How will we protect vulnerable people and
cultures?
The Island Where Tourist Garbage is Stored in the Maldives
Source: China Daily
Source: Daily Mail
• see: Can Tourism Change its Operating Model?

13. Diminishing Returns
13

14. What Happens When Downward
Prices Meet Rising Costs?
14

15. What the UNWTO Graph Doesn’t Show
• Volatility
• Net revenues
• Net benefits
• Spending per capita
• DIMINISHING
RETURNS
• Value retention in the
host community
• Productivity (yield per
employee) 90% + of demand factor outside of
the control of anyone in tourism
• CONCENTRATION OF
WEALTH
15

16. The State We’re In
Tourism 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?

17. Mass Industrial Tourism Hangs on the Edge
This graph shows the fate of
individual destinations - could it
apply to industrial tourism as a
whole?
Are we at the inflection point?
Industrial tourism is producing
diminishing returns for nearly
everybody
If yields decline industrial
tourism can only succeed by
growing in volume
More volume = more congestion If
margins don’t grow, mergers &
consolidation are inevitable and lead
to concentration of wealth.

18. How Did We Get Here?
18

19. WHY are we in the state we’re in?
Industrial Tourism Grew Up In the Age of the Automobile &
Mass Everything
It borrowed its operating model and its language from
manufacturing

20. Based on Assembly Lines, Specialisation & Hierarchies
Focus: efficiency & productivity - producing more for less

21. Standardisation, Order, Planning
Economies of Scale - consolidation, vertical integration

22. Mass Industrial Tourism Started with
Great Promise

23. But Is Now Producing a Different Reality

24. The REAL Cause

25. The industrial model is
based on this view
25

26. The Hotel Box

27. An emerging alternative model is
based on this
27

28. Tourism is Human System
Embedded in a
Biological-Physical System
28

29. Huge Impact on Personal Values & Perception
When our values change, then everything changes
29

30. The NEW Consumer
30

31. The Conscious Consumer Report, 2009, BBMG
31

32. Technology, Social, Economic Forces
COMPANIES ARE VALUED DIFFERENTLY NOW
32

33. THE REPUTATION ECONOMY
PURPOSE BEFORE PROFIT
33

34. 3. Purpose & Behaviour
Source: Richard Barrett – The Values Centre
34

35. Impact onCAPITALISM
RE-THINKING Business
35

36. CONSCIOUS CAPITALISTS
•Whole Foods
•Southwest Airlines
•Zappos
•The Container Store
•Google
•Amazon
•Joie de Vivre 36

37. Welcome Signs of Change
37

38. Is this a Tower of Babel & fringe?
38

39. Or, is something new emerging?
39

40. Where have we come from?
OLD MODEL
40

41. The 7 Principles of an Alternative Model
41
© Anna Pollock, Conscious Travel

42. Where Can Technology Help?
VALUE * MINDSET * PLACE
42

43. MINDSET
• How can we deploy
technology to change
the way we think?
• Acknowledge limits to
volume growth?
• Collaborate rather than
compete
• Share rather than own?
• See ‘the other” as
partners not
adversaries
43

44. http://www.tnooz.com/2012/11/16/news/brian-chesky-of-airbnb-explains-new-consumption-model-answers-critics-takes-a-bow-video/ 44

45. MINDSET
• How can we deploy
technology to change
the way we think?
• Acknowledge limits to
volume growth?
• Collaborate rather than
compete
• Share rather than own?
• See ‘the other” as
partners not
adversaries
45

46. VALUE
• How can we deploy
technology to bring
back value….for
– Guests
– Hosts
– Communities?
• Encourage our guests to
stay longer, spend
more?
• Reduce our costs?
46

47. http://conscioustourism.wordpress.com/2012/11/13/tourism-of-the-people-by-the-people-for-the-people-the-story-of-storymap/
47

48. PLACE
• How can we deploy adaptive & intelligent?
technology to express a • Enable places to manage
sense of place? demand & deliver quality
• Engage all participants? experiences?
• Become more resilient,
48

49. Conclusion
You never change anything by fighting an existing
reality.
To change something build a new model that makes
an existing model obsolete
Buckminster Fuller
49

50. Thank You!
Please visit and subscribe to: www.conscioustravel.com
All papers and presentations available on
www.slideshare.net/AnnaP
50