the role of indigenous tourism operators in creating a better,more sustainable form of tourism

1. Aboriginal Tourism: Your Time Has
Come
Anna Pollock, Founder, Conscious Travel
annapollock@me.com
2013 National Aboriginal
Tourism Opportunities
Conference
Osoyoos

2. www.slideshare.net/AnnaP www.conscious.travel

3. Transformation
Hopedale, Labrador, 1967

4. Transformation
Lady Skidoo Champion, 1967!

5. Transformation
Bali, pre-electricity & tourism, 1973

6. Message
1.Your time has come but don’t hesitate, as
we haven’t much time
2.Tourism needs your perspective and
values
3.Humanity needs your worldview
4.There IS a market that values what you
stand for
5.The path to that market is not that well
worn – you have to create it.

7. 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

8. Breakdown or Breakthrough?
8

9. 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”
9

10. Costs and Risk to Increase
“ The resources on which businesses
rely will become more difficult to
access and more costly.
There will be an increasing strain
on infrastructure and natural
systems as patterns of economic
growth and wealth change.
Physical assets and supply chains
will be affected by the
unpredictable results of a
warming world”
10

11. Opportunities Also
“ the bold, the visionary
and the innovative
recognise that what is
good for people and
the planet will also be
good for the long-term
bottom line and
shareholder value…
• competitive advantage
can be carved out of
emerging risk.”
11

12. • 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.
12

13. •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
13

14. Tourism: the state we’re in

15. What the 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
• Who benefits? factors outside of the
• Where does the
income stick? control of anyone in
tourism 15

16. 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?
How will we manage our thirst for water The Queue to Climb Everest
Source: Guardian
Protest Sign Erected by Young Balinese
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?

17. Are we at our own “bifurcation point”?

18. 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 from manufacturing

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

20. Standardisation, Order, Planning
Economies of Scale - consolidation, vertical integration
It worked…..but as we grew bigger……

21. Three Big Change Drivers
Connectivity Biophysical Realities HumanValues
21

22. Connectivity shifted the balance of power
“I” AM the
 Author
 Journalist
 Film maker
 Reviewer
 Marketer
 Intermediary
 LEADER

23. Potentially connected to everyone, all the time,
from anywhere
do you have wifi?

25. Biophysical Realities
25

28. Economic Disparity – Erosion of the Middle Class

29. Values Are Shifting

30. The NEW Consumer
30

31. New Consumers still want MORE, but they are
defining that differently.
Now they seek more meaning, more deeply felt
connections, more substance, more control and a
greater sense of purpose.
31

33. The Conscious Consumer Report, 2009, BBMG 33

34. DOING GOOD IS GOOD FOR BUSINESS:
2012
•66% of consumers would
prefer to buy products
from companies that give
back to society
•62% would prefer to work
for such companies
•59% would prefer to invest
in such companies
•46% would be willing to
pay extra for products and
services from these
companies
34

35. Consumers Ahead of Marketers

36. How do these change drivers interact?
awareness
Panic or paralysis?
curiosity
?
questioning concern
more concern!

37. What’s this leading to?
Panic + Innovation Vertigo

38. “We have to
continually be
jumping off cliffs and
developing our wings
on the way down.”
Kurt Vonnegut
38

39. 39

40. Companies are Valued Differently Now
• Connectivity + Content
• = Transparency
• = Competition (downward
pressure on prices)
• = Need for innovation
• = Need for Talent
• = Importance of Reputation
• = Need for Authenticity
40

41. The Humanisation of Business
You cannot control your brand
Your brand emerges as the outer
expression of your values and beliefs

42. What CEO’s Most Focus On
Engagement, Empowerment & Capacity….

43. Purpose Must Precede Profit
Purpose + Passion = Performance & Profit 43

44. Source: Richard Barrett – The Values
Centre
44

45. Impact on Business
RE-THINKING CAPITALISM

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

47. when our values and beliefs change
so does everything else
what does this look like in tourism?
47

48. 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 margin
Rugged independence + materialism creates a mindset of exploitation - animals,
landscapes, plants are resources, then products that can be used to produce profit
The 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
48

49. surely there has to be
a better way?
49

50. Tourism is a Human System
Embedded in a
Biological-Physical System
50

51. Welcome Signs of Change

52. something new is emerging
?

53. Here’s the Old Operating Model

54. Could This Be a Better One?
© Anna Pollock, Conscious Travel

55. NEW MODEL
Plenty
enough, sufficiency
implicit a sense of
limits
Better rather than
bigger
Plenty implies that multiple
stakeholders benefit
Fair, equitable
Help those behind you “wellth” and
on the trail…. happiness vs wealth

56. NEW MODEL
People
encounters
People relationships
trust
transactions only
Plenty occur if trust is
present
BODY, MIND,
Kinship HEART & SOUL
Reciprocity
Respect
Love Individual
Empathy
56

57. NEW MODEL
PLACE
each place is unique
People unique places sustain
value
Personality of Place
Plenty
Living Presence -
essence, spirit, soul
Indigenous people
PLACE understand places
are sacred
Reverence

58. 58

59. NEW MODEL
PURPOSE
what’s the DEEPER
purpose of tourism &
the business?
People
why should
employees bring
Purpose their whole selves to
work?
Plenty people seeking
meaning
conscious travellers
seeking to be
Place
changed
Higher purpose
ignites Passion

60. NEW MODEL
Pull
power shifted to guest
People
challenge is to attract
Purpose to be magnetic you
have to be clear about
Plenty who you are and send
out strong signals
Pull
you need to master
Place
social technologies and
media in order to
sustain relationships
and build trust
60

61. NEW MODEL
Protection
Hosts must become
proactive champions &
custodians
People
Compliance and CSR
Protection Purpose
programs not enough
Plenty
“Licence to Operate”
will depend on minimal
(preferable zero)
Pull
footprint
Place
Stewardship
61

62. NEW MODEL Pace
help guests learn the
art of living
People
rediscover what it
means to be a human
Protection Purpose
being not a human
doing
Plenty
learn to savour &
Pace satiate the senses
Pull
increase length of stay
Place and spend
62

63. NEW MODEL
•Encounters & relationships before
transactions
People
•PLACES before products
Protection Purpose
•PURPOSE & PASSION drive Profit
Plenty
•PROTECTION = zero impact &
rejuvenation
Pace Pull
•PULL as in attract & support not
Place
Push
PACE as in SLOW & SAVOUR

64. Conscious Travel Integrates

65. Imagine......
a network of host communities
each exploring how to deliver net
benefits from tourism,
a good living for people,
and transformative experiences
for guests
each in
their own way?
65

66. In the same way that cells combine to form different organs of the
body, so will the collective output of these cells combine to create a
new organic, ecological form of tourism -
one that is
environmentally sustainable, socially just and
spiritually fulfilling

67. 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
67

68. Do please send comments and feedback to:
theconscioushost@gmail.com
www.conscious.travel
www.facebook.com/conscioustravel