A conversation with the Critical Tourism Studies network, Opatija, Croatia, June 29th, 2015

1. a conversation between
The Critical Tourism Studies Network
and
Anna Pollock, Founder, Conscious Travel
Opatija, CROATIA, June 29th, 2015
A New Tourism for a New Economy

2. A Conversation that
• Is inclusive: industry practitioners, policy makers, host
communities and academics
• Encourages critical thinking that..
• Gets to the root of the problem – yes radical!
• Stimulates the imagination
• Is positively creative
• Involves our whole selves: mind, bodies, heart and
soul

3. Role
Strategist, thinker, “sense maker” Social Entrepreneur

4. Why Conscious?

5. Wake Up to the nature of change
Sustainable Tourism Certification Alliance Africa
http://www.slideshare.net/AnnaP/beyond-csr-sustainability
Victoria Tourism industry Council
http://www.slideshare.net/AnnaP/vtic5-game-changing-long

6. Wake Up

7. Grow Up

8. Step Up

9. 1. Old economy is hooked on growth
2. Not paying full cost (externalities); or engaging in protection (insufficient de-
coupling)
3. High leakage (only 5% stays in host community where all inclusive resorts are
concerned); wealth increasingly concentrated
4. Heavy resource users (land, water) and waste producers (emissions, trash)
5. Diminishing returns – “Cheap Travel” homogenization, commodification,
6. Limited local ownership – property and development rights closely aligned with
sources of capital
7. Poor labour-relations record; low pay; seasonal, temporary work, poor conditions
8. Boom & bust – resilience?
9. Social cost: trafficking, displacement, child abuse, disempowerment,
10. Market splitting (bifurcating!): Price-Experience
Plenty of Fodder for Criticism

10. The Tourism Tsunami
Demand forecast
Demand dependent

11. The UNWTO Position
The core of our mandate as a UN-specialized agency is to promote
sustainable tourism, but you can’t promote sustainability if you don’t
promote tourism, so that’s why we said competition and growth on
one hand and sustainability on the other.
We stand for a belief that the growth of this industry on one hand and
the preservation, protection, responsibility and sustainability on the
other hand are not a zero-sum game. We believe that we can continue
to grow, we have to embrace growth and never be afraid of it. UNWTO

12. Conscious Travel “Model”

13. 1. Business as usual is impossible and unsustainable
2. We must shift our focus from symptoms to root causes
3. We need to understand how systems work
4. Shift from an Extractive to a Regenerative Economy
5. Change Our Purpose – from bigger to better; from more to
flourishing
6. Empower People in Communities – change from bottom up
Perspective: Six Assumptions

14. Conscious Travel Principles

15. 1. Business as usual is impossible and unsustainable
2. We must shift our focus from symptoms to root causes
3. We need to understand how systems work
4. Shift from an Extractive to a Regenerative Economy
5. Change Our Purpose – from bigger to better; from more to
flourishing
6. Empower People in Communities – change from bottom up
Perspective: Six Assumptions

16. Look where we’ve come
from!
Link

17. We’ve started a new geological era: the
Anthropocene
SOURCE: http://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/gallery/2015/apr/01/over-population-over-consumption-in-pictures#img-1

18. Do we really understand Exponential
Growth?
SOURCE: http://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/gallery/2015/apr/01/over-population-over-consumption-in-pictures#img-1

19. SOURCE: http://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/gallery/2015/apr/01/over-population-over-consumption-in-pictures#img-1
Is This Sustainable?

20. THE GREAT
UNRAVELLING

21. THE GREAT
UNRAVELLING

22. Where are we on this curve?

23. Nature’s Timeless Pattern

24. Business As Usual Not Sustainable
“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”

25. 1. Business as usual is impossible and unsustainable
2. We must shift our focus from problems and symptoms to
root causes.
• We create and name problems because we are problem fixers!
• We declare war on many because we are warriors, trained to compete and
win
• We’re trained to compartmentalise, dissect, break down
• Specialisation rife
• CSR perfect example
Perspective: Six Assumptions

26. The real problem is how we view or see
things

27. “We have one
generation in which
to shift human
consciousness”
Jeremy Rifkin

28. How do make the transition?
From here to here

31. Based on a set of Assumptions – a
worldview• Humans are separate, superior & have dominion over other life forms
• The planet and business operate like machines that can be engineered
• Business is the best form for creating wealth; Money is the sole measure of success
that matters.
• Private ownership of resources is essential to the operation of a free market
economy
• A company’s fiduciary responsibility is to maximize returns to their shareholders
• A free market best determines how capital and resources (input) are allocated to
create wealth (from goods and services)
• Financial capital matters more than natural, social, intellectual, spiritual capital
• The purpose of capital is to manufacture further financial wealth that “trickles
down” to benefit all!
• The combined results of business activity (transactions) in a community is best
measured by the Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

32. Sustainable Economy, Renewing
Capitalism, Conscious Capitalism,
Corporation 2020, Sustainable Capitalism,
Responsible Capitalism, Clean Capitalism,
The Responsible Economy, Capitalism as if
the Planet Matters, Creative Capitalism,
Compassionate Capitalism, Just
Capitalism, Regenerative Capitalism
Spiritual Capital, Tomorrow’s Company,
Breakthrough Capitalism, Sir Richard
Branson’s B Team and WEFs New Social
Contract.
CAPITALISM Re-thinking itself

33. INTRINSIC Systemic Flaws

34. • 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

35. Systemic Change

37. When two waves collide

38. When two waves collide

39. 1. Business as usual is impossible and unsustainable
2. We must shift our focus from symptoms to root causes
3. We need to understand how systems work
4. Shift from an Extractive to a Regenerative Economy
5. Change Our Purpose – from bigger to better; from more to
flourishing
6. Empower Communities – change from bottom up
Perspective: Six Assumptions

41. Why Travel & not Tourism?
• We’re part of a living system…
• A visitor economy
• With hosts (human beings)
• Encountering and serving
• Guests (other human beings)
• In a community of other human beings
and life forms
• That takes place in a unique space
• Embedded in a larger ecosystem

43. Machine Living Organism
Parts – break apart Emergent wholes – heal, make
whole
Objects – objectivity Relationships
“We are a communion of
subjects not a collection of
objects”
Separate out variables Nothing can be understood out
of context
More is better - quantity Better is better - quality
Structure Process and flow
From mechanical to systems
perspectives

44. How do you change a system?

45. Let’s Reframe our Purpose as
FLOURISHING

46. INSPIRATION

47. Human Health

48. Ecosystem Health
•Vitality, vigor, energy
•Diversity, complexity
•Balance
•Resilience
•Adaptable & Evolving
Video link

49. Society
Destination
Enterprise
Individual

50. 1. Business as usual is impossible and unsustainable
2. We must shift our focus from symptoms to root causes
3. We need to understand how systems work – especially
living systems to build a Regenerative Economy
4. Change Our Purpose – from bigger to better; from more to
flourishing
5. Empower Communities – change from bottom up
Perspective: Six Assumptions

51. Conscious Travel Principles

52. Purpose

53. Purpose of a new tourism – Conscious
Travel • Optimize the net positive impact to host community
• Ensure ALL stakeholders engaged in or are affected
by tourism FLOURISH
• Restore a “right relationship” with nature
• Create an environmentally sustainable, socially just
and spiritually fulfilling visitor economy that enriches
and enlivens the many.

54. People
• Changing Workplace
• What does it mean to be a human in the
Anthropocene?
• People from liability to asset
• Engagement = Passion
• Passion + Purpose = Profit!

55. Place
• When places became products
• Death of the Sacred
• Role of Hosts in expressing place
• Resurgence of “place-based”….
• Journey Home

56. Power
• Shift of power
• From companies to consumers
• From employers to employees
• From government to citizens
• From “old” to “new” power
• Power of the individual
• Power of the collective
• How do we empower communities?

57. Protection
• CSR OK but not enough
• Zero waste essential for ground-based hosts
• De-couple
• Stewards of and partners with Nature

58. Proximity
• Buy Local
• Localise movement alive and flourishing without
tourism
• Join in
• Slow down

59. Conscious Travel Principles

60. So What’s It Going To Take?
• Just knowing won’t get us very far.
• We have to transform this knowledge
into a deep passion to change course.
• But passion does not come from the
head. It is a product of the heart. And
the heart is not aroused by bare facts
alone.
• It needs stories that weaves those facts
into a moving and meaningful narrative.
Source: Richard Schiffman

61. What’s It Going To Take?
We need a powerful new story that:
• Shows we are part of nature and not
separate from it.
• Properly situates humans in the world
– neither above it by virtue of our
superior intellect, nor dwarfed by the
universe into cosmic insignificance.
• That we are equal partners with all
that exists, co-creators with trees and
galaxies and microbes in a materially
and spiritually evolving universe
Source: Richard Schiffman

62. Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcacx_i6MIE

63. We will each play different roles

64. Hello tourism imaginals
Together let’s create a visitor economy
that’s
Better
And
Better for all!
Thank You!
Annapollock@me.com
www.conscioustravel.com
Facebook: conscioustravel
Twitter: @conscioushost