EarthCheck, the world’s leading business advisory group in sustainable tourism announced today that leading tourism futurists and thought leaders will gather in Brisbane on 23 & 24 May 2019, as part of EarthCheck’s Inner Circle International Tourism Forum.
Held overseas for the past eight years, this is the first time EarthCheck’s annual signature event has been held in Australia with this year’s forum premised on disruption and transformation in the global tourism economy.
Talking to disruption and future markets will be guest speaker, Jonathan Yaffe, San Francisco-based CEO & Co-founder of AnyRoad, an experience relationship management platform that turns real-life experiences into valuable and actionable data.
Jonathan said there’s a massive cultural and economic shift globally – from a things economy to the experience economy, and it’s having a profound impact on business, behaviour, and inclusion.
“Traditional retail is dead as the few innovative companies redefine themselves as experiential companies, and millennial’s are leading the way in eschewing collecting things in favour of collecting experiences. I believe we are in the right place surfing this wave, and we’ll be the data platform that underlies it,” Yaffe stated.
“We’re building the Salesforce for offline engagement, which is possible now because data allows us to predict how experiences change behaviour. I want to create a better understanding of experiences and how they impact our behaviour.”
The EarthCheck Inner Circle Forum has gained a reputation for its ability to track market challenges and identify practical solutions to some of the major environmental, technology and social issues facing the global travel and tourism industry.
“Travel and tourism help people to connect with the rest of the world. We now have a new generation of globally connected consumers who behave very differently – and we must adapt to these changes and take advantage of the new opportunities,” EarthCheck founder & CEO Mr Stewart Moore said.
“We think this is the perfectly timed next step for connection with the tourism sector in a phase of exceptional growth. Brisbane is aiming to turbocharge local tourism enterprises, create new jobs and employment opportunities and bring social and cultural benefits to Queenslanders as outlined in the recent launch of the Brisbane Tourism Investment Guide,” Moore said.
“The world is changing and a key focus of the Inner Circle Forum is to bring influential leaders and operators together to discuss the shift in consumer expectations, the visitor economy, destination planning and management. The visitor economy is crucial to future economic development and job creation,” Mr Moore said.
“Our goal for Inner Circle, as always, is to empower industry leaders to take forward the knowledge shared at the event and apply this to their own operations and destinations. As globalisation progresses and various issues become more intertwined, the 21st century global tourism landscape is remarkably different from its 20th century predecessor.”
“Experiential purchases, such as holidays, tours, concerts, etc., tend to bring consumers more enduring happiness than material purchases, such as a retail buy. Tourism and visitor related experiences are now widely defined as the visitor economy referring to overall demand and supply across all sectors within which visitor activity and its direct or indirect consequences upon the economy take place,” Mr Moore confirmed.
During the two-day forum international experts will discuss a wide range of sustainable tourism topics relating to the important future role for tourism development including the experience economy and the role of big data, the age of wellness, shifts in the global management and ownership of hotels and convention and exhibition centres, climate change and building more resilient destinations, navigating the circular economy and making places and spaces for visitors and the new luxury.
“We are excited and pleased that so many influential tourism leaders from the around the world have committed to speak at Inner Circle this month. The forum enables industry leaders to translate their knowledge and experience into actionable outcomes,” said Mr Moore.
In 2017 EarthCheck won the Premier of Queensland Export Award for Business Services as well as the Queensland Tourism Industry Council’s Innovation Award for its Building Planning and Design Standard. The new Emporium Hotel in South Brisbane was built under the guidance of the EarthCheck Design Standard which is used to guide the sustainable design and construction of buildings and infrastructure across the globe.
In the same year EarthCheck also won the United Nations World Tourism Organisation’s Innovation Award and in 2018, EarthCheck won the Lord Mayors Award for ‘Doing Business in Asia.
