The Back to Life Learning Journey will commence in June 2020.

Prior to that, and in order to generate a shared awareness of the need to change how we "do" tourism differently and envision a better, more resilient future, we will post articles, videos and pre-recorded interviews here to whet your appetite for more.

The following interview with course faculty, Anna Pollock and Michelle Holliday,  was conducted in very early March before the Covid pandemic stopped tourism in its tracks. 

Covid19's Message

Immediately following the announcement to impose physical distancing,  Anna Pollock was working with the Bay of Plenty to launch their new strategy. The closure of the meeting provided an opportunity to reflect on lessons that could be learned from this pandemic. 

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FURTHER READING 

 

In September 2020, Anna and Michelle worked with Visit Flanders to design and contribute to a Summit, Travel to Tomorrow that gathered participants in a two-year process of engagement and discovery. Since the observations Michelle made then to writer Griet Bouwens apply even more directly to tourism in a post Covid19 world we’re sharing them here.

Tourism is not a machine, Michelle said, not something like a conveyer belt that processes tourists from arrival to leaving. Tourism is rooted in the living system of community and place. Tourism’s essential activity is hosting guests who can experience aliveness, health, joy, justice, learning and awareness.

After her keynote, Michelle had a lot of conversations with participants in the summit. It brought her to a deeper understanding of what is needed now in the sector of tourism. “I’m hearing a need to change the language, to change the terminology we use to describe the activities we call tourism”, she says. “The word “tourism” is so antiseptic and abstract, it doesn’t refer to human connection and activities. It’s a sector and an industry that has its own demands of us. We are in service of it, instead of what’s alive.”

Let’s try something different

What if we would name tourism by its essence? How different would we experience our contribution to tourism if we put our emphasis on ‘hosting’? Then the tourism sector could transform into a multiplicity of hosting communities.

Tourists become guests. Instead of serving them, we would welcome them with an openness to also learn from them and to be transformed in the encounter. Michelle: “I heard many people saying that there are too many tourists and those who come are not always respectful. So, what if we invite them to be hosted in our communities? Would that encourage them to show up differently?”

Marketing could become ‘inviting’. If we ‘invite’, it can be on our terms. We then invite the visitors who come with an attitude that is also a gift to us.

Something very, very different…

“I am hearing we could safely stop promoting and marketing”, Michelle challenges. “If we are afraid of overtourism, and we are afraid of receiving tourists with an attitude we don’t really want in our communities, why don’t we pause awhile, regroup and decide together: who are we and what do we want? What is the invitation we want to extend, trusting that this invitation would then appeal to those we would like to host, who feel invited. As a host, it is reasonable that we invite on our terms.”

Of the marketing premises that seem to be the dominant logic in the Destination Marketing Offices, Michelle also asks: “Are we sure we need to be in competition with each other? Isn’t every place unique? I hear the sector is rapidly growing, so is there any ground for scarcity? And yet, we still want to hang on to the idea that there is not enough and that we have to defeat other people and destinations.”

I sense a major shift in Michelle’s challenging questions. Yes, our sector is one of inviting and hosting people in our shared ‘house’, Flanders. With – in our hearts – our concern for this house and for the needs of the world. The needs of the world are significant and urgent, with climate change, inequality and hyper individualism, to name some of the major challenges. The tourism sector is here and now, in this time and part of the whole facing the possibility to say yes to the call to contribute.

It’s all about life!

The tourism industry can come to see itself beyond the economics and industry, as a practice ground for hosting for any context, but especially when people are leaving their own homes and coming to ours, says Michelle. This sector can especially become an example for society, where we can practice the skills to welcome differences as a gift, as a basis to be open for what and who is different from us.

This transformation starts locally, Michelle thinks. “Like the mayor of Genk said (in his talk at the summit) : local people want to feel invited to contribute. Local governments can bring them together, support their initiatives without wanting to control it.”

Hosting the hosts: a new role for our (governmental) tourism organisations?

The challenge is to create a shift from controlling or advising partners to hosting them so they can find their own stories and their diverse contributions. Then, every community – and every enterprise and local host – can make its unique invitation to visitors on their own terms.

The first thing that is needed, Michelle says, is that local Destination Marketing Offices create the fertile conditions for their own thriving. Setting up practices within organisations to create greater understanding about who contributes, in what relationships, with patterns that support the hosting practice. Stewarded with a language of life: using words that help us move away from the machine-logics to an understanding of thriving in a living system.

There are three basic questions, Michelle offers to think about:

First, how do you – the destination marketing organisation – steward yourself?

Second: How do you steward your direct partners (like the communities in your region) and help them host their local hosts?

Third: How do you steward this movement without controlling it, and how do we keep on inviting others in? With ‘stewarding’, Michelle refers to practices that are different from managing. Stewarding for her means caring with reverence and responsibility.

Let’s get practical here

Okay, great thoughts and an attractive challenge for VISITFLANDERS and other Destination Marketing Offices. Is there any ‘how to’ advice that Michelle Holliday has in mind for us? Sure. Here we go:

 

1. Invite. There are definitely people in and around your organisations that stand with two feet in practices and at the same time have a big heart and sensitivity for the whole. Invite them to co-create the vision and next steps.

 

2. Ask. What do we take away from the summit as our calling? What do we feel the urge to do now? What role are we called to play and for whom? What shift are we sensing in that role? In other words: who are we now and who do we want to become? What does this journey look like? What are the new skills we need to learn? What do we have to create in our relationships to find the courage to step into this new adventure? How will we see that we are making progress?

 

3. Trust. You don’t have to know what comes out of vision and actions exactly. Follow the energy of what is emerging, cultivate and support what seems to want to happen, and trust that good things will happen in that space.

 

4. Experiment. Dare to act now in the face of the urgent challenges that are on our plate. Learn while doing. Don’t try to avoid mistakes at any price. Instead: learn and move on.

 

“Tourism is about to reinvent itself”, Michelle says. “Just tweaking at the edges will not be enough. In the centre of our questions and actions must stand the role of tourism in the world now and in a hoped for future. The more intentional we become about our alignment with life, the more our guests and hosts – and we ourselves – will experience aliveness, joy, learning, awareness and self-expression.”

 

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