July 2021: High Level Global Dialogue

High-Level Global Dialogue

On 19th July, 2021
Planet Happiness invited a number of carefully selected, leading individuals and agencies within the global travel and tourism community for a high-level leadership discussion on sector recovery from the COVID-19 Pandemic. The meeting agenda focused on the imperative for the industry to adopt and embed measures of host-community well-being across global destinations.

Central to the discussion was a position paper prepared by Planet Happiness, available for download below and published by our partners at the Good Tourism Blog, highlighting structural weaknesses inherent in destination planning. It offers a vision with solutions to prioritise and support travel and tourism's recovery from the Pandemic.

The high-level discussion was a call to action for partnerships and collaboration to re-build and re-position the industry in the minds of ALL stakeholders.

Meeting Objectives:

I. Discuss the opportunities and challenges of prioritising the well-being agenda in tourism destination planning and assessment of destination competitiveness.

II. Gain agency alignment on the imperative to measure travel and tourism’s contribution to destination well-being.

III. Outline action-plans to (a) prioritise the inclusion and take-up of well-being measures by destinations as part of citizen engagement and sustainability protocols, (b) embrace well-being measures in destination competitiveness reporting.

Outcomes of the meeting are available for download below.

Covid-19 Recovery Position Paper

Meeting Outcomes

Dialogue Moderators

Anita Mendiratta
Founder and President,
Anita Mendiratta Associates

"For Travel & Tourism to once again be a 'force for good', it must be a force for good for all, especially those calling destinations 'home'."

Lauren Uppink Calderwood
Head of Aviation, Travel & Tourism Industries,
World Economic Forum

"Sustainable destinations are those where residents, workers and visitors alike can thrive. Socio-economic, physical and environmental well-being are crucial components for achieving sustainable destinations, and will be major contributors to destination competitiveness as we emerge from the COVID19 pandemic."

Tiffany Misrahi
Vice President, Policy & Research,
World Travel & Tourism Council

"As Travel & Tourism looks to an even more sustainable and inclusive future, the wellbeing of people, planet and destinations needs to be a policy priority. WTTC is committed to achieving such sustainable growth with a focus on measurement, awareness-raising, advocacy as well as local, regional, and global collaboration."

Dialogue Participants

John Perrottet
Global Tourism Specialist,
World Bank Group

“As one of the world’s leading sources of finance and advice for tourism development in emerging economies, the World Bank Group has a responsibility to fully capture and report the range of impacts of our work on people and places. The wellbeing of communities and destinations is at the center of this agenda. This requires robust, reliable, and consistent measures to understand these impacts and compelling ways to communicate them to policy makers, communities, and visitors alike.”

Dr. Taleb Rifai
Chairman I Board Advisor I Global Peace Ambassador

“As an industry and a force for good that brings development, peace and understanding, we need to trust and put our faith in host communities. They know what is best for them and must have ownership and support to guide their own well-being. By collectively working together as tourism stakeholders to apply this approach, we can make our world a better and happier place."

Dorji Dhradhul
Director General,
Tourism Council of Bhutan

"Prioritising Destination Well-being" syncs very well with Bhutan, as the well-being (happiness) of everyone, especially the citizens is the ultimate goal of our development philosophy of Gross National Happiness."

Laurie Myers
Global Head of Strategy,
World Travel & Tourism Resilience Council

"The concept of Planet Happiness is good for everyone and seems the most logical step in societal development. What appears to be needed is the competitive component. Until countries sign up and show the benefits, adoption will be difficult. Therefore, the push must be amongst a small group of nations who agree to engage and thus allow the bigger picture visibility."

Sumaira Isaacs
CEO,
World Tourism Forum Institute

“The main objective of a sustainable destination should be to continuously explore and analyze the relationship between the search for happiness in the tourist experience and the desire for local hospitality, mediated by the congruence, sparked by the tourist's self-image and the destination image, creating a positively interdependent world.”

Debbie Flynn
Managing Partner & Global Travel Practice Leader, FINN Partners

"What a powerful and insightful round table of global expertise, without doubt all agreed the wellbeing and thereby happiness of all communities at the heart of a tourism experience is an ambitious goal but one that we all wanted to be a part of finding the solution to measuring. I believe it is essential that equity and equality should be part of any index and also that economic and ideological barriers that prevent 100 per cent vaccination is also critical alongside addressing how quickly and realistically the travel industry can de-carbonise. We have a mountain to climb but collaboration of so many global players and industry leaders may make the journey a shorter one?"

Susanne Becken
Professor of Sustainable Tourism,
Griffith University

"We need to ensure that community wellbeing measures do not become a subset of destination competitiveness, but instead that the paradigm changes so that community wellbeing is the ultimate outcome."

Juergen Steinmetz
Chairman,
World Tourism Network

"Travel and tourism shapes global understanding, peace, prosperity. In summary this results into well-being and happiness. If a formula can be established based on sustainability, equality and fairness, a Happiness Index may very well become the ultimate tool to explain and communicate the essence of a travel and tourism destination."

Professor Larry Dwyer
Ambassador,
Planet Happiness

"A paradigm shift is underway regarding the essential connection between tourism development and sustainable well-being. Success will not be achieved overnight but the power of its logic will ultimately prove to be irresistible."

Paul Rogers
Co-Founder & Director,
Planet Happiness

"It was an honour and pleasure to host this seminal meeting. I believe everyone agrees this is an incredibly important and inspirational agenda with far-reaching implications beyond the travel and tourism industry itself.
Many thanks to all our partners and everyone who joined this event for your insightful comments and recommendations. We look forward to building new partnerships and to keeping the host-community well-being agenda firmly in the industry's headlights.
Watch this space!"

Laura Musikanski
Co-Founder, Planet Happiness &
Executive Director, the Happiness Alliance

"We are building on robust happiness and wellbeing science and policy developed over the last decade to bring a data-driven approach to understanding and taking meaningful positive action for the wellbeing of host communities, sustainability of sites, and ultimately the happiness of tourists."

Meeting Support

Anna Drozdowska
Ambassador & Strategic Advisor,
Planet Happiness

"Happy local people means happy tourists, not the other way round. Therefore it is crucial to focus on the well-being of host communities, measure it and use results to spark conversations and actions among the stakeholders. It is wonderful to see global tourism leaders aligning around the imperative to prioritise the well-being agenda in destination planning and on its importance in travel development, especially in the post-pandemic era."

Amanda Lucal
Policy, Practice, & Resources Lead,
Planet Happiness

"The need for the tourism industry to refocus and prioritise host community well-being is evident. Joining this high-level discussion with so many industry leaders, addressing the potential challenges and seeking solutions to achieve this, has been nothing shy of thought-provoking and inspiring."