Tourism Shapers | Destination Development
[Music] [Music] [Music] foreign foreign [Music] uh [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] it's great to see saudi tourism authority bringing 500 tourist experiences across 11 destinations to saudi residents this summer in what promises to be a different experience for all up next we have two very special guests fiona jackson and abraham and jeffrey who will be sharing with us some very interesting insights around the development of vanulla and sharing their highlights and strategies when considering how to grow an exceptional destination to welcome both domestic and international guests fiona jackson joins us from the royal commission for allela as the executive director of flagship events and products development abraham jeffrey is here from a gate development authority and he is the head of dmo strategy and abdullah spokesperson from the saudi tourism authority will further be joining us to moderate the session welcome to you all the mike to you abdullah [Music] thank you am for the introduction and welcome to fiona and abdulrahman as the representatives of the two most exciting projects in saudi arabia we're really excited to have you here today saudi is relatively a new leisure destination we just opened for the tourism visa in 2019 when we look at other countries around the world we're still relatively at the new early stages when we develop the overall destination but not only that it's also the offering we provide to tourists in saudi arabia fiona if we start with you while suntra tantura started in 2018 alola just opened back in 2020 when we start with a blank state how do you start identifying the opportunities the experiences you want to have at the destination thank you abdullah um well look there's there's a couple of different elements that we have to really take into consideration um i'm going to start with global segmentation research uh you know this helps us identify experiences that will be appealing to our core global audience segments we're always focusing on our core brand pillars extremely important of heritage and culture as our first priority and then arts adventure in nature after that we also seek experiences that amplify the already wonderful natural assets given to our lula by mother nature this amplifies the deep and rich history and heritage that we have to work with which then brings us on to the authenticity so authenticity is key to our decision making um at rcu we are you know in the in envia in verbal position um and challenging i guess is also what we'd have to say um we're starting from scratch you know so it gives us the opportunity to to focus um on things that really matter you know things like light touch tourism you know the environment sustainability you know innovation so all of these things really are taken into consideration for us to put our strategies together to be aligned with our vision and to be aligned with the national vision as well that's quite interesting or what's what's really exciting about telugu is how you mix history and nature with the new experiences you'd like to offer in alola so it's it's a really exciting destination and and when we talk about another uh exciting destination abraham you worked on developing the destination from your kind from your perspective what kind of experiences does that deliver to its visitors and what are you looking forward to thanks adam and thanks uh fiona for uh the insight that you gave unroller so when we talk specifically about the real maybe the other side of the coin where we have a city that have a lot of historic elements the thing is what's happening in this city that there is untold story so we came here today to develop this destination to bring our visitor to experience the history and transcend through time from the past to the future so we will deliver the culture and the history in fun entertainment engagement way and this is bring us to our brand pillar which is always again authentic like a loyola the second thing is timeless third is inclusive and finally to be inspiring so we want to inspire moment of wonder well that's quite interesting i mean i can see there is a lot of things uh uh where it's aligned between the ia and alola and of course the main strategy of tourism in saudi arabia when it comes to authenticity um back to you fiona i would like to ask of how would you or how do you develop the necessary insight to create the ultimate destination and experience when it comes to alola um well again i think um you know primary research um by our internal research department of audiences and and then continuous research of each experience and concept um this is to ensure that we are on target with you know all of our alignment with all of our stakeholders uh you know it's absolutely critical um you know research really really helps us to understand what you know what do our visitors want who is our target audience and you know with the world of covert that we've been living in you know this is um really important because you know that we always focused on our international market and now we look you know the domestic market has become extremely important to us so this this is all information that we need to ensure that we keep up to speed with um you know we digest it and we and we really work with it to ensure that we we get that critical um you know experience that that everyone's looking for well that was um quite interesting i'm i would always say that uh is is definitely the ultimate destination and one of the top destinations in saudi arabia so it's quite interesting how you can build up your insights when it comes to developing the experiences um i'd like to know more about how adria would would develop their necessary insights at rahman can you tell us more and add to what fiona just said definitely so one of the things that we worked while we developed our destination strategy actually to consider what has been done with the saudi tourism authority what kind of strategy they have in place so this was like the vertical uh element for us the horizontal one we worked very close with rcrc uh to get the necessary insight to build our destination because at the end of days we believe that each destination complement the other the other destination because at the end we are promoting the country so this is like the two vertical the third vertical we're using actually develop our own research in terms of the psychographic uh assessment so demographic has been used for years but today we know that the visitor they have these kind of motive and trigger that we need to trigger to deliver the experience that they expect from us so now we're conducting a set of research and we're establishing a touch point to capture the emotions and the experience and responses from our target audiences so what you're saying abdulrahman is is you in a way use technology to create or to have more insights in creating the destination and the experience and and what i like as well is is that um adria has a unesco world heritage site so as well as so there are two of the most iconic destinations in saudi arabia and of course working in alignment will deliver uh our goals together um back to you fiona how do you put the operational plan together uh when you create an end-to-end experience in a loader oh the operational plan well you know that's that's something that really takes the team um you know we work together with our marketing and our operational team to look at the entire customer experience you know from awareness to consideration and bookings to ensure that you know there is a seamless visitor journey so the flow of information and then we convert it over to our customers um you know uh the operational plan that is perhaps the most critical and sometimes challenging part um of any any product or any activation um and destination development um it's about making sure our systems um talk to each other and people talk to each other and identify the risks and the gaps at every touch point we need to establish our core brand values for experience alula so you know protection of our heritage care for our environment um our people and creating light touch tourism experiences so you know um there's a number of different things that um need to come into play and um you know you always hope you've got it right and i think um it's just about communications internally as well um definitely i mean sometimes the the operational plan when you put it as a plan and then you go and actually work on ground it's it's always a very difficult challenge but what i see in daria and alola in a very short period of time great progress has been happening on ground despite all the challenges in a new destination abraham how do you go about benchmarking benchmarking short term and long term when it comes to idea for benchmark again when we built our destination strategy and we call the dmo strategy we start a benchmark exercise on different aspects so we went to the best-in-class destination as of today the destination that has been there for years like every 40 years then we went to the destination that just came to the map and became one of the best uh destination such as new zealand such as south africa singapore this country relatively they have a new experience but they deliver on the experience that their visitor is expected so we engage with this destination we had a talk to learn from this practices and we engaged with experts in the tourism industry around the globe and finally we engaged with the people who had experience before us such as specifically because they are a couple of years ahead of us when it comes to tourism with the blessing of having thank you abraham um what about you fiona when you benchmark in the short and the long term ad rahman just said that uh did start benchmarking uh arguably self slightly earlier than at the so when it comes to alola how do you usually benchmark in the short and the long term um well look we have a we have a five-year strategy and a one-year destination marketing plan um in which we do a lot of our benchmarking for you know like other similar destinations um that we look for so um you know it's it's very interesting actually benchmarking because you know we're evolving and um as abdul rahman said we've had tantora um you know we've we've got lessons learned um you know but we're always looking um to evolve and looking for new and and um you know more exciting unique types of activations and products so you know we have to stay on the pulse we have to see what's going on around um around similar destinations so really you know we it's very strategic um the whole benchmarking program i would say um that's quite interesting i mean fiona just mentioned uh lesson learned what has what what were the key learnings uh and what are the challenges uh you face and what kind of opportunities i mean usually when we talk about and listen learn we get some new opportunities get new uh horizons uh when it comes to to to listen learn so what were the lesson learned and how did you benefit uh from them when it comes to lola oh well that's that's quite a long question um i i'm i'm like you actually i i like to look at um any challenge as an opportunity and and so does our team and our leadership and um you know it's it's really the behavior of the of the visitor um remember um our lula um opened as a you know really as an open destination october last year um with our product on the ground and tantora was there as an activation before that you know for the for the three months so um you know we've we've learnt our our target audience we've learned um about doing pilots you know piloting different types of activations of product um is a really good way to to understand what's going to work and how we can then before we go into permanent types of infrastructure um so you know we've done a lot of um temporary infrastructure and we want to move to that more permanent type of activation um and and product on the ground so as as it evolves it's really exciting because um you can see that the destination is growing you know every every month every every sort of year which is which is great so we have you know we have learned a lot and we keep learning i don't think you ever stop learning really you never do i mean fiona aloha is a beautiful destinations and we talked about winter tantora for three months and we're happy now that alola is open all year long because an iconic beautiful place deserves to be uh open uh all year long and as well as uh of course what kind of lessons were learned i know you've had um seasons in in the year i know you've had the big events like the g20 and and either ear season etc and what kind of lessons were learned and and it's going to help the destination develop in the upcoming uh i wouldn't say here i'll say upcoming months first i want to i like something so when it comes to destination within the kingdom uh as if as if today the destination of the area and i'm sure it's not rolling it's not going to be launched like once there's going to be a phases right there's going to be like some assets coming to life then another asset coming to light so to emphasize of what fiona just mentioned maybe the continuous learning it's the critical things here so we had we are establishing a lot of touch point where we can capture the moments and the reactions of our visitors to ensure the future programming and to ensure the offering that we're going to offer within iterative so this is like one of the key things and this is going to be happened and captured of course through the saudi tourism authority and there is another element through the real destination itself and there is a third layer through the asset operator because today at the area we are blessed to have the unesco heritage site we are blessed to have a trade which is the unesco heritage site beside that we are blessed to have the support from multiple uh businesses and uh authorities such our ministries such as minister of commerce uh minister of culture and miss who are really interested to have activation within our destination that's absolutely um great abdulrahman and as we all grow together whether as a destinations or more than a project because as you said it's a huge project so it's going uh on segments i mean address has been great it's been really insightful uh unfortunately we have to wrap up our ksa spotlight segment uh thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and learnings with the audience and with me i really enjoyed uh this session and i hope the audience uh did as well um so i'm telling you all enjoy the rest of the session [Music] ah thank you abdullah thank you fiona and abraham insightful discussion uh i'm sure our audience will use these learnings to support the development of their own businesses now i would like to invite a very special guest his name is cheshire he's the chief executive officer for a visit greenland and an award-winning branding and communication strategist and co-author of the place branding manifesto he has worked with a number of cities regions and countries across the world in attracting talent investment and tourists and driving economic development as i mentioned earlier you still have the chance to ask cheshire and we will answer most of your questions during the panel discussion and now welcome chapter the mic to you [Music] thank you very much welcome everybody it's an honor to be here and it's really impressive i must say i've been participating in a lot of webinars uh in the recent months and years and and you are really taking it to the next level so i'm very happy to be here and as introduced i'm the ceo of visit greenland and i'm going to talk about storytelling and the importance of culture and heritage in destination development so um what we have in in when we think about places i've had the opportunity to work with destinations all around the world and every place where i come to has a story no matter where it is there is always something unique about that place there is unique environment the people are different they have different experiences and and a culture and heritage that is based around that so i have been privileged with the opportunity to really dig into the story of each place that i have been to and often come to big surprises that i have experienced and the story is really the competitive advantage of every place and where you can put yourself apart from the competition one of these stranger places i work to is this one i got a phone call and i was asked if i was willing to come to see tukar to run a few workshops and my curiosity was picked immediately because i had never heard about this place so i asked well where is sigtifica well sitifica is the capital of the common republic was the reply and i was quite surprised because i considered myself pretty good at geography but i had never ever heard about the comey republic so i started googling and finding information about the company republic and it turns out it is a republic in europe about the size of luxembourg belgium the netherlands and germany combined so it's actually quite big it's got one of the biggest uh wild untouched original forests in europe and they are so big that when unesco made 10 of it a unesco world heritage site that 10 was about the size of belgium they have their own language which is called comey and is related to hungarian and finnish they have their own parliament and flag and have about a 1 million population and they even have their own religion where they believe the world was created by attack now you might think this is a fairytale place but this is true it's a real place and it's located in the russian federation which is the reason why we barely heard about it and it's located between the white sea and the ural mountains now currently i'm working with greenland and what i do when i come to a new destination and i work with the strategy and and the destination development is really to dive into the story and find what is the core what is the essence of the story here uh where are the roots which it is based on and greenland is exceptional in in that part because it has a very unique story and a very unique relationship with the environment which is extreme uh it's a country it's about the size of saudi arabia at just over two million square kilometers and over 80 percent is covered by ice uh the great greenland ice sheet 57 000 people live there so it's very scarce and you have no villages that are connected by roads you need to travel by helicopters by dog sleds or buy boats these are your options so already there you have something quite unique but not just that you really need to dive into the culture as well so we've been identifying a few elements that we think are of great importance when it comes to the story of greenland the first element that we are going to look at is sustainability of course sustainability is a bit of a buzzword now and everybody is talking about it and it's a it's a big question what does sustainability really mean and we realize that we cannot just take sustainability as it is defined in a european city or an american city we need to really think about what sustainability means for the local population how can we interpret sustainability so it fits the environment that we're talking about you know we can think about veganism and eating vegetables in a country where you can't grow any vegetables and you need to import all of them that's that's counterproductive so you need to adapt the sustainability to your reality and when we think about sustainability in greenland we we look at the three pillars of sustainability now the first one uh that is environmental sustainability and i don't think i need to explain that much here the second one is economic sustainability so it's important when we develop tourism that it's economically viable for everyone who is participating so it can continue and grow and the third and maybe most important pillar of sustainability is the social sustainability that is what is the impact the tourism has on the local community is it creating job opportunities for the local population is it creating economic development for the local population is it creating new dreams for the young ones or even in villages where you've been suffering from brain drain is it creating an opportunity to attract young people back to the village and open up new businesses and and build on on the tourism uh is it creating access to to funding and financing to maintain the heritage and the culture like in the case of of green and dark sledding is a very important part of the culture and it's not just something that's created for tourists it's actually something of the daily life it is your transportation and even when we look at fishing vessels there are over 340 fishing vessels registered in greenland that are docksled and not boats you use them to to drive on the frozen ice and then you drill holes and you go fishing but in the last 30 years sled dogs have gone down from 35 000 to 15 000 so they are under attack from modernity and from climate change so tourism creates an opportunity to maintain that culture and to shift the economy so you can continue with dog sledding even though the old hunting methods are slowly disappearing so we need to put it into co in the local context and think about houses then how we create a sustainable community and a sustainable culture another element that is really important in greenland is adaptability as i mentioned earlier it is an extreme climate and the local people there are experts in this climate there are experts in adapting to an environment where most people wouldn't survive more than a few hours this is something that they have built up through millennia through generation after generation they have been innovative in finding new technologies they have been innovating in the way they dress and this is a mentality that is really important nowadays we've all been going through a pandemic and that has forced us to be quite adaptable and i think the world has done pretty well and maybe surprised itself in how adaptable we actually can be which gives us a reason for optimism for the future because there's still a lot of uncertainty in what is ahead and that ability is definitely something that we need to adapt to all sorts of crises new technologies new trends that are coming and of course climate change which is felt all over the planet so transportation and innovation is something that is built on that heritage of adaptability that also goes into the product development of tourism the third element is exploration and here we're looking at the contribution of the local culture to the uh global understanding of uh the global climate and climate changes and just how the the the world is is shaped in reality because none of the big polar explorers who were the first to the north pole or the south pole could have done that without the local knowledge of the inuit when robert perry went to the north pole he did he managed to do so because he did that with uh for inuit from tula the greatest polar exploration which very few people have heard about are three uh greenlanders who went on a dark sled from greenland all the way across northern canada northern alaska and over the bering strait to siberia a three-year journey and and quite amazing even when we look at the antarctica and the race for the south pole you have almonds and from norway that is competing with scott from from britain and it was an unfair competition so that almond scott was using british technology and amundsen was using the inuit heritage uh he was using dog sleds and he was using inuit clothing so he didn't have any problems he went to the south pole and back and scott didn't survive his expedition so it's important to understand you know what is the contribution to scientific understanding of the environment and how you've become experts in in this area and we need to think about how we can take all this heritage and culture and move it into the future and make it relevant for the future and and for the world and i want to take an example uh we are in greenland proudly hosting an event next month which is a big global event in motorsport it's a race of uh electric off-road vehicles at the extreme e which will be hosted in kangaluswag in greenland now this might be familiar to many of you because there have been this will be the third race and the first race was actually in saudi arabia in march and the reason both of these destinations have been chosen is because of the extreme opposites in the climate and how the local people have been able to adapt to that so it does send a signal um how you're changing the energy sector how you're changing the way you you you travel and transportation and you're making it relevant and interesting to the general public around the world and this relevancy is really really important you know how can you take your story and and shape it and form it in such a way that it resonates with people from abroad so of course we have something that we want to share and we want to tell and we want to show people that we are proud of but we also need to think about what is it that is interesting for the visitor what is it that they want to see what is it that they want to experience and and and to its extent to its level are they capable of absorbing what we have to offer in the experiences that we are creating this context is really really important and if we take a look back at the comey republic i told you about in the beginning i told you about this fascinating mysterious place which almost sounds like a place from a fairy tale but it's all true and i could have equally easily told you about sigtiuker where i went for a few workshops and and some work which was a provincial town in russia and you would have forgotten about it immediately and you wouldn't have been interested in learning more about that place or googling it or reading up on it and still both stories are equally true it's all about how you shape that story and in what format you put it and how you make it interesting for your audience so you can really captivate them so i want you to think about the three key questions uh when we think about the story and how we use the story and our culture and heritage uh in our product development and in the development of the destination the first question is where are you coming from so who are you and and what is your background and and your knowledge not just your personal knowledge that's part of it but also your collective knowledge as a community um what is it that that you build your identity on that is based on all that secondly you need to ask yourself where are you heading because when we think about storytelling it's not something it's not history it's not something that belongs into a museum it's actually something that is uh alive and developing and it's moving onwards so we need to think about how we take that identity and that culture and heritage and we brew it in we move it into the future we move it into the modern times and we adapt it to modern realities and technologies and open it up for for other cultures to come and and visit and finally we need to think about what it is that makes you unique what it is that is different in your destination than any place else because it's easy to build airports and hotels and offer excellent service and good food you can pretty much do that anywhere in the world what you really need to think about is what is it that makes people think no i want to go to your place rather than any other place in the world and that is something that is unique for your place and that nobody else can compete with and that is based on your story so really think about the story and how you shape it and how you can use it in your marketing to create this competitive advantage so thank you very much and we'll get back to some of the key points from this [Music] so if we look at what are the key takeaways from this uh short introduction to what we're doing in greenland and how we are working with the story first of all and the most important point in all of this is that your story is your competitive advantage that is really what sets you apart from the competition and no matter how many how much money you you put into things if you don't have the story that creates something unique you have a weakness in your competition so really focus on your story we look at the second key takeaway that is sustainability and when we think about sustainability it's not just about the environment it's about how you include your local culture how are they how do they have ownership over the development how are they participants in in what is happening and in the interaction with the tourists and also how is the tourists contributing to the local community and to the maintenance and and for the development of the local culture so remember that sustainability includes your local culture and think about how you could really do that our third key takeaway remember your superpowers and when i talk about superpowers i'm talking about the skills that you and your ancestors have developed through history now i've never been to saudi arabia but i've been so lucky to be to visit jordan and see petra and travel in about the room and learn about the story of the napatians and how they learn to travel in in the desert and find water and adapt and it's quite fascinating and i i was mind blown when i learned about al lula and and the the stone palaces that you have there so i really look forward to visit that destination at some point but um like the greenlanders have developed superpowers when it comes to surviving in the arctic climate and and how they'll they use those superpowers to reach the north pole and south pole and and they have something very special and i think you have something very special too they need to think about how you take those super powers and and you you use them further on into the future and your product development there the fourth key takeaway here is your identity and remembering that identity as at the core of your narrative you do not just create some some fancy commercials or or effective brands you really need to think about what is the the local culture about what is it that people identify with how do you create authenticity and when you think about that you also realize that that you cannot really develop sustainable tourism without including the locals and without basing it on their identity and the identity is of course based on the culture and heritage so this is this is what bridges the past and the future uh this is what you take from all the history and the traditions and and you bring it with you as part of your identity into the future and and the further development the fifth and the last key takeaway we are having from this introduction is be relevant to really think about not just uh how things look from your perspective but how things look from the visitors perspective and how you can frame your story in such a way that it becomes interesting and and creates curiosity for the visitor and and in such a way that they really can relate to it and understand it so they can reflect in it somehow uh they can relate to it through their own everyday life or something that they know and understand so how can you put your elements in in context that is relatable for the receiver for the audience for the tourist that is coming so i hope this is useful for you and tourism shapers will send you afterwards a summary of the key takeaways so you can take that home with you and i hope you can implement it in your further product development and the storytelling of your destination now i want to thank the the saudi tourism authority for setting this up knowledge sharing is of great importance and that we can learn from each other when we're developing something like this we're in pretty much the same situation in greenland as we're starting from scratch with very few tourists at the moment and building new infrastructure and and attracting new tourists and it creates a unique opportunity to create your competitive advantage and when we think about sustainability we want to become one of the leading sustainable destinations in the world and that is actually much easier to do when you're starting from scratch and you can really develop everything and every step into that direction while the competition would have existing infrastructure which they need to change into something that's more sustainable which is much much harder so we have that competitive advantage and from what i'm hearing from lula and diria you also have that competitive advantage so it will be really exciting to see how we on those different parts of the of the globe continue to develop sustainable tourism in the future so i want to thank you very much thank you to the sta thank you to all you who listened i will be back after a short break answering more questions [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] wow thank you we look forward to having you here in saudi to experience the uniqueness of our culture really interesting to understand the role of culture and heritage and storytelling as you mentioned your story is your competitive advantage this is certainly important within saudi arabia with such a rich history okay so now we get a look at the results of the poll question we asked at the beginning of the webinar so as we can see here what is of access got eight percent diverse offering eight percent remarkable service twelve percent quality infrastructure twenty percent and the highest percentage goes to compelling experience 50 half of our audience chose compelling experience reflecting on these numbers and percentages why considered compelling experience as the important element of a successful destination in your opinion gesture well i think this is a very interesting question and interesting uh options that people have chosen now as i mentioned earlier we are in the the starting phase of developing tourism in greenland as well so we are actually looking in all of these elements and and you know the ease of access and and building up infrastructure with the new airports that are coming up uh we need to improve the service level because there isn't a history of guests coming in or tourists coming in so we need to develop that quite further so all of these things are really really important but i must agree with the 50 there that the most important if we are to choose one is the compelling experience it is the story that you're selling because even if everything else is in order if you don't have a compelling experience or a good story that you're selling you lose the reason to go that is the most important factor and and and that's where you have that factor the reason to go then you can develop the rest and and uh catch up with the what you want to really deliver absolutely the story is the key oh yes competitive advantage as you said and now it's time for the panel uh i would like to thank everyone for submitting their questions we will start with the first question with the highest interaction it will appear on the screen then the question in arabic meanwhile why allah in english for your experience from your experience how aware the customers of the extent to which tourism is associated with other fields and disciplines such as the impact of tourism on the environment for example i think this is a very good question and uh in general i think tourists do not realize the impact they are having both on the local economy and on the environment because when we think about it tourism is not just the the tourism providers it's not just the hotels and the operators because when the tourists arrive they need to eat so they pro they contribute to the local food production and and the food economy uh you need maintenance for the vehicles so that is also a contribution to the economy and an impact you need to build new hotels and apartments and and attractions uh so it has an impact on the entire building industry the construction industry so tourism has an impact on many many levels and one of the things that we've been seeing now and this may be very important at this moment is the environmental impact we've been hearing about fly shaming uh especially here in northern europe before kowitt so people were encouraged rather to drive than to fly because that was not good for the environment and now we have had kobe does both so flying is considered an increased risk this means you need a higher purpose to travel and we need to also think about that in our product development um how can we create a travel purpose so where you can the client can easily justify that they are choosing to fly to a distant destination [Music] purpose as you said okay now we're gonna go with the second question uh requested by a few of our audience uh what did you learn during your journey so far with the visit greenland well i go with this job only in april so i'm still relatively new in this job and even though i knew a lot about greenland beforehand i've been traveling there since i was 14 years old i come from iceland originally which is the next next country and i've worked with several regional destinations in greenland it's still been a steep learning curve for me to to take on this role and i think what is really interesting is is to think about you need to approach this approach this in a systematic way you need to think about all the different aspects that need to be developed simultaneously you need the access you need the education for the locals you need the the service level and you need the attractions of course and and this all has to to move simultaneously so um yeah it's it's an it's an interesting journey and and uh i feel really fortunate to to be part of a journey at this stage like you are in so yeah it's it's a it's a learning curve do you consider this strong brand for a green land is the focus within adventure tourism and aim to be one of the world's leading destinations in sustainability yes and this is based on assessments of what market segments we can attract and on the uh promise that we can give you know what is the experience that we can offer uh as i said earlier it's it's a very huge country with a few people and a very challenging natural environment so mass tourism isn't really an option in greenland uh there is no capacity to do that you can't just have people in buses driving around because there are no roads and there are no big airports either so it's always quite challenging to move people around so we've decided to go for adventure tours because they usually travel in small groups uh they're very keen on learning about the local culture and they leave more money with the local culture than other types of tourists additionally it is the segment that is growing the fastest when it comes to tourism great okay now we're gonna go with the third question our audience wanted to know more about which are the main topics or concerns linked to tourism sustainability at the moment in the region it is clearly how we involve the local communities and how we work with adapting sustainability and the concept of sustainability to the reality that we have in the local communities which is a very different reality from a european or an american city um so i would say that is is our biggest challenge when it comes to sustainability how can we redefine this uh as i mentioned with the vegetables earlier you know when you live in in these locations you you live by hunting and and that's how you provide food we are getting cruise tourists to greenland that's about half of all tourists that come today and this is also a challenge because we can create a feeling of mass tourism when you have a ship with 2 000 passengers that comes to a small settlement with 100 inhabitants uh even though 2002 doesn't sound much and maybe the only 2000 tours that come in the whole week when they all come at the same time to such a small spot it does create a challenge so we monitor very well how people the local people react to tourists and and how happy they are with the tourists so we don't create resentment against the tourists or foreigners in the country in relative to this um our audience actually the last question we have uh for this panel is um okay just to make sure okay this one uh how are you engaging local communities in your sustainability strategy to visit uh greenland this is a very important question and it's a question that we're constantly asking ourselves uh how we can better do this first of all it's very important that we include the local stakeholders we need to identify the local stakeholders in the community and we need to engage with them we need to hear them out and hear their concerns and and their wishes and dreams for the development of tourism and sometimes they're not even interested because they have some other options that are more interesting um but in general it's about finding those stakeholders involving them in the decision process uh giving them an opportunity to have a sense of ownership i think that's very important and when i talk about ownership it's not just access to investment or becoming an investor or part owner of the operations that are there but it's also about having ownership over the process and over the decision making in that process so that is something that we focus on a lot okay well i have a question myself to you now we're talking about how uh sustainable tourism have a lot of positive goals there must be a concrete measurement system that enables the business to determine their progress towards sustainability in your opinion how to measure the progress of sustainable tourism well there is clearly uh there are some some measurements that you can use but that is the challenge that we've been running into they are when you have very precise measurements on sustainability they are very often based on realities that do not apply in greenland but i think for us of course we measure environmental impact uh we we look at if if the tourists are destroying the the environment where they are working and traveling and and to avoid that we need to build some infrastructure and pathways etc but i think as local communities are the key part of sustainability in our definition the survey that we do where we measure how happy people are with the tourists that are coming and what their attitude is towards them is maybe one of the most important uh measurements that we look at uh job opportunities that are created is another one and then in general the economic development okay so uh to wrap it up we agree on the fact that creating a sustainable destination essentially comes down to giving consideration to the environment and local community wow thank you so much and i wish you all the best uh while leading the restart of tourism to a greenland thank you very much and i wish you all the best in saudi arabia well with opening up the country to tourists it will be an exciting journey looking forward to have you here in saudi okay it's a deal yes thank you all right thank you thank you so much thank you all for joining us today and sharing your views and experiences such a pleasure for me to moderate this session i will be back shortly after this beautiful video of an asap [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] you
2021-07-29 13:23
