DESIRABLE FUTURES FOR (POST-PANDEMIC) TOURISM

Day01. Wednesday, July 07, 14:30-15:30 EDT

This talk discusses the intersection of futures thinking and tourism, exploring the Futures of Tourism project as a way to (re)discover the potential of a different kind of (non)tourism, rethinking existing structures, and developing alternative visions by imagining and visualizing different futures. Using futures thinking, storytelling, and participatory design can bring stakeholders together and help them critically examine dominant futures and how they can put their own narratives under scrutiny.

The pandemic has prevented millions of people from enjoying their “well-deserved yearly vacation”. With the hospitality sector shut down and borders closed, many touristic infrastructures have been completely empty for over a year and entire touristic regions have come to a halt. Instead, phenomenons such as “digital nomadism” seem to have become a new trend in many places.2021 has also been an important year for climate change gaining momentum and taking over mainstream media headlines. While the decline of tourism has had a significantly positive impact on the world's CO2 emissions, the many people whose livelihood depends on mass tourism are facing an existential crisis. In countless places, the tourist sector is the main economic driving force, with whole cities dedicated entirely to tourism. The sudden decline in tourism and an ever more urgent and accelerated sustainability transition force us to critically rethink the futures of tourism – and to do it now. We need to ask ourselves: How can a polluting, extractive, and ubiquitous phenomenon like tourism adapt to a new world? What is future-oriented tourism? Will traveling be possible at all? What do local communities want? How can they be part of a transformation process? Can we break the path dependency of touristic activities and infrastructures? Should hotels be demolished and leave room for rewilding? Could we repurpose this infrastructure for the benefit of local communities? And can we decide all of this collectively? Born and raised in Tenerife, Canary Islands, and back after spending 10 years in Berlin, Elena Artiles Leyes has experienced first-hand the consequences of mass tourism. As one of the co-founders of Futures Probes, she’s passionate about (re)discovering the potential of a different kind of (non-)tourism for her home island and other touristic destinations. Futures Probes is a platform helping people to rethink existing structures and develop alternative visions by taking samples of desirable futures and putting them at stake. Imagining and visualizing futures matters because only what has been imagined, can be built, and because shaping the future is still a privilege. Using futures thinking, storytelling, and participatory design, Futures Probes brings stakeholders together and helps them to critically examine dominant futures visions while expressing their own – And put them under scrutiny, too. In the talk Elena and Katrina, also co-founder of Futures Probes, will share their knowledge on tourism and futures thinking, the experience they gained throughout the project “Futures of Tourism” as well as showcase the methods they used. The speakers believe that to open the future, all voices need to be seen and heard. With the talk, they aim to disseminate this message, which is the foundation for a fair and inclusive design of a future worth living.

Katrina Günther is a passionate strategic designer, futures scientist, and university lecturer at the design Akademie berlin. In the intersection of these activities, she aims to create knowledge transfer and open up negotiation spaces between different parties. Living up to the stereotypes of her German-American identity, she is a firm believer in pop science and creative ways of communicating complex topics, while never losing depth in cutting-edge academic debates, always questioning what science truly is and, moreover, what it should do for the people. This is also the topic of her research work "Visual Thinking in Futures Science" which will be published in the LIT Verlag. Among others, Katrina Günther's projects have been funded by the Ernst Reuter Foundation, Wikimedia, and the Germany Performing Arts Fund. Since April 2020, together with three other collaborators, she has built the Futures Probes platform, where they collect alternative visions and desirable futures of individuals and stakeholders for specific topics, disseminating futures thinking, spreading alternative visions for society and making thought-provoking ideas circulate democratically.

Elena Artiles Leyes is an Internet enthusiast and thorough reader of future-facing topics that range from tourism as a way of empowering women to how algorithms can help us adapt to new climatic conditions. Newly reallocated from Berlin to Tenerife, where she was born and raised, and with an academic background in Political Science, she is now diving into the crossing area of the participatory making of futures, climate emergencies, and new forms of traveling. She is thrilled to bring futures thinking to the masses and open the conversation in places and minds that extend far beyond what she calls the 'design-thinking-and-why-buying-local-is-good-for-the-planet-bubble'. Elena has worked in Big Data, foresight, and policy consultancy projects. In her research, she is exploring the potentialities of her home island Tenerife to be a living lab of regenerative tourism. Since April 2020, together with three other collaborators, she has built the Futures Probes platform, where they collect alternative visions and desirable futures of individuals and stakeholders for specific topics, disseminating futures thinking, spreading alternative visions for society, and making thought-provoking ideas circulate democratically.