Come to the Conference Center Lobby to pick up your badge and program. All delegates must wear badges throughout the Summit to gain access to all sessions and events. Please check in and collect these items before 17:00 on Monday night.
Join your fellow delegates for a Day of Adventure, brought to you by Turismo Chile. Get ready for adventure and meet new colleagues as you explore the incredible areas of Puerto Varas, its temperate rain forest, pristine waters and the amazing Cordillera de Los Andes.
Come to the Conference Center Lobby to pick up your badge and program. All delegates must wear badges throughout the Summit to gain access to all sessions and events.
Join the ATTA team for a special overview designed to help you make the most of your time at the Adventure Travel World Summit. Meet members of the ATTA team, get tips on how to connect with many of the 700 attendees and learn how to navigate the agenda including Marketplace, MediaConnect, Peer to Peer, special evening events and more. First-timers and Summit Experts alike are encouraged to attend, learn and lend insight into how to best utilize your time at the Summit.
Join us for the Opening Day in Llanquihue and Frutillar to explore more of Chile — it’s people, food, wines, connectivity, landscapes and adventures. We will briefly go over the flow of the day and load the buses for Llanquihue sharply at 11:15.
After an enjoyable 15 minute bus transfer, where you can start networking with your fellow delegates, Chile welcomes you to Llanquihue for an authentic Chilean buffet lunch with entertainment, food and handicrafts all celebrating the micro zones of Chile. After lunch, relax via a 20 minute transfer to the Teatro del Lago in beautiful Frutillar.
Opening welcome from ATTA’s President Mr. Shannon Stowell.
Doug Tompkins knows about the tough decisions that need to be made when it comes to protecting land for long-term economical and ecological benefit. Using his experience converting land into protected national parks (he has created two in Chile and has three in the works), he will address the realistic approach needed to introduce adventurous visitors into new territory with the fewest unintended consequences.
The Carretera Austral is Tompkins’ case study of choice. A mostly unpaved road that connects rural communities in Patagonia, the Carretera was originally created as a development project for villages separated by glaciers, fjords and thick forests. The road is now conveniently poised to serve as a “Route of Parks”, connecting preserved places and encouraging ecotourism in the region. As Chile shifts away from extractive activities like forestry and grazing to invest in tourism, the impacts to the delicate ecology of Patagonia will inherently be reduced. Of course tourism in itself is not immune from impact. This keynote will focus on this unique example of using existing development in a region to support new tourism initiatives.
Travel has hit a sweet spot thanks to the advances of the 21st Century: open borders, a rising global middle class, technological wizardry and a continued revolution in transportation. The world has finally realized that tourism is one of its mightiest industries, and everyone wants in on the action. What about the downsides? Those in the adventure travel business know better than most that the rush to lure tourists in ever increasing numbers can mean trouble for destinations and the planet: pollution, destruction of the environment and undermining of local culture. Drawing on her years of research for “OVERBOOKED: The Exploding Business of Travel and Tourism” Elizabeth Becker will address the opportunities and responsibilities of tourism today and suggest how adventure tourism can be a leader in this new golden age of travel.
Our experts, led by Arnie Weissmann from Travel Weekly, will summarize the general evolution of travel and tourism and characterize what’s happening in key sectors of the industry, like cruise, resort, adventure and ecotourism. As more people around the world enjoy greater economic freedom and the ability to travel, how must the tourism industry prepare to manage ever-increasing numbers of visitors to both established and emerging destinations? What are the primary lessons to be taken from the history of tourism development up to this point? What strengths exist within the adventure industry that might be beneficial to the tourism industry at large in this time of rapid expansion and change?
The Chilean hospitality continues with a warm welcome and opening inauguration and dinner. Delicious food, wine, live music will be incorporated as we celebrate the incredible diversity of Chile. After a full day, we will board the bus to return to Puerto Varas.
It is the people who follow their passions, their values and their hearts that drive innovation, creation and – revolution. During our plenary session speakers from distinctly different backgrounds will talk about their passions and ignite your own sense of purpose.
“Life is an adventure of passion, risk, danger, laughter, beauty, love; a burning curiosity to go with the action to see what it is all about, to go search for a pattern of meaning, to burn one’s bridges because you’re never going to go back anyway, and to live to the end.”
― Saul D. Alinsky, Reveille for Radicals
Power of Food – Rodolfo Guzman
Rodolfo Guzman is not just a top chef and seasoned forager. He believes the real power of food is as a catalyst for change. Eight years ago when the restaurant Boragó was on the verge of closing, Guzman entered with a focus on revaluing endemic Chilean ingredients and was inspired by cooking methods and traditions practiced for centuries by Chile’s indigenous Mapuches. His goal; tell the story of Chile’s terrain, people and culture through its food. Boragó is now hailed as a groundbreaking restaurant firmly ensconced among the top tables on the planet; and Guzman as one of Latin America’s most visionary chefs. As a results of this passion, a growing ecosystem of over 200 foragers, farmers and fishermen provide food for Boragó, fostering a model economy which values and protects Chile’s natural and cultural resources.
Mountains of the Mind – Omar Samra
In 2013, having just become the first Egyptian to climb the seven Summits, things couldn’t get better for entrepreneur Omar Samra. After his last expedition, he headed from Alaska to Miami to reunite with his soul mate and witness the birth of their first baby, Teela. In less than a month tragedy struck and his life as he knew it was no more. This is a talk about a man who found out that the mountains he’d climbed were never meant to be his biggest challenge, and he began picking up the pieces. Samra’s journey from here has taken him from the two poles to space and the beginning of finding answers to life’s most important question.
Conservation Travel – defined as sustainable travel that directly protects the natural resources on which the industry thrives – is the only future for the Adventure Travel industry. In this session learn more about the ATTA–WWF partnership to promote and support the mainstreaming of Conservation Travel practices in our industry. Gain access to new tools that help all ATTA members and the adventure travel community implement, market, finance and scale Conservation Travel practices, including an innovative scorecard for destinations. These tools will help businesses incentivize and invest in conservation and inspire the traveler to engage in our planet’s future. Through compelling cases, delegates will gain insight into real-life challenges and successes from colleagues at the cutting edge of Conservation Travel. This session runs concurrent to Marketplace.
The 2015 Tour Operator MARKETPLACE features 100 inbound tour operators and accommodations from around the world and provides a focused setting to connect with potential partners, hold business meetings and promote your brand. A global delegation of buyers (outbound tour operators, wholesalers and travel advisors) and media attend our marketplace as it facilitates quality introductions and product development discussions.
Be part of a journey through the majestic Andes, the beauty of the Pacific Coast, the mysteries of the Amazon rainforest and the enchanted Galapagos Islands. A trip into the past and the present of a mega-diverse territory blessed with natural wonders and full of friendly people. Welcome to an unprecedented adventure! Welcome to Ecuador!
The possibility exists that Indigenous feet trod on every accessible space within Chile and, indeed, all of South America. Indigenous knowledge extended to all waters, forests, deserts, mountain slopes and valleys. Indigenous people followed the ancient paths through all landscapes, traveling widely for exploration, trade and hunting. Ancient lifeways supported an intricate relationship with the natural world that continues to influence modern Indigenous wisdom, knowledge and spiritual beliefs.
In this 90-minute session you will hear perspectives from Manuel Maribur, Mapuche Trekan and Tuhiira Tucki Huke, Green Island Tours Rapa Nui, representing values-based tourism for Indigenous communities. Juan Marambio from Travolution will discuss how non-Indigenous tour operators can support the development of this important culture and nature-based sector. You will hear the government position on Indigenous tourism development from Carolina Peña Tondreau, Sernatur. Other speakers will participate in the roundtable dialogue with an emphasis on developing sustainable Indigenous tourism. This session runs concurrent to Marketplace.
Marketplace Partner: Ripcord
Marketplace Partner: Ripcord
Film has inspired people to adventure and to travel around the globe since its inception as an art form. Adventure in Motion is a contest in its second year that honors that spark of wanderlust that is ignited by the stories told through video. Join us as we explore visual storytelling through several films including the winner of this year’s Adventure in Motion film contest and to learn what destinations, emotions, sounds, and stories have inspired travelers to vote for their favorite.
Enjoy a BIG Alaska evening with the 2016 Adventure Travel World Summit host, Visit Anchorage, for a night of music, dancing and entertainment. After dinner, head back to Los Volcanes at 21:15 to join us for the band Pamyua – self-described as “tribal funk” and “world music.” Come and revel in their sounds and get Alaska wild.
How can we as an industry and a community be a force for good and earn an international leadership position in the sustainability revolution? In order to get it right and make a difference that counts, we need diplomatic smarts and global awareness. Former Canadian Ambassador, Tim Martin, has been at the forefront of peace and security work in Latin America, Afghanistan, the Middle East and Africa. Tim will share insights and tips from his career as a diplomat as to how adventure tourism professionals can drive positive change in the international arena. His presentation will include the revolutions around us today – and the counter revolutionaries that threaten them. He will talk about his first-hand experience leading the Kimberley Process to ban blood diamonds and the lessons it holds for changing international business patterns. Drawing from his thirty years of experience, Tim will recommend how adventure travel professionals can prepare to drive positive change in today’s global environment.
At the industry’s urging, and to help address the gap in performance and qualification standards for adventure travel guides, the ATTA took on the task of convening and leading an industry working group to define a global standard for adventure travel guides. Along with group facilitator Christina Beckmann and team recorder Gabi Assis, Dan Moore led the group by consolidating comments and drafting sections of the standard for group review and comment. In this session Moore will introduce the adventure travel guide qualification and performance standard that resulted from the group’s effort.
A selection of panelists will join Moore to discuss how they see applying the new standard at the destination level as it applies to adventure travel regulation and policy, and at the company level, as it provides a guideline for guide training efforts.
The quest for memorable moments is at the heart of every traveler. In order to create extraordinary experiences, travelers must be completely immersed — totally focused on what is happening in the moment. “Consumer immersion” can be characterized as intense, extraordinary and transcendent moments of “being here and now.” Ann Heidi Hansen is an expert in consumer immersion within nature-based tourism experiences. In this session she presents examples of the role and performance of tour guides in creating these “goosebump” moments for travelers immersed in the outdoors. As a way to implement these findings Hansen will present a toolkit concept for discussion, and will lead a workshop on planning and co-creating immersive and memorable experiences for your guests.
With an overwhelming number of channels and techniques at your disposal it’s easy to lose sight of core marketing principles. Even in this age of content and inbound marketing it’s essential to know what activities, no matter how soft or indirect, are most effective on the bottom line and to allocate scarce resources accordingly. In this session, digital marketing strategy expert Matt Barker explores the methodology of evaluating content marketing and shows you how, with a few simple configurations, you can attribute financial value to otherwise nebulous audience building efforts.
Understanding the hidden dynamics of consumer behavior will reveal a lot about your travelers. Using cutting-edge insights from behavioral economics, this session will show you how understanding consumer behavior has become an essential ingredient for success in innovative industries. This is the first time these principles will be applied directly to the adventure travel industry. You’ll learn how to address challenges and new trends in the global marketplace by taking a behavior-driven approach.
In times of intensity, change and heavy workload, leaders get stressed. It takes a great deal of courage to come to the role of leader every day and inspire others to do great work. How do leaders find the resilience required to stay upright and open-hearted when things are moving fast? What can leaders do, together or alone, to materially thrive when the chips are down, and inspire their teams to do the same? In this very interactive session, we will examine the role of vulnerability, empathy, and courage in creating resilience in your company. This session runs concurrent to MediaConnect.
A customer-centric approach to data, relationship marketing, and your business
Much has been made in the business media about so-called “Big Data”. However, using information to develop deeper customer relationships is not only something that big companies with Big Data can do. Using data to provide customers with better service, better offerings, better experiences, and more relevant marketing can take place at many different levels of sophistication. What is almost universally true, however, is that every company has room to improve. Why? Because customer expectations continue to grow and change, as does the competitive landscape. This session will focus on some of the large trends going on in customer data, applied analytics, and personalized marketing and provide frameworks on how companies of any size can take steps to improve their engagement in these exciting areas of change. This session runs concurrent to MediaConnect.
ATTA’s MediaConnect sessions deliver a format that mixes media tips and trends from top travel journalists, bloggers and media experts. Tour operators and destination specialist delegates receive an opportunity to pitch to an impressive field of international, top-tier and emerging media. During each 90-minute session gain insight into the working world of the media through dedicated 30-minute panel discussions – and then seize the remaining hour to try your pitch to specific media contacts seeking story ideas related to your adventure travel business.
Pitching Straight in a Shifting Landscape (30-minute Panel, 2:00 -2:30pm)
Whether you’re a business owner, a PR professional, a writer or an editor, you probably learned everything there was to know about the “press” when it was still just that — an industry dominated by print. When some of us learned to write a press release or a story, there was no Twitter, there was no YouTube. There were language barriers and expensive international phone calls and yes, fax machines. Things have changed and you’ve likely changed with the times, so in this session we will talk about how the PR / Media world actually works today. How do you pitch a story to a blogger or an Instagrammer? Do different countries have different pitch practices? Should you expect online or social media coverage to come with a print article? Is an online article and social coverage only as valuable? And, what about photos?
AdventureEDU Educator Jean-Claude Razel will provide an short version of ATTA’s two day training course on Safety and Risk Management. This session will introduce safety management concepts and provide basic instruction on how to conduct a risk analysis for adventure itineraries. Finally, participants will be advised on how to transform their safety management practices into a complete system.
A past participant of one of Jean Claude’s full day SMS trainings wrote: “This course was just teeming in practical examples and stories. Applicable to different environments. If we are smart enough, we will all establish safety management systems in our companies. Would like to send all our guides to a course like this!” This session runs concurrent to MediaConnect.
Everything about how you do things in your organization–from hiring great employees, to communicating to customers, to selecting itineraries–is rooted deeply in the culture you have cultivated. What is it you hope to leave behind? This interactive session will examine the key elements of company culture and how you as a senior leader, can and should influence culture to ensure tomorrow’s success for your company. This session runs concurrent to MediaConnect.
ATTA’s MediaConnect sessions deliver a format that mixes media tips and trends from top travel journalists, bloggers and media experts. Tour operators and destination specialist delegates receive an opportunity to pitch to an impressive field of international, top-tier and emerging media. During each 90-minute session gain insight into the working world of the media through dedicated 30-minute panel discussions – and then seize the remaining hour to try your pitch to specific media contacts seeking story ideas related to your adventure travel business.
The Power of Influencers (30-minute Panel, 4:00-4:30pm)
Influencers don’t have to be famous, but they might as well be because everything they say and do is heard and seen around the world. Influencers are regular people and/or passionate online media professionals who advocate for a brand or concept on social media. They are not necessarily celebrities but they can be. It might be an individual consumer who loves your product/destination or a journalist who always wants to write about you. In this session we’ll cover the concept of “influencer marketing” and help you find the influencers who are already following you and potential influencers whose niche and interests match your product or service. These relationships can form organically or result from a partnership; we’ll discuss how to maintain these relationships so that they are most effective.
Free night to explore the beautiful town of Puerto Varas.
Travel: 2030 – Euromonitor International invites you to fast-forward to 2030 to take a look at the Future of Travel. Rapid urbanization, connected consumers and the rise of millennials means big changes to where, how and why mid-century travellers will explore the world. Disruption is already rife in travel as technology and changing demographics gives rise to new business models. Euromonitor will explore the trends that will shape the travel industry and shed light on how companies can prepare for the changes ahead. As Global Director of Euromonitor Consulting, Mike Jozwik is at the forefront of where an how global business is evolving. His work over the last 15 years with governments, financial institutions and Fortune 500 companies across 80 countries provides a unique perspective on the challenges ahead for businesses competing in a global landscape. He and Caroline Bremner, Euromonitor’s Head of Travel, will engage in a conversation that challenges what you know about tomorrow’s traveler.
At the industry’s urging, and to help address the gap in performance and qualification standards for adventure travel guides, the ATTA took on the task of convening and leading an industry working group to define a global standard for adventure travel guides. Along with group facilitator Christina Beckmann and team recorder Gabi Assis, Dan Moore led the group by consolidating comments and drafting sections of the standard for group review and comment. In this session Moore will introduce the adventure travel guide qualification and performance standard that resulted from the group’s effort. A selection of panelists will join Moore to discuss how they see applying the new standard at the destination level as it applies to adventure travel regulation and policy, and at the company level, as it provides a guideline for guide training efforts.
The quest for memorable moments is at the heart of every traveler. In order to create extraordinary experiences, travelers must be completely immersed — totally focused on what is happening in the moment. “Consumer immersion” can be characterized as intense, extraordinary and transcendent moments of “being here and now.” Ann Heidi Hansen is an expert in consumer immersion within nature-based tourism experiences. In this session she presents examples of the role and performance of tour guides in creating these “goosebump” moments for travelers immersed in the outdoors. As a way to implement these findings Hansen will present a toolkit concept for discussion, and will lead a workshop on planning and co-creating immersive and memorable experiences for your guests.
With an overwhelming number of channels and techniques at your disposal it’s easy to lose sight of core marketing principles. Even in this age of content and inbound marketing it’s essential to know what activities, no matter how soft or indirect, are most effective on the bottom line and to allocate scarce resources accordingly. In this session, digital marketing strategy expert Matt Barker explores the methodology of evaluating content marketing and shows you how, with a few simple configurations, you can attribute financial value to otherwise nebulous audience building efforts.
Understanding the hidden dynamics of consumer behavior will reveal a lot about your travelers. Using cutting-edge insights from behavioral economics, this session will show you how understanding consumer behavior has become an essential ingredient for success in innovative industries. This is the first time these principles will be applied directly to the adventure travel industry. You’ll learn how to address challenges and new trends in the global marketplace by taking a behavior-driven approach.
Travel agents in the USA can serve as an important portal and sales partner for international tour operators, DMCs, properties and niche providers hoping for their share of $180B in outbound annual US travel. But how do specialty adventure providers best set themselves up to work with US agents and get started in this large, highly fragmented marketplace? Join us for an engaging panel discussion with travel agency, destination and ATTA supplier experts to better understand the current US travel agency environment, evolving agency trends that impact US active and adventure travel sales opportunity and what to expect operationally in order to succeed with agents in this important source market. This session runs concurrent to the Peer-to-Peer Exchange.
A customer-centric approach to data, relationship marketing, and your business
Much has been made in the business media about so-called “Big Data”. However, using information to develop deeper customer relationships is not only something that big companies with Big Data can do. Using data to provide customers with better service, better offerings, better experiences, and more relevant marketing can take place at many different levels of sophistication. What is almost universally true, however, is that every company has room to improve. Why? Because customer expectations continue to grow and change, as does the competitive landscape. This session will focus on some of the large trends going on in customer data, applied analytics, and personalized marketing and provide frameworks on how companies of any size can take steps to improve their engagement in these exciting areas of change. This session runs concurrent to the Peer-to-Peer Exchange.
Back by popular demand, Peer-to-Peer Exchange (P2P) will once again be a highlight of this year’s Summit. Delegates consistently express that conversations with their peers and colleagues – and the environment and structure created by the ATTA – is a big part of what keeps them coming back. This year’s sessions will include a unique process in which hard questions can be asked in session and Adventure Mentors will provide expert feedback to all attendees shortly after the Summit.
There will be two sessions, delegates are free to attend one or both. Join dynamic group round table discussions on a specific subject matter that are carefully designed to allow for everyone to engage. During your small group discussion you’ll tackle a specific area of interest and share best practices, get feedback on issues you face and offer insights to one another on challenges. You’ll have the opportunity to explore several subjects during each session.
In addition, each session will provide time for creating questions for the ATTA Adventure Mentor team post-Summit. These questions, arising out of our facilitated P2P process, will offer delegates the chance to get expert advice after the Summit via a unique white paper response from our Adventure Mentors. Continue the learning and keep your development high in the weeks following the ATWS.
Moe Carrick, of Moementum, Inc. will facilitate these dynamic, interactive, and fun sessions. The energy and exchange will assist you in your journey to have the impact you want personally and for your organization.
If you plan to attend one or both Peer-to-Peer Exchanges, please submit this short survey before September 30.
AdventureEDU Educator Jean-Claude Razel will provide an short version of ATTA’s two day training course on Safety and Risk Management. This session will introduce safety management concepts and provide basic instruction on how to conduct a risk analysis for adventure itineraries. Finally, participants will be advised on how to transform their safety management practices into a complete system.
A past participant of one of Jean Claude’s full day SMS trainings wrote: “This course was just teeming in practical examples and stories. Applicable to different environments. If we are smart enough, we will all establish safety management systems in our companies. Would like to send all our guides to a course like this!” This session runs concurrent to the Peer-to-Peer Exchange.
The reach and power of multiple business partners has benefits beyond numbers. Tying well known brands to lesser known initiatives, destinations or products often creates win-win scenarios for everyone. During this session, industry experts from various verticals will share their experience partnering with like-minded businesses on social, email, online and influencer campaigns with defined budgets, business goals and expected returns. Learn how to best create your own strategic partnerships including what you’ll need to contribute, pitfalls to avoid, how to best evaluate success and how to learn from failures. This session runs concurrent to the Peer-to-Peer Exchange.
Reflect on the learnings and inspiration found at the 2015 Adventure Travel World Summit with ATTA President Mr. Shannon Stowell
Join us for a dinner featuring Brazil’s sensational flavors, rhythms, culture and adventure. Oba!
The sessions are over, however we are not ready to say goodbye. After dinner, swing by Los Volcanes room for dancing and networking and final farewells.
About Us
Established in 1990, the Adventure Travel Trade Association is the largest global network of adventure travel leaders. Our community is made up of ~30,000 individual guides, tour operators, lodges, travel advisors, tourism boards, destination marketing and management organizations, outdoor educators, gear companies and travel media who share a belief and commitment to sustainable tourism. The connections and creativity of this vibrant community come together both virtually and in person to create and deliver the solutions that propel our businesses and our communities toward a responsible and profitable future.
