Anna Pollock

Biography

Anna Pollock, Founder of Conscious.Travel, has 45 years’ experience in tourism as an independent consultant, strategist, international speaker and change agent. Past clients include the Canadian Tourism Commission, PATA, European Travel Commission, Tourism British Columbia, the Australian Tourism Export Council, Tourism Tasmania, Innovation Norway, Visit Flanders, Rotterdam Partners and departments of industry, conservation and tourism in New Zealand. Recipient of The Visionary of the Year Award from the Canadian tourism industry,

Anna has undertaken seminal work in many aspects of tourism notably in education, sustainability and technology. During the 1990s Anna established herself as a thought leader on the strategic implications of the Internet; created the first internet-based tourism strategy for Scotland and co-developed one of the first multi-purpose destination management systems.

Her strength is her ability to see the whole “big picture,” ask difficult questions and help others make sense of their rapidly and dramatically changing world. Watched and respected by academics and tourism leaders around the world for her bold approach and thinking, Anna Pollock is proposing that tourism sector both raises and changes its game by applying the principles and practices of regenerative development emerging in other sectors such as agriculture, economics and community development.

Anna suggests that sustaining business as usual while doing less harm will not be enough to successfully navigate the volatile, uncertain waters of the future. Tourism can no longer continue simply extract value but must become a revitalising force that pays its way, protects and enriches the people and places on which it depends and enables people and places to thrive over the longer-term.

She has been working with Visit Flanders for the past two years supporting their Travel to Tomorrow program and helping shift their goal from volume growth to destination flourishing and now is part of the core Tourism Futures Task Force set up by the New Zealand Government to re-imagine the future of tourism.