IMPACT Conference Back In January 2022
The IMPACT Sustainability Travel & Tourism Conference is set for Victoria, BC from Jan. 23 to Jan. 26, 2022; with registration opening on Sept. 15, 2021.
It also announced that the Indigenous Tourism Association of Canada, Tourism Research Association of Canada are once again co-hosting the conference, while favourite speakers Elizabeth Becker, Wade Davis, Keith Henry, and Bob Sandford will attend the event in person.
Synergy’s Jill Doucette, IMPACT co-founder, said: “Like so many tourism destinations and businesses, we had to pause everything and reimagine our own business models while facing the repercussions of the global pandemic. However, the discussions and needed actions identified during our conferences in the past ring as true today as they did then.”
Doucette noted that: “Tourism’s role in a strong Canadian economy is better understood and it is our hope through IMPACT 2022 that we spur initiatives and investment to build back a better tourism industry that provides positive and regenerative impacts for communities from coast to coast to coast.”
Indigenous Tourism Association of Canada’s Henry and author Sandford have attended IMPACT since its inception in 2018.
Sandford holds the Chair in Water and Climate Security at the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health. In this capacity, he was the co-author of the UN Water in the World We Want report on post-2015 global sustainable development goals relating to water.
He is also lead author of Canada in the Global World, a new United Nations expert report examining the capacity of Canada’s water sector to meet and help others meet the United Nations 2030 Transforming Our World water-related Sustainable Development Goals.
Henry faced a significant challenge these past two years as the tourism shut down due to COVID disseminated Indigenous tourism across Canada and initial funding models were not accessible to member businesses.
His unrelenting advocacy work helped secure an additional over $60 million in funding for the Indigenous tourism sector, which pre-COVID was the fastest growing sector of Canada’s tourism industry.
He sees Indigenous tourism experiences as an opportunity to support reconciliation efforts across the country as more Canadians express an interest in learning about the authentic history behind Indigenous relations across the country and the true impact on Indigenous communities.
Author Elizabeth Becker was named honorary chair of the IMPACT conference in 2018, and only missed attending 2020 as she completed her critically acclaimed book You Don’t Belong Here.
Becker continues to comment on tourism’s positive and negative impacts on communities and the world economy, following the 2013 publishing of Overbooked: The Exploding Business of Travel & Tourism.
Wade Davis presented at IMPACT in 2020, the first time he had ever spoken to an audience of all tourism experts and operators, yet his work has reverberated across the industry for generations.
Davis is a National Geographic Explorer, anthropologist, ethnobotanist, author, and photographer whose work has focused on worldwide indigenous cultures, especially in North and South America.
He’s been described as a “rare combination of scientist, scholar, poet, and passionate defender of all life’s diversity.” Currently, he is a Professor of Anthropology and the BC Leadership Chair in Cultures and Ecosystems at Risk at the University of British Columbia.
His work has taken him to East Africa, Borneo, Nepal, Peru, Polynesia, Tibet, Mali, Benin, Togo, New Guinea, Australia, Colombia, Vanuatu, Mongolia, and the high Arctic of Nunavut and Greenland.
Registration for IMPACT will be available Sept. 15, 2021 with delegate fees beginning at $655.00 for early bird registration (deadline Nov. 30, 2021), $765.00 regular, $550.00 student.
IMPACT’s early sponsors include MMGY Global, Fortis BC, Tourism Vancouver Island and to our partners the Indigenous Tourism Association of Canada and Tourism Research Association of Canada.
Go to https://www.tourismvictoria.com/impact for more.
