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WTM sustainable tourism seminars

Hello! Two weeks ago I attend the World Travel Market in London,  I was particularly interested in seminars and events focused on responsible tourism. This was the first time for me to attend an International event as a professional and not as an organiser or a student, I did my best to take advantage of the whole time I spent there.

I believe a young professional at the very beginning of the career needs to meet a wide range of colleagues: experts working in the field for a long time but also  professionals of the same age.

The main reason why I decided to follow the seminar was that I wanted to see who my colleagues are, who my clients could be, who are the faces of responsible tourism sector. It has been very inspiring listening to them and having the chance to chat and give my positive opinion to the most interesting initiatives, I have written last week about seminars, please click here to read.

My experience has been great because I had the chance to organise a few meetings and to chat with many colleagues and professionals. There were many occasions to chat during WTM, also lunchtime has been a good chance, I have met colleagues from Costa Rica and decided to visit their stand.

WTM responsible tourism Stand

I recommend any first time attendees to do the same if you need to speak with any person in particular:

– what do you want to say?
– who do you what to speak to?
– contact the person weeks early and set up a meeting.

(photo networking) WTM responsible tourism networking event

I found the networking reception very interesting (only a bit too crowded but it was nice to see how many people are working in responsible or sustainable tourism sector), it gave me the opportunity to meet in person people I knew before only online and new friends never met before.

Probably I have been a bit too shy for a networking reception, but I am learning how to become more confident. I wasn’t sure if I was approaching the right people I found our faces a bit different in real life but anyhow I did interesting meetings, I had the chance to cross path with and introduce myself to great experts and inspiring people, such as Justin Francis, Harold Goodwin and Xavier Font, it was great.

On Monday I also attended the SKAL London reception at the Aloft Hotel, I am a SKAL young member in Italy and I felt like home meeting many Skalleagues from all over the world during the event. Stay tuned, I am going to share details soon.

Stay tuned & Keep in touch the best is yet to come
Sara 🙂