The Global Eco Asia Pacific Conference has been an incredible experience. During the conference, I met experts on sustainable tourism from all over the world and had the opportunity to chat with some of them.

If I compare it with the conferences I have attended in the past, I can easily say the environment was completely different: very friendly and easy-going, probably because I was part of the staff that was organising it.

Due to my role as a web marketing assistant (mainly focused on social media marketing), I have been in contact with many speakers during the past months.

I also took care of the Audio-video from the beginning (for example, I selected a couple of companies and negotiated with them).

During the conference, I helped the AV technicians set up all the instruments for the speakers and their presentations. This was a small role compared to my colleagues’ but perfect for me because I could follow most of the presentations, not only during the plenary session but also during the workshops. This way, the social media coverage was immediate and on time.

The most important and exciting part of the conference has been the delegates from different parts of the world who are running their businesses and are sustainable tourism pioneers.

Costas Christ editor-at-large for National Geographic Travel Magazine and a sustainable tourism pioneer. He founded Beyond Green Travel and Chaired the Tourism for Tomorrow Awards for the World Travel and Tourism Council.

Keith Sproule, Executive Director of Abercrombie & Kent Philanthropy, was a Tourism Business Advisor with the World Wildlife Fund in Namibia in 2014, managing a portfolio of tourism activity in some of the most rural, isolated regions of Sub-Saharan Africa.

Mariglo Laririt, the director of sustainability of El Nido Resorts, the winner of a Tourism for Tomorrow Award from the World Travel and Tourism Council.

Sarah Rhodes is the founder of Plastic Free SEA. She was the Client Services Manager for Think! Social Media in 2014 and has more than 15 years of experience in tourism. Sarah likes to describe herself as a responsible traveller, and on her personal website, this passion for sustainability and responsible tourism is expressed through her travel stories (http://saraherhodes.com/#!).

Lizzie Corke is the founder and manager of the Conservation Ecology Centre. In 2004, she established the Great Ocean Ecolodge, which received the Victorian Tourism Award.

Peter Gash is Managing Director of Lady Elliot Island Eco Resort.

Geoff Manchester, the co-founder of globally successful Intrepid Travel.

Sam Friend is an investor and entrepreneur in online and digital businesses in Australia and overseas.

Jonathan Roberts New, high-speed, low-cost 3D laser technology is about to revolutionise heritage interpretation and management. Australia’s pre-eminent research institute, CSIRO, developed Zebedee, a mobile, handheld 3D laser scanner that captures millions of detailed measurements. It gives users the ability to reliably map an environment in 3D simply by walking through it.

The venue of the meeting is not only a beautiful area that looks like paradise, but it is also very important because UNESCO designated it a Biosphere Reserve in 2007, which means an area that demonstrates innovative approaches to conservation and sustainable development.

I was lucky enough to be guided around the biosphere one day by Ben McMullen, one of the incredibly passionate people who worked, asked, and obtained the Noosa Biosphere Reserve.

The hotel, the Outrigger  Little Hastings Street Villas and Penthouses (now closed) was seated beside the Noosa National Park and just a 500-metre from the cosmopolitan dining and fashion hub of Hastings Street and famed Laguna Bay.