At the Tourism CoLab

Regenerative

Transformational

Purpose-led

Inclusive

...is the future of tourism.

Our approach to designing tourism puts nature at the table as equal partners alongside local communities and the business sector. It's the only way forward to plan the future of our visitor economies.

The intentional design of visitor economies requires diverse knowledge, creative thinking, and placing trust in the intuition and instincts of local communities, including our indigenous cultures and knowledge.

At The Tourism CoLab, we are pioneering alternative ways of working and valuing tourism, and journeying with communities using creative engagement and design thinking approaches.

Our story

Regenerative tourism meets design thinking

DISCOVER

Observe, learn, build empathy

Spend time understanding the problems and challenges from the perspectives of all stakeholders including Nature. See the world through their eyes. Discover blind spots, listen and open up to new ways of seeing and understanding.

ANALYSE

Make sense of complexity

Take an evidence safari. Collect different kinds of information. Make sense of complexity. Embrace different kinds of knowledge. Resist the desire to jump to solutions too quickly. Analyse challenges from different angles to really understand the problem.

DESIGN

Co-design and prototype

Flip your thinking. Brainstorm, possible solutions. Employ counter-intuitive techniques and creative thinking to co-design actions. Assess how different stakeholders will be affected by examining the value that is potentially created or destroyed from the proposed solution.

IMPLEMENT

Test and measure

Experiment by implementing your prototype. Work in lean, agile ways and learn from successes and failures. Engage your stakeholders so they learn and build capacity. Achieve ownership by making sure the value generated is shared widely.

EVALUATE

Communicate impact

Innovation is a journey, so set realistic metrics and learn what works. Activate the change and make sure you tell informative stories of how these actions benefit businesses, communities, organisations, and destinations. Be the regenerative leader you envision.

Discover

Our Services

Next tourism journeys

This is a call-out! We're on the lookout for innovative forward-thinking tourism businesses, destinations, communities and governments that are willing to take a genuine journey into regenerative tourism.

From blue-sky ideation to tactical first steps, we're interested in walking the journey with you. Let's demonstrate the power of regenerative tourism by design. We have the toolkit, and now we are looking for courageous leaders to take the journey, to measure their success and to share their stories.

Courses and Workshops

Learning, reflection and capacity building go hand-in-hand. We are passionate about sharing knowledge, co-learning and professional development. With decades of experience in designing and implementing innovative learning opportunities, our services include:

Online, face-to-face, and hybrid courses.
Virtual whiteboard collaborations.
Educational retreats.
Walking workshops.
Courses & training.

Coaching and Mentoring

Your goals are unique. Being a change agent and introducing new thinking can be tricky, which is why we are here to support you. We offer structured mentoring programs in areas including:

Design thinking in tourism.
Regenerative tourism leadership.
Organisational change.
Purpose-led tourism.

We can design a mentoring program around your challenge and offer it individually or as a group.

Policy, Plans and Playbooks

We are creative thinkers, award-winning researchers and thought leaders. We will document and scale creative and innovative approaches to tourism including:

Policy evaluation.
Design playbooks.
Stakeholder mapping and audits.
Designing community engagement processes. incorporating educational objectives.
Designing tourism organisations, networks and governance arrangements.

Contact Us

Acknowledgement of Country

We acknowledge the Traditional Owners and Custodians of the lands on which we work and pay our respects to Indigenous Elders past, present and emerging. Sovereignty has never been ceded. It always was and always will be, Aboriginal land.

We support the Uluru Statement from the Heart to achieve justice, recognition and respect for First Nations people and a referendum to enshrine a First Nations Voice in the Constitution. We accept the invitation contained in the Statement to walk together with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in a movement of the Australian people for a better future.