WebinarOnline
Tourism disrupted: Future scenarios, design thinking and innovating for a climate-changed world
Friday, 12 March 2027
Use future scenarios and design thinking to challenge assumptions, test responsible innovations and prepare tourism systems for climate disruption, uncertainty and changing social needs without presenting technology as an automatic solution.
About this event
Tourism operates within a period of accelerating environmental, technological and social change. Climate disruption, resource constraints, demographic shifts and new forms of mobility challenge assumptions that once guided destination development. This webinar examines how future scenarios and design thinking can help organisations move beyond reactive planning and create responsible responses to conditions that cannot be predicted with confidence.
The session will introduce scenario building as a way to explore several plausible futures rather than selecting one forecast. Participants will consider drivers of change, critical uncertainties and the connections between global forces and local experience. They will learn how contrasting scenarios can expose hidden assumptions, reveal vulnerabilities and test whether current strategies remain useful under different conditions.
Design thinking adds a practical method for translating foresight into action. Careful observation, inclusive participation, problem framing, prototyping and iteration can turn broad challenges into testable interventions. The discussion will examine how these methods can involve residents, workers and visitors while recognising unequal power. It will also address the danger of treating innovation as inherently beneficial or detached from environmental limits.
The webinar brings foresight and design together as complementary disciplines. Participants will explore how to build experiments, evaluate unintended effects and retain options as evidence changes. Particular attention will be given to climate adaptation, low-carbon services and the redesign of visitor experiences. The aim is to cultivate innovation that is imaginative yet grounded, enabling tourism systems to learn, adapt and contribute to more liveable futures. Foresight becomes continuous practice, not an occasional exercise.