Building resilience in tourism businesses

Pre-ITB Asia workshop

Topic: Resilience and risk management for tourism businesses

At a glance:

- What resilience means in a tourism business

- Managing risks by reducing risks and increasing opportunities

- Risk management for tourism businesses; How I can reduce risks and increase chances of winning business at the same time

Workshop Highlights:

- • Understanding key resilience concepts

- • Practical strategies for overcoming industry challenges

- • Case studies and real-world examples

- • Interactive sessions with industry experts

Bring your namecards as there will be interaction all the way for much of the day, enabling you to build and forge valuable connections that will turn into beneficial and important partnerships.

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About the trainers:

Matthias Beyer is founder and managing director of the Berlin-based consulting firm mascontour GmbH. The company specialises in international consulting for destinations, companies and public institutions on the implementation of resilient and sustainable tourism. Today, mascontour is one of the world's leading consultancies in this field and has successfully implemented around 220 projects on five continents in over 60 countries.

Matthias has been working as an international consultant and expert on sustainable tourism planning, marketing and management for more than 20 years. He is Quality Coach of the QMS "ServiceQualität Deutschland" and holds certificates in "Capacity WORKS" (GIZ) and "Project Management for Sustainable Development – PM4SD" (APMG International), as well as “Establishment of a Sustainability Management System based on ISO 26000” (TÜV Rheinland).

Moreover, he is accredited trainer and board member of the Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC), board member of Linking Tourism & Conservation (LT&C) and member of the "Sustainability" committee of the German Travel Association (DRV).

In addition, he has been a lecturer with the Sustainable Tourism Management program at the Bremen University of Applied Sciences since 2008. Over the past years, he has given numerous presentations at international conferences and trade shows (especially ITB), published several professional articles, hosted various events, and prepared a number of trade publications. He also regularly holds training seminars on sustainable tourism planning, marketing and management.

Maeve O'Brien is the Asia Pacific and MENA Representative for mascontour consulting GmbH. She is an international tourism expert specializing in the development of tourism policy, strategy, and destination resilience. She is also a digital learning advisor, curriculum developer and instructional designer. She has overseen multiple projects in Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, and Asia Pacific. Her most recent projects are with German Development Aid (GIZ) in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and East Africa, with USAID in Sri Lanka and with EU Projects involving preparation for Twin Transition. Other past projects include GIZ in Tunisia, Senegal, Palestine, Indonesia and AFD in Cambodia. She was a coach to several young entrepreneurs in Timor-Leste. She was the team leader for two UNWTO Executive Training Programs and for an UNWTO international tourism marketing strategy project in Hainan, China. She was also team leader for the analysis phase of source markets, Australia, Indonesia, and Germany until July 2020.

Maeve is co-founder of Confetti – mascontour's digital upskilling platform providing custom micro-courses to individuals, trainers, and organisations.

Kevin Phun is a specialist, trainer, and speaker in responsible tourism, being active in this specific field since 2005. This was partly in response to the growing need and call for formal expertise in developing responsible/sustainable tourism in SE Asia.

He is recently elected to the board of the Asian Ecotourism Network (AEN) and also sits on the advisory panel as an expert for Control Union Singapore. His ecotourism projects include clients like Champions Golf Academy in Singapore and also projects in Bandung and the Tallaud islands in Indonesia and separately in Atauro island, off Timor Leste. He is perhaps best known for combining cultural heritage and ecotourism in many of his projects, highlighting the need for ecotourism to consider protecting local community’s tangible and intangible cultural heritage.

Recent international projects include being involved in the drafting of the ASEAN ecotourism standard, executing for the UNWTO (World Tourism Organisation) their 17th high level executive training in Danang, Vietnam, November 2023. His training experience includes clients like Mekong Institute (based in Thailand) and the Tourism Management Institute of Singapore (TMIS) amongst a few more.

Host or Publisher Centre for Responsible Tourism Singapore