X.Festival: Imagining the DMO in 2050

We hope you had a chance to tune into our futures session last Friday that became a playground for us to think about how things in tourism might be thirty years from now.

(The Cone of Plausibility first introduced by Charles Taylor in 1988; image source: https://underprospective.com/061)


Dear Leaders of Sustainability,

We hope you had a chance to tune into our futures session last Friday that became a playground for us to think about how things in tourism might be thirty years from now.

Together with Helene from Småland Tourism, Hlif from visitGreenland, and Stefano from the Valsugana Tourism Board, we imagined

  1. What Planet Earth might be like in 2050 🌎
  2. What tourism destinations might be like in 2050 📍
  3. What travelling and travellers might be like in 2050 🧳
  4. How DMOs might fit into 2050 🔮


Our MURAL for the session became a collection of contributions from our three speakers and all participants with a wealth of sticky notes, images, icons, and links to capture a whole variety of imaginations from which we can begin building more desirable futures.


You might wonder what this has to do with sustainability and why this session ended up on the Sustainability & Stewardship track at X.Festival. In fact, we didn't address sustainability in the usual manner, from a place of concern with current practices or from a perspective of measurable impact. Instead, we allowed ourselves to ponder about what (else) might (still) be there in 2050 and how the state of nature and the nature of destinations, travel, travellers, and DMOs might be different from today.

This discussion was an attempt of rehearsing futures and starting to be in touch with the future. Because the future is often reduced to a time and place to strategise about – and not often enough considered as a time and space to actively build together! And building more desirable futures for all – meaning planet and people – is the underlying rationale of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

A place to start building futures is asking yourself:

  • What future are possible, plausible, probable, and preferable at your destinations? 💫
  • What do we have to start doing today in order to arrive at preferable, a.k.a. more desirable, futures?  🔧
  • What can you start doing today? 🚀


If you're interested in working with sustainability and taking on sustainability leadership at your destination, watch this space for updates on our sustainability program!

(The Cone of Plausibility first introduced by Charles Taylor in 1988; image source: https://underprospective.com/061)


Dear Leaders of Sustainability,

We hope you had a chance to tune into our futures session last Friday that became a playground for us to think about how things in tourism might be thirty years from now.

Together with Helene from Småland Tourism, Hlif from visitGreenland, and Stefano from the Valsugana Tourism Board, we imagined

  1. What Planet Earth might be like in 2050 🌎
  2. What tourism destinations might be like in 2050 📍
  3. What travelling and travellers might be like in 2050 🧳
  4. How DMOs might fit into 2050 🔮


Our MURAL for the session became a collection of contributions from our three speakers and all participants with a wealth of sticky notes, images, icons, and links to capture a whole variety of imaginations from which we can begin building more desirable futures.


You might wonder what this has to do with sustainability and why this session ended up on the Sustainability & Stewardship track at X.Festival. In fact, we didn't address sustainability in the usual manner, from a place of concern with current practices or from a perspective of measurable impact. Instead, we allowed ourselves to ponder about what (else) might (still) be there in 2050 and how the state of nature and the nature of destinations, travel, travellers, and DMOs might be different from today.

This discussion was an attempt of rehearsing futures and starting to be in touch with the future. Because the future is often reduced to a time and place to strategise about – and not often enough considered as a time and space to actively build together! And building more desirable futures for all – meaning planet and people – is the underlying rationale of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

A place to start building futures is asking yourself:

  • What future are possible, plausible, probable, and preferable at your destinations? 💫
  • What do we have to start doing today in order to arrive at preferable, a.k.a. more desirable, futures?  🔧
  • What can you start doing today? 🚀


If you're interested in working with sustainability and taking on sustainability leadership at your destination, watch this space for updates on our sustainability program!

Together with Helene from Småland Tourism, Hlif from visitGreenland, and Stefano from the Valsugana Tourism Board, we imagined

  1. What Planet Earth might be like in 2050 🌎
  2. What tourism destinations might be like in 2050 📍
  3. What travelling and travellers might be like in 2050 🧳
  4. How DMOs might fit into 2050 🔮

Together with Helene from Småland Tourism, Hlif from visitGreenland, and Stefano from the Valsugana Tourism Board, we imagined

  1. What Planet Earth might be like in 2050 🌎
  2. What tourism destinations might be like in 2050 📍
  3. What travelling and travellers might be like in 2050 🧳
  4. How DMOs might fit into 2050 🔮

Subscribe to our Newsletter

Get featured content and updates on our up and coming events.

Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.