Blog # 19: Basque in the glory: why staying true to your authentic self pays off

On the 6th of April this year, tens of thousands of Athletic Bilbao football club fans packed the streets of the Basque Country. The club’s red, white and black scarves, flags and jerseys waved from windows, stadiums, streets and cars as what seemed like the entire population of the small nation came to a halt to celebrate their football club’s …

If you ever attended a birthday party as a child, I’m sure you remember the excitement of, in the end, being handed a colourful party loot bag filled with individually wrapped sweets, a mini packet of crisps or chips, and lots of little plastic toys. These were things that were ripped open, devoured, played with, and discarded as quickly as …

This blog is part two of my Event Evolution: Towards a Sustainable Future miniseries. If you missed the first one, you can read it here. In it, I share my framework for Destination Marketing Organisations to create sustainable, regenerative events. It’s a framework that shows how simply making small tweaks to your current planning process can have you well on …

If climate change is close to your heart and business, you’re buzzing with the knowledge we need to take action.  But with information overload, seemingly ever-changing advice, and work continuing to pile up, you panic. There’s so much to do you don’t know where to start, so you don’t start at all. It’s overwhelming.  I felt the same way.  I’ve …

I’m mortified. Part of me doesn’t even want to share this story. Ok, a lot of me doesn’t want to share this story. But I know two things to be true: one, that to solve a problem, one first must admit to having a problem. Two, that I’m not the only one harbouring this dirty secret.  Let’s rewind. Last week …

They say that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. In my case, back in August, the journey was more like 4,000 miles, and that first step was more a metaphorical one: planning.   The 4,000 miles in question were between my home in Canada and my familial home in England. Those miles represented a big …

But for that to happen, there needs to be a paradigm shift in tourism, moving away from the low ambition of just doing less harm and into the regenerative mindset of contributing through actions and solutions.” Vincent Nijs, Chief Strategist at Visit Flanders. Source: Travel Tomorrow The above quote and the many others that have graced my screens lately intrigued …