Blog: A momentary lockdown hiatus
It’s been a moment or two since I was able to find some clear headspace and finally write down some thoughts. The last four months have been a whirlwind of opportunities, lockdowns, presentations, a lot of late nights, with an equal amount of pausing while Aotearoa New Zealand tackled yet another outbreak of Covid-19.
Professionally, this lockdown was the start of many new business opportunities (amazing!!), but personally the longevity of this one was really tough on my mental health. Over the last 21 months, we have talked a lot about resilience, and finding inner strength to get through while the pandemic continues to rage around us. The best thing I did this lockdown was retreat from various forms of media, communications, and platforms where the most vocal opines were being shared. By appearances I stopped posting, in reality it was a momentary hiatus which allowed me some clear head space.
So what’s been happening at The Tenth Letter? Back in August, Amanda Graham joined the team. You may know Amanda from her former roles at Business Events Waikato, Hamilton Gardens, or as a Professional Conference Organiser (for over 25 years). Amanda now runs her own tour company Meet the Makers and has been providing consulting services for various projects since she joined in August.
Amanda Graham joined The Tenth Letter in August bringing a wealth of knowledge, experience, and passion. Combining the strengths of her insights into the world of events and business events with a desire to enable organisations on their journey to becoming more sustainable and more impactful
Many of you will be aware that I am an international collaboration partner of Meet4Impact who specialise in supporting organisations and destinations on developing, measuring, and reporting on the social, cultural, and environmental impacts of events. Throughout 2021, I have been collaborating with Geneviève and the incredible team at Meet4Impact on designing the Impact Masterclass for the GDS Academy (see more below).
Consequently in August, I joined the Global Destination Sustainability Movement (GDS) as their Asia Pacific representative. GDS are an international organisation which enables destination management organisations (we know them as RTO’s in AO/NZ) to create sustainable and circular strategies, and develop skill-sets for regenerative tourism, events, and conferences. GDS are most well known for the Index, which is a destination performance benchmark utilised by over 70 cities around the world. The Index recognises and ranks destinations based on their actions on city environmental performance, city social performance, supplier performance, and destination management performance.
Jessica has joined the Global Destination Sustainability Movement as their Asia Pacific representative, and is looking forward to getting New Zealand destinations on board this journey
Outstanding Index performers in the Asia Pacific region are Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane who have committed to sustainable, impactful, and regenerative strategies. It’s been such a pleasure learning about the programmes and initiatives these destinations have embedded into their strategies and see how they are achieving real impactful outcomes. I look forward to bringing some of our AO/NZ destinations on board in due course.
GDS launched their Academy programme back in June which was over 10 years in the making. The Academy has been designed for both destination organisations and destination professionals.
Global Destination Sustainability Academy Masterclasses - available to any destination or individual wanting to upskill in sustainability, impact, communications, resilience & recovery, or regenerative event management
Enrolment is now open for 2022
Belfast was the very first destination to start the GDS Academy training undertaking the Impact Masterclass in September, followed closely by Business Events Canada in October. The Masterclass is approx 22 hours of blended learning including class time, monitored development, and assessments.
Visit Belfast Impact Masterclass, September 2021
As one of the facilitators of the Impact Masterclass (representing Meet4Impact - confusing yes I know!), it’s been exciting to see so many engaged professionals seeking to understand more about impact strategy so they can apply it to both their destination and events programme.
Representing GDS and Meet4Impact, and acquiring knowledge and global insights into regenerative tourism has really catalysed the work I’ve been undertaking locally. It has given me confidence about what the future looks like for global destinations and how this could be applied in the Aotearoa New Zealand context.
So what’s coming next for us? The Tourism Industry Aotearoa summit this week clearly outlined the desire from organisations to address sustainability. We will continue to approach, support and enable destinations, associations, and other organisations on starting or developing their sustainability strategies.
As the tourism sector tackles climate change (the real tsunami which follows the pandemic), it gives me huge hope about what the future looks like and truly validates why I started this business in 2020.
If you want to know more about what we offer locally with The Tenth Letter, how to join the GDS Index or GDS Academy, or start your impact journey with Meet4Impact, please get in touch. Both Amanda and I would love to hear from you!