(SEATTLE) - Registrations opened, preliminary agendas were released, and exceptional headliners were announced today by the Adventure Travel Trade Association (ATTA) for its 2008 Adventure Travel World Summit South American and European fall conferences expected to draw a combined 800-900 executive-level delegates for peer-to-peer networking, professional development and adventure familiarization and press tours.
Influential speakers during the ATTA's 2008 Summits include: the author of Authenticity: What Consumers Really Want (Harvard Business School Press, 2007), which Time magazine recognized in March 2008 as one of the "10 Ideas That Are Changing the World"; an adventure and environmental explorer-researcher duo who have circumnavigated the world via low-level flights that contributed to the science of conservation; and an internationally acclaimed author and filmmaker who is considered the world's most accomplished living polar explorer.
For its September 3-6 Adventure Travel World Summit-South America in São Paulo, Brazil, Authenticity (http://www.authenticitybook.com/) author James Gilmore's keynote, "Real Travel: Rendering Authenticity in an Increasingly Unreal World", will address the emerging experience economy and the rise of authenticity as a consumer sensibility with insights into experience design, customer experience management and experiential marketing that renders truly authentic travel experiences. Additionally, in service of environmental and scientific causes, explorers Margi and Gérard Moss, who have traveled more than 20 years in around-the-world light aircraft expeditions photographing and filming at low altitude the land, seas, forests and deserts, will share their most ambitious climate-change related project yet, "The Flying Rivers" (http://www.riosvoadores.com.br/), a project that aims to quantify the amount of water vapor transported in "flying rivers" - the air masses blown down from the Amazon region carrying huge quantities of humidity that triggers rainfall.
For the ATTA's October 21-25 Adventure Travel World Summit (ATWS) held aboard an expedition passenger ship voyage between Tromsø and Bergen, Norway, delegates will gain unprecedented first-hand polar region insights from famed Norwegian explorer and filmmaker, Børge Ousland (http://www.ousland.com/). Ousland, whose copious polar expedition records include a successful dead-of-winter North Pole expedition and the first solo ski expeditions to both of earth's poles, will inspire delegates in Tromsø-the world's "Polar Headquarters"-with real-world guidance in preparing for and managing risks, dealing with adversity, tolerating change, innovative thinking and re-defining and achieving success.
These pioneers will be joined by additional keynote presenters and a combined field of approximately 40 trend setters and industry experts representing diverse business disciplines. Summit conference sessions are geared toward giving market professionals tools to grow and improve their businesses, professionalizing and promoting adventure travel worldwide, and increasing business-to-business networking and collaboration. In addition, the Summits will address regional business needs and address common, cultural and environmental sustainability issues impacting the world today.
Expected to draw 500-600 delegates, the ATTA's ATWS-South America agenda will emphasize:
- Practical tools for day-to-day business decisions;
- Focus on operations, guide support and recruitment, publicity, industry best practices;
- Connecting incoming companies with Brazilian and South American partners in a marketplace environment; and
- Top-level trends and research for future planning.
- Peer-to-peer executive level networking, both structured and informal;
- Market research and trends;
- In-depth sessions with a special emphasis on marketing and sales;
- International partnership development; and
- Adventure travel as a vector of sustainable development.
Major Sponsors of the ATTA (http://www.adventuretravel.biz/)-a global membership organization dedicated to unifying, professionalizing, promoting and sustainably growing the adventure travel market-and both 2008 Adventure Travel World Summits include: Brazil Tourism, ExOfficio travel clothing, Innovation Norway, Men's Journal magazine, and W.L. Gore and Associates. Key Sponsors include Adventure Central, Alpine Tourist Commission, Best of the Alps, Chile, National Geographic Adventure.
# # #