Dr Mario Hardy has addressed the April meeting of the Royal Coast Riviera Club with his perspective on current Asia Pacific travel trends and where Thailand fits in the overall picture.
Dr Hardy is the Managing Director of MAP2 | Ventures, an impact investment fund focusing on sustainable development. He is an envoy at the Saudi Arabia based Sustainability Tourism Global Center with a mission to decarbonise the tourism sector.
He is also a board member of the Global Chamber of Business Leaders and hold several advisory board positions with privately-owned technology companies and the former CEO of the Pacific Asia Travel Association.
The headline for Dr Hardy’s assessment was ‘Volatility, Uncertainty. Complexity and Ambiguity’, commenting on the massive social and economic disruption caused by the pandemic which Dr Hardy says should serve as a wake-up call to anyone who finds a sense of security in stability and predictability.
“The pandemic highlighted that in the 21st Century, change happens at incredible speed, is often unpredictable and can be crucially transformative.”
A feature of Dr Hardy’s assessment of current trends is what he describes as the ‘Rise of the Conscious Traveller’. He describes the conscious traveller being all about slower, greener and more experiential travel, “fueled by the amazing people he/she meet along the way.”
“People are more willing to pay more for an eco-friendly product. According to research, millennials are more than twice as likely as baby boomers to declare changing their consumption habits to reduce their environmental impact. As a result, they are willing to pay more for products made from natural components; they are also ready to buy services from socially responsible companies”, he says.
