Debate at Folkemøde: Young people and tourism – with a backpack full of good intentions

Debate at Folkemøde

YOUTH AND TOURISM – WITH A BACKPACK FULL OF GOOD INTENTIONS

What can the tourism industry learn from young people?

How do we co-create tourism with young people, who as future citizens are important in the debate, but who are currently the least active in the field?

In this debate, we will look at how to create a more inclusive and democratic debate on tourism with young people in focus. How we learn from young people’s way of thinking about tourism and travel, and how it is a shared responsibility to continuously develop and co-create tourism so that it is inclusive and creates value for the local community as well as for travelers. What should you do as a local and what should you do as a tourism operator, and how do you ensure relevance and motivation for young people?

In the debate, we will specifically address what social communities can emerge in tourism and what travel does to us as individuals. What tourism can create a framework of unique communities, and which forms of travel provide unique and authentic experiences. When is travel meaningful – for ourselves and for our engagement with the world – and what does it take to make it particularly motivating for young people to participate in the debate, so that the tourism industry can learn from young people?

The panel consists of:

Olivia Orlandi Grant, Head of Secretariat for the Youth Bureau – Olivia focuses on how to engage and involve young people, with the approach being to support the desire to engage in the society we are all part of.

Camilla Egeborg Møller, representative of Couchsurfing – Camilla focuses on how citizens and tourists can help create social communities with tourists, both by showing them the city from a citizen’s perspective as a host and by having a local host provide unique experiences as a tourist.

Mary Consolata Namagambe – Mary focuses on the qualities of traveling alone that can provide some of “the most beautiful, wild, scary experiences and a sense of living. Solo travel gives you the ability to be independent, find the courage to take fate into your own hands and make decisions”. At the same time, Mary is the founder of a travel agency where she organizes meaningful trips for mainly young people to Uganda, where local actors are involved to show the country and involve the travelers in local activities.

Mikkel Aarø-Hansen, Wonderful Copenhagen, CEO, – Mikkel focuses on tourism for and with young people as a shared responsibility. We know that young people are critical, but at the same time not active in the debate. What can travel give young people who are currently experiencing a lack of well-being in a world that is becoming increasingly digital and where we as individuals have to define ourselves by education, jobs and other prestigious parameters.

Asger and Tue Ammundsen from the tv2 program First to the End of the World – Asger and Tue focus on traveling in an alternative way. In the program, the concept is for participants to travel without a mobile phone and with very few resources, and they must therefore collaborate with locals and creatively move around the world with all that it does to one’s way of deserting the world, self-understanding and sense of adventure.

Moderator: Zakia Elvang, Initiator Democracy Garage and Managing Partner and Democracy Advisor, We Do Democracy

The debate is organized by Wonderfull Copenhagen and We Do Democracy and takes place in the SDG tent