Futures & Foresight Basics: Do we have Agency?
In this episode, we discuss the use of futures thinking and foresight in both our personal lives and a professional capacity with Birthe Menke and Peter Bishop.
In this episode, we discuss the use of futures thinking and foresight in both our personal lives and a professional capacity with Birthe Menke and Peter Bishop.
Series Two of our Leading Tourism's Transition podcast series focuses on Futures, Foresight and Practice. In this episode, we discuss the use of futures thinking and foresight in both our personal lives and a professional capacity with Birthe Menke and Peter Bishop. We consider whether we have agency and also analyse how to construct different scenarios that help us to consider tourism futures and the rationale for taking this approach. We also review whether futures thinking and foresight are different from strategies and the importance of using a future-oriented outlook when making decisions.
You can listen to the episode here 👇
Birthe Menke is a PhD fellow in sustainable tourism development and co-design at the University of Southern Denmark. Her PhD analyses how tourism professionals engage with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in their daily operational activities towards their visions of the future and how to make achieving the SDGs possible on a global scale. Through futures thinking and foresight, Birthe has identified a disconnect between visions of the future and our current sustainability efforts that are aimed at driving change.
Peter Bishop is a foresight professional and directed the Master's degree in Foresight at the University of Houston for over 30 years. The University of Houston established the first formal degree in future studies in 1975 when there were big changes in society and a desire to study this topic in formal education. Peter realised that futures thinking was only communicated to adults through public speeches, corporate training programmes and graduate studies. He founded Teach the Future to inform young people about this subject area using the same content about futures and foresight, adapted to a different pedagogical approach. Teach the Future has partners across the world and therefore has a global reach.
Futures thinking is an innate human capacity. Humans have thought about the future ever since developing consciousness. However, we began to think about the future differently 250 years ago during the Industrial Revolution, when we realised that the world was changing within our lifetime. People saw that their lives were different to their parents and grandparents and acknowledged that their children's lives would also be different. Consequently, we began to view the future as a continuous process.
In the 18th century, Thomas Malthus and a number of French philosophers were thinking about the future. In the 19th century, science fiction rose to prominence, while the 20th century brought a degree of professionalism to future studies with forecasting and planning using econometrics, models and strategic planning. These traditional forecasting and planning elements were a real leap forward in thinking about the future.
Futures thinking is not just about science fiction and creating a utopia, but is a profession. However, it uses a very significant assumption that we can use data from the past to predict the future. This isn't an incorrect assumption, but as the speed of change and frequency of disruptions increases, the assumptions become harder to sustain. Foresight is about thinking about where we are heading using predictive forecasting and step-by-step planning approaches and simultaneously expecting disruptions. Disruption is the key insight to the 21st-century approach to the future. We can't simply extrapolate data from the past to reflect the future or guarantee that a methodical approach will reach a specific outcome. Instead, disruptions are to be expected and we need to learn how to deal with them. This requires a different approach and adds an extension to predictive forecasting and step-by-planning.
Foresight refers to two activities developed in the late 20th century in a more linear and extrapolated fashion, namely predictive forecasting and traditional forecasting, which are used by economists and the IPCC for atmospheric modelling. Thereby, spreadsheets and econometric models are used for forecasting the future. It is assumed that these models will be valid indefinitely, but there is a need to challenge this assumption and consider what could happen instead if the models don't remain accurate or appropriate for changed circumstances. Foresight tends to take uncertainty as a more important consideration than most predictive forecasting and step-by-step planning. If we have learnt anything in the 21st century, it is that we don't know as much as we thought we did about how the world works, with disruptions such as financial collapses, pandemics and geopolitical conflict.
Throughout the last 20 or 30 years, the disruption of technology has not only continued to speed up and change the pace of how we do things, but it also changed our behaviours and attitudes. Looking into the future, we also see fundamental challenges regarding environmental concerns. These are really big societal issues that we are preoccupied with on a large scale and we are looking for solutions to these challenges. This isn't an easy process and for many, it is also uncomfortable at times to work in this field.
We haven't eliminated disruption. Foresight enhances traditional and predictive forecasting and strategic planning by admitting the possibility of uncertainty by adding the extra consideration that we may not have sufficient knowledge or be able to predict certain events. To deal with uncertainty, foresight deals with hypothetical situations. This results in creating a range of scenarios and alternative futures to prepare for change and to realise that our expected future isn't guaranteed. It's a mental process of conditioning ourselves to live in a different world. This doesn't mean any of the scenarios will come to fruition, but foresight helps us to condition ourselves to feel prepared for any eventuality, much like people training for dangerous missions. Most of the time scenarios don't develop as planned, but there is an awareness of how to respond pragmatically to different eventualities, even if those scenarios haven't been planned.
In tourism, we are increasingly investing and becoming more dependent on data, suggesting a reliance on historical data and predictability. As an industry, we rely on the statistics shared by the World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) about the exponential growth in tourist arrivals, going from 900 million tourist arrivals in 2022 to 2 billion in 2030 and 4 billion in 2050. These figures are equated with the opportunity to profit. However, it's possible that not enough time is taken to hypothesise about other outcomes. In a professionalised and pragmatic industry, it seems that we've lost the ability to be imaginative and open to new ideas. We need to expect that there may be a different future and that the UNWTO's projections might not come true. We need to escape the present and think about the fact that external events may make things go a different way.
The tourism industry requires a lot of physical infrastructure to be in place, relying on constant usage. The infrastructure and operational processes in the tourism industry tend to be maintained because that's how we know to operate and can enable a degree of predictability. There is very little contingency planning, with the belief that strategic changes will be made in response to the evolving operational landscape because of the high level of investment and the feeling that external factors will be hard to avoid or minimise their impact as the infrastructure is already in place. However, different scenarios should be considered in preparation for when the unpredictable occurs.
The shift towards net zero requires a massive commitment across the industry. However, for many, this is only a theoretical ambition as operators do not believe they have the agency to move forward. Therefore, there is a challenge between using data to predict outcomes and external disruptor events. For example, an acceleration in the climate crisis and the various impact that entails cannot be guarantee-ably predictable. Other external events over the past decade were also not predicted and we weren't as prepared as we might have been with a more open mindset. We should prepare ourselves for possible change and think about how to build this much-needed flexibility and agility to respond quickly into our modus operandi.
When talking about change, the focus should be on going from the current situation to the new operating environment. The word that emerged and became very popular during the pandemic was resilience. Resilience is the ability to adapt and be successful by continuing to move forward; even in the face of unexpected and unpredictable disruptions or events. While we expect disruptor events, the challenge is that we have a data-oriented, scientific-evidence-based culture. However, all data comes from the past.
Some people believe that hypothetical scenarios are irrelevant because they can't be predicted and are not scientific. However, scientific studies typically make hypotheses. Therefore, the insistence of businesses to have evidence is not wrong, but it gives an incomplete picture of reality. Using our imagination and speculating about hypotheticals gives us time to reflect on the idea and develop contingency plans. Even if these scenarios don't arise, people are more flexible and adaptable to changing circumstances.
By accepting that our predictions may be different from reality, it's not about creating science-fiction scenarios. However, we need to think about how the world could be different, and most importantly why. We do have some weak signals of changes happening at the margins. They are unlikely to all come to fruition, but we need to create a mindset that change is coming and that we cannot expect to know everything about the future. We can't guarantee that forecasts and predictions by reputable individuals and organisations will be accurate and shouldn't only make investments and commitments based solely on these. There is a need to think about how to act if things don't go as planned.
Birthe explained that her mindset about the future shifted through a natural process during her PhD research when she realised that the SDGs imagined a world without certain aspects and then began asking what the world should contain. Through an elaborate exercise at X. Design Week 2022, the SDG targets were translated into possible statements that could identify a desirable world. For example, instead of eliminating poverty, the focus should be on people having enough to live and giving people the ability to determine what that means for themselves, instead of the $1.25 a day that's based upon Western ideals. To understand how people contribute to the SDGs in everyday life, we need to consider how people imagine themselves contributing to the future that these sustainability efforts are attempting to build.
There's hesitancy in the tourism industry when it comes to talking about current microtrends and signals and how these can be used to imagine the future. People tend to be reluctant to point out certain things and be the one to voice a hypothetical reality. This is an interesting aspect to experiment with because the future or different alternative futures becomes speculative and something that can be acted upon. This is a very different mindset to working towards specific goals and targets with a set metric that determines success.
There are deeply entrenched cultural prescriptions about being predictive. We value certainty, but we should also value uncertainty. If the future is not yet determined and is indeed open and a set of possibilities, then we have influence and agency, enabling us to apply our time and talent to design a more preferred future than would happen otherwise. Since World War 2, we have experienced lots of surprises, with plans and goals going awry and not producing the intended outcomes.
With existential climate change, biodiversity loss and adverse weather conditions affecting humanity at the present moment, some of the most fundamental aspects of our culture are being challenged, including the reliance on fossil fuels. We need to consider if it is possible to act in a way that creates a different future that isn't destined to bring about what forecasters say will be a catastrophic change in our planet's health and wellbeing. These changes will not be easy because they require lifestyle changes and also mindset shifts around resiliency. The only way to be resilient is to give up on the reliance that expectations will become reality, accept uncertainty and have a greater awareness of change as it's happening and act more tentatively and contingently based on actual situations.
The Future Young Voices Network's lectures start by asking young people about their perceptions of the general direction of the future. While it might be anticipated that young people would think the future is open, this wasn't necessarily the case. People from different parts of the world have different perceptions of the future. This exercise helps to introduce scenario development and futures thinking to young people, but is also appropriate for older generations.
Similar to most industries, the tourism sector often finds itself focusing on specific targets or goals to solve a need and becomes concentrated on achieving certain prerequisites and objectives without creating a space to consider all of the possible alternatives. Human-centred design methods can help to explore scenarios and different options. However, this is challenging because people are more comfortable with prescriptive approaches and pursuing a goal that has been set, which doesn't create space for reflection about whether it is the best outcome.
One of the hallmarks of foresight thinking is considering alternative futures, not just the expected future. There is no single answer to whether the future is predefined or open, but in fact, it can be both. Sometimes the future is determined by various factors, such as physics, society and capitalism that are predetermined and are a case of the future determining itself. On the other hand, we are not completely helpless and can have some influence over our desired outlook. There is a need to find a balance between the different constraints that we have to deal with, but we can to some extent also move realities towards a more preferred future. There is no single right answer for solving the problems and issues faced. Foresight is about saying that we need to have a more sophisticated way of thinking about the future.
In tourism, one of the challenges is encouraging people to participate in discussions, framing the conversation and talking to the public about what they want in reality, such as the places they intend to visit and that are promoted by Destination Management Organisations (DMOs). Leaving the echo chamber of your own company and those that are pursuing similar strategies already fundamentally changes the way we think about our actions. With participatory practice, once you enable people to voice their concerns, hopes, dreams and fears it makes a huge difference, especially when including younger generations that are quite often excluded from conversations about the development aspirations of specific locations. This means thinking closely about how to create a pluralistic approach regarding who to engage in the process of creating solutions and consulting those who will be impacted by actions directly or indirectly.
The Future Young Voices Network's lectures also ask attendees how they perceive people's influence on the future. This question is related to privilege, with those from privileged backgrounds believing they have a large degree of influence over their own personal future. However, this isn't a luxury afforded to everyone, so having agency can be considered as an expression of privilege.
One of the recommendations in foresight is to move away from categorical thinking. Social surveys ask questions which have defined categories, such as gender, nationality and ethnicity. Instead, our thinking should be in terms of variables and of a sliding scale in terms of the level of agency and influence that we have. In Western economies, we have a fair amount of agency and yet still don't move as fast as desired with regard to the SDGs. Some constraints remain and we should consider these different factors.
A cultural change is required to accept that we can't always give a definitive answer and explain a range of alternative possibilities. The future is multiple, but when presenting people with scenarios, they tend to be less satisfied, even if it is a more valid response. It's also challenging to not try to give the right prediction or specific answer that enables a semblance of certainty. It takes a lot of strength to change people's expectations and their relationship with what it is they are planning and preparing for. For example, in academia it takes a lot of courage to say to students that you don't have the answer to a specific question.
Often, it seems like there isn't enough time to entertain the idea that we don't know the different ways that a situation may play out. When put on the spot to decide something immediately or as part of a project proposal or conversation with a key stakeholder or funding body, giving one answer appears to be the most practical and affordable option.
Teach the Future is proposing a shift in educational style in schools from a fact orientation towards a more skills-based orientation. Understanding the future is about investigation and being curious by asking the right questions and finding data as well as inquiring about people's different perspectives and the alternative values and interests of different stakeholders. Secondly, to understand the future, we need to consider how to merge all of these insights together to make a decision about what actions are preferable. These are difficult questions because they require reflection and an understanding of different variables to determine the best outcome. Schools should confront this lack of uncertain outcomes in real life as opposed to just teaching hard facts so that students are prepared for when they start making their own decisions and contributing to the workforce.
In a university context, countering a question with another question is readily accepted. However, in the wider industry, it is a less common practice. Going from question to question can be a very enriching experience and really help to understand what you're working with and how to achieve the best outcome.
Time is a critical issue for following futures thinking approaches. Organisations are under pressure to deliver clear and tangible results for short-term objectives, which removes the amount of creativity and openness to different approaches. This is why valuing human-centred design is important for developing the best solutions as we don't necessarily have the answer to every question. Tourism strategies should be built on data and also consider the additional questions that should be explored to help guide organisations. Asking multiple questions to find the ideal outcome and solution represents a completely different way of working for the majority of companies, but incorporating this perspective can lead to creating a better future.
The first step in using futures thinking is to recognise and follow change as it happens in society. This can be challenging in a professional context because it's possible to consider every scenario and the possible importance of multiple different factors. This awareness of change can be taken to an extreme and lead to the paralysis of analysis, with organisations afraid that they might overanalyse situations.
Cultural change is required. While there are always going to be goals that need to be achieved with a sense of urgency, if we don't take the time to understand global or local shifts and trends and how they develop and will affect the future, then we will always continue leaping ahead and repeatedly make the same mistakes. Achieving a balance and understanding that everything is a variable is central to obtaining the best outcome. It is possible to spend too long talking about changes, yet it remains essential to keep in touch with what is going on in the world and listen to different people, alternative perspectives and various news sources.
Working in silos does not teach us anything, it just reinforces and confirms what we already knew. As told by Arie de Geus, the former director of the Shell scenario group in the 1970s, "learning is the only sustainable competitive advantage in an environment of rapid change". As the world gets more complicated and complex, we know less and less and it becomes harder to understand the global picture and how it influences the operational context. It's not possible to pick a goal or approach that will last forever unless you are continually learning. Learning is the way to ensure your organisation remains resilient. Accepting that we don't understand enough is how the learning process gets initiated.
At its core, the tourism industry is about engaging with the unknown. Tourism is fundamentally about going to unknown places and seeing cultures that we know very little about and figuring out how to navigate these experiences and tell other people about them. The tourism industry should try to reconnect to this spirit of working with unknown spaces and create a figurative space which accepts it's possible to engage with unknown futures based on the abilities cultivated through everyday life. Therefore, working with futures in tourism is about changing attitudes.
Humans have an innate desire to look towards the future. The world is constantly changing and the future should be considered as being a continuous process. Traditional approaches to looking at the future tend to focus on forecasting and planning based on data and predictive approaches.
Disruption should be expected and we should accept uncertainty and different hypothetical alternative futures. Being open to different perspectives helps to condition and prepare us for the future and ensure organisations are resilient. While infrastructure requirements and investment are high in the tourism sector, contingencies should be developed rather than taking a purely reactionary approach.
The future is not completely predetermined. Some factors are within our own control and organisations have a degree of influence and agency. The key is to change mindset to focus on finding a balance between different variables. Being curious and answering questions help organisations to learn, which is imperative for building competitive advantages. Human-centred design can be a tool that helps organisations engage with the unknown, be more imaginative and consider new ideas that lead to designing a better future.
Time for analysing different trends and possible alternatives is a key constraint for organisations and it is possible to suffer from a paralysis of analysis. Some individuals are also reluctant to share different opinions. However, taking a participatory approach and seeing decision-making as being on a sliding scale and not categorical outcomes creates a more desirable outcome. As a society, we should not feel the need to give the right prediction and focus more on considering the range of possible outcomes.
Series Two of our Leading Tourism's Transition podcast series focuses on Futures, Foresight and Practice. In this episode, we discuss the use of futures thinking and foresight in both our personal lives and a professional capacity with Birthe Menke and Peter Bishop. We consider whether we have agency and also analyse how to construct different scenarios that help us to consider tourism futures and the rationale for taking this approach. We also review whether futures thinking and foresight are different from strategies and the importance of using a future-oriented outlook when making decisions.
You can listen to the episode here 👇
Birthe Menke is a PhD fellow in sustainable tourism development and co-design at the University of Southern Denmark. Her PhD analyses how tourism professionals engage with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in their daily operational activities towards their visions of the future and how to make achieving the SDGs possible on a global scale. Through futures thinking and foresight, Birthe has identified a disconnect between visions of the future and our current sustainability efforts that are aimed at driving change.
Peter Bishop is a foresight professional and directed the Master's degree in Foresight at the University of Houston for over 30 years. The University of Houston established the first formal degree in future studies in 1975 when there were big changes in society and a desire to study this topic in formal education. Peter realised that futures thinking was only communicated to adults through public speeches, corporate training programmes and graduate studies. He founded Teach the Future to inform young people about this subject area using the same content about futures and foresight, adapted to a different pedagogical approach. Teach the Future has partners across the world and therefore has a global reach.
Futures thinking is an innate human capacity. Humans have thought about the future ever since developing consciousness. However, we began to think about the future differently 250 years ago during the Industrial Revolution, when we realised that the world was changing within our lifetime. People saw that their lives were different to their parents and grandparents and acknowledged that their children's lives would also be different. Consequently, we began to view the future as a continuous process.
In the 18th century, Thomas Malthus and a number of French philosophers were thinking about the future. In the 19th century, science fiction rose to prominence, while the 20th century brought a degree of professionalism to future studies with forecasting and planning using econometrics, models and strategic planning. These traditional forecasting and planning elements were a real leap forward in thinking about the future.
Futures thinking is not just about science fiction and creating a utopia, but is a profession. However, it uses a very significant assumption that we can use data from the past to predict the future. This isn't an incorrect assumption, but as the speed of change and frequency of disruptions increases, the assumptions become harder to sustain. Foresight is about thinking about where we are heading using predictive forecasting and step-by-step planning approaches and simultaneously expecting disruptions. Disruption is the key insight to the 21st-century approach to the future. We can't simply extrapolate data from the past to reflect the future or guarantee that a methodical approach will reach a specific outcome. Instead, disruptions are to be expected and we need to learn how to deal with them. This requires a different approach and adds an extension to predictive forecasting and step-by-planning.
Foresight refers to two activities developed in the late 20th century in a more linear and extrapolated fashion, namely predictive forecasting and traditional forecasting, which are used by economists and the IPCC for atmospheric modelling. Thereby, spreadsheets and econometric models are used for forecasting the future. It is assumed that these models will be valid indefinitely, but there is a need to challenge this assumption and consider what could happen instead if the models don't remain accurate or appropriate for changed circumstances. Foresight tends to take uncertainty as a more important consideration than most predictive forecasting and step-by-step planning. If we have learnt anything in the 21st century, it is that we don't know as much as we thought we did about how the world works, with disruptions such as financial collapses, pandemics and geopolitical conflict.
Throughout the last 20 or 30 years, the disruption of technology has not only continued to speed up and change the pace of how we do things, but it also changed our behaviours and attitudes. Looking into the future, we also see fundamental challenges regarding environmental concerns. These are really big societal issues that we are preoccupied with on a large scale and we are looking for solutions to these challenges. This isn't an easy process and for many, it is also uncomfortable at times to work in this field.
We haven't eliminated disruption. Foresight enhances traditional and predictive forecasting and strategic planning by admitting the possibility of uncertainty by adding the extra consideration that we may not have sufficient knowledge or be able to predict certain events. To deal with uncertainty, foresight deals with hypothetical situations. This results in creating a range of scenarios and alternative futures to prepare for change and to realise that our expected future isn't guaranteed. It's a mental process of conditioning ourselves to live in a different world. This doesn't mean any of the scenarios will come to fruition, but foresight helps us to condition ourselves to feel prepared for any eventuality, much like people training for dangerous missions. Most of the time scenarios don't develop as planned, but there is an awareness of how to respond pragmatically to different eventualities, even if those scenarios haven't been planned.
In tourism, we are increasingly investing and becoming more dependent on data, suggesting a reliance on historical data and predictability. As an industry, we rely on the statistics shared by the World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) about the exponential growth in tourist arrivals, going from 900 million tourist arrivals in 2022 to 2 billion in 2030 and 4 billion in 2050. These figures are equated with the opportunity to profit. However, it's possible that not enough time is taken to hypothesise about other outcomes. In a professionalised and pragmatic industry, it seems that we've lost the ability to be imaginative and open to new ideas. We need to expect that there may be a different future and that the UNWTO's projections might not come true. We need to escape the present and think about the fact that external events may make things go a different way.
The tourism industry requires a lot of physical infrastructure to be in place, relying on constant usage. The infrastructure and operational processes in the tourism industry tend to be maintained because that's how we know to operate and can enable a degree of predictability. There is very little contingency planning, with the belief that strategic changes will be made in response to the evolving operational landscape because of the high level of investment and the feeling that external factors will be hard to avoid or minimise their impact as the infrastructure is already in place. However, different scenarios should be considered in preparation for when the unpredictable occurs.
The shift towards net zero requires a massive commitment across the industry. However, for many, this is only a theoretical ambition as operators do not believe they have the agency to move forward. Therefore, there is a challenge between using data to predict outcomes and external disruptor events. For example, an acceleration in the climate crisis and the various impact that entails cannot be guarantee-ably predictable. Other external events over the past decade were also not predicted and we weren't as prepared as we might have been with a more open mindset. We should prepare ourselves for possible change and think about how to build this much-needed flexibility and agility to respond quickly into our modus operandi.
When talking about change, the focus should be on going from the current situation to the new operating environment. The word that emerged and became very popular during the pandemic was resilience. Resilience is the ability to adapt and be successful by continuing to move forward; even in the face of unexpected and unpredictable disruptions or events. While we expect disruptor events, the challenge is that we have a data-oriented, scientific-evidence-based culture. However, all data comes from the past.
Some people believe that hypothetical scenarios are irrelevant because they can't be predicted and are not scientific. However, scientific studies typically make hypotheses. Therefore, the insistence of businesses to have evidence is not wrong, but it gives an incomplete picture of reality. Using our imagination and speculating about hypotheticals gives us time to reflect on the idea and develop contingency plans. Even if these scenarios don't arise, people are more flexible and adaptable to changing circumstances.
By accepting that our predictions may be different from reality, it's not about creating science-fiction scenarios. However, we need to think about how the world could be different, and most importantly why. We do have some weak signals of changes happening at the margins. They are unlikely to all come to fruition, but we need to create a mindset that change is coming and that we cannot expect to know everything about the future. We can't guarantee that forecasts and predictions by reputable individuals and organisations will be accurate and shouldn't only make investments and commitments based solely on these. There is a need to think about how to act if things don't go as planned.
Birthe explained that her mindset about the future shifted through a natural process during her PhD research when she realised that the SDGs imagined a world without certain aspects and then began asking what the world should contain. Through an elaborate exercise at X. Design Week 2022, the SDG targets were translated into possible statements that could identify a desirable world. For example, instead of eliminating poverty, the focus should be on people having enough to live and giving people the ability to determine what that means for themselves, instead of the $1.25 a day that's based upon Western ideals. To understand how people contribute to the SDGs in everyday life, we need to consider how people imagine themselves contributing to the future that these sustainability efforts are attempting to build.
There's hesitancy in the tourism industry when it comes to talking about current microtrends and signals and how these can be used to imagine the future. People tend to be reluctant to point out certain things and be the one to voice a hypothetical reality. This is an interesting aspect to experiment with because the future or different alternative futures becomes speculative and something that can be acted upon. This is a very different mindset to working towards specific goals and targets with a set metric that determines success.
There are deeply entrenched cultural prescriptions about being predictive. We value certainty, but we should also value uncertainty. If the future is not yet determined and is indeed open and a set of possibilities, then we have influence and agency, enabling us to apply our time and talent to design a more preferred future than would happen otherwise. Since World War 2, we have experienced lots of surprises, with plans and goals going awry and not producing the intended outcomes.
With existential climate change, biodiversity loss and adverse weather conditions affecting humanity at the present moment, some of the most fundamental aspects of our culture are being challenged, including the reliance on fossil fuels. We need to consider if it is possible to act in a way that creates a different future that isn't destined to bring about what forecasters say will be a catastrophic change in our planet's health and wellbeing. These changes will not be easy because they require lifestyle changes and also mindset shifts around resiliency. The only way to be resilient is to give up on the reliance that expectations will become reality, accept uncertainty and have a greater awareness of change as it's happening and act more tentatively and contingently based on actual situations.
The Future Young Voices Network's lectures start by asking young people about their perceptions of the general direction of the future. While it might be anticipated that young people would think the future is open, this wasn't necessarily the case. People from different parts of the world have different perceptions of the future. This exercise helps to introduce scenario development and futures thinking to young people, but is also appropriate for older generations.
Similar to most industries, the tourism sector often finds itself focusing on specific targets or goals to solve a need and becomes concentrated on achieving certain prerequisites and objectives without creating a space to consider all of the possible alternatives. Human-centred design methods can help to explore scenarios and different options. However, this is challenging because people are more comfortable with prescriptive approaches and pursuing a goal that has been set, which doesn't create space for reflection about whether it is the best outcome.
One of the hallmarks of foresight thinking is considering alternative futures, not just the expected future. There is no single answer to whether the future is predefined or open, but in fact, it can be both. Sometimes the future is determined by various factors, such as physics, society and capitalism that are predetermined and are a case of the future determining itself. On the other hand, we are not completely helpless and can have some influence over our desired outlook. There is a need to find a balance between the different constraints that we have to deal with, but we can to some extent also move realities towards a more preferred future. There is no single right answer for solving the problems and issues faced. Foresight is about saying that we need to have a more sophisticated way of thinking about the future.
In tourism, one of the challenges is encouraging people to participate in discussions, framing the conversation and talking to the public about what they want in reality, such as the places they intend to visit and that are promoted by Destination Management Organisations (DMOs). Leaving the echo chamber of your own company and those that are pursuing similar strategies already fundamentally changes the way we think about our actions. With participatory practice, once you enable people to voice their concerns, hopes, dreams and fears it makes a huge difference, especially when including younger generations that are quite often excluded from conversations about the development aspirations of specific locations. This means thinking closely about how to create a pluralistic approach regarding who to engage in the process of creating solutions and consulting those who will be impacted by actions directly or indirectly.
The Future Young Voices Network's lectures also ask attendees how they perceive people's influence on the future. This question is related to privilege, with those from privileged backgrounds believing they have a large degree of influence over their own personal future. However, this isn't a luxury afforded to everyone, so having agency can be considered as an expression of privilege.
One of the recommendations in foresight is to move away from categorical thinking. Social surveys ask questions which have defined categories, such as gender, nationality and ethnicity. Instead, our thinking should be in terms of variables and of a sliding scale in terms of the level of agency and influence that we have. In Western economies, we have a fair amount of agency and yet still don't move as fast as desired with regard to the SDGs. Some constraints remain and we should consider these different factors.
A cultural change is required to accept that we can't always give a definitive answer and explain a range of alternative possibilities. The future is multiple, but when presenting people with scenarios, they tend to be less satisfied, even if it is a more valid response. It's also challenging to not try to give the right prediction or specific answer that enables a semblance of certainty. It takes a lot of strength to change people's expectations and their relationship with what it is they are planning and preparing for. For example, in academia it takes a lot of courage to say to students that you don't have the answer to a specific question.
Often, it seems like there isn't enough time to entertain the idea that we don't know the different ways that a situation may play out. When put on the spot to decide something immediately or as part of a project proposal or conversation with a key stakeholder or funding body, giving one answer appears to be the most practical and affordable option.
Teach the Future is proposing a shift in educational style in schools from a fact orientation towards a more skills-based orientation. Understanding the future is about investigation and being curious by asking the right questions and finding data as well as inquiring about people's different perspectives and the alternative values and interests of different stakeholders. Secondly, to understand the future, we need to consider how to merge all of these insights together to make a decision about what actions are preferable. These are difficult questions because they require reflection and an understanding of different variables to determine the best outcome. Schools should confront this lack of uncertain outcomes in real life as opposed to just teaching hard facts so that students are prepared for when they start making their own decisions and contributing to the workforce.
In a university context, countering a question with another question is readily accepted. However, in the wider industry, it is a less common practice. Going from question to question can be a very enriching experience and really help to understand what you're working with and how to achieve the best outcome.
Time is a critical issue for following futures thinking approaches. Organisations are under pressure to deliver clear and tangible results for short-term objectives, which removes the amount of creativity and openness to different approaches. This is why valuing human-centred design is important for developing the best solutions as we don't necessarily have the answer to every question. Tourism strategies should be built on data and also consider the additional questions that should be explored to help guide organisations. Asking multiple questions to find the ideal outcome and solution represents a completely different way of working for the majority of companies, but incorporating this perspective can lead to creating a better future.
The first step in using futures thinking is to recognise and follow change as it happens in society. This can be challenging in a professional context because it's possible to consider every scenario and the possible importance of multiple different factors. This awareness of change can be taken to an extreme and lead to the paralysis of analysis, with organisations afraid that they might overanalyse situations.
Cultural change is required. While there are always going to be goals that need to be achieved with a sense of urgency, if we don't take the time to understand global or local shifts and trends and how they develop and will affect the future, then we will always continue leaping ahead and repeatedly make the same mistakes. Achieving a balance and understanding that everything is a variable is central to obtaining the best outcome. It is possible to spend too long talking about changes, yet it remains essential to keep in touch with what is going on in the world and listen to different people, alternative perspectives and various news sources.
Working in silos does not teach us anything, it just reinforces and confirms what we already knew. As told by Arie de Geus, the former director of the Shell scenario group in the 1970s, "learning is the only sustainable competitive advantage in an environment of rapid change". As the world gets more complicated and complex, we know less and less and it becomes harder to understand the global picture and how it influences the operational context. It's not possible to pick a goal or approach that will last forever unless you are continually learning. Learning is the way to ensure your organisation remains resilient. Accepting that we don't understand enough is how the learning process gets initiated.
At its core, the tourism industry is about engaging with the unknown. Tourism is fundamentally about going to unknown places and seeing cultures that we know very little about and figuring out how to navigate these experiences and tell other people about them. The tourism industry should try to reconnect to this spirit of working with unknown spaces and create a figurative space which accepts it's possible to engage with unknown futures based on the abilities cultivated through everyday life. Therefore, working with futures in tourism is about changing attitudes.
Humans have an innate desire to look towards the future. The world is constantly changing and the future should be considered as being a continuous process. Traditional approaches to looking at the future tend to focus on forecasting and planning based on data and predictive approaches.
Disruption should be expected and we should accept uncertainty and different hypothetical alternative futures. Being open to different perspectives helps to condition and prepare us for the future and ensure organisations are resilient. While infrastructure requirements and investment are high in the tourism sector, contingencies should be developed rather than taking a purely reactionary approach.
The future is not completely predetermined. Some factors are within our own control and organisations have a degree of influence and agency. The key is to change mindset to focus on finding a balance between different variables. Being curious and answering questions help organisations to learn, which is imperative for building competitive advantages. Human-centred design can be a tool that helps organisations engage with the unknown, be more imaginative and consider new ideas that lead to designing a better future.
Time for analysing different trends and possible alternatives is a key constraint for organisations and it is possible to suffer from a paralysis of analysis. Some individuals are also reluctant to share different opinions. However, taking a participatory approach and seeing decision-making as being on a sliding scale and not categorical outcomes creates a more desirable outcome. As a society, we should not feel the need to give the right prediction and focus more on considering the range of possible outcomes.
.webp)