8th of March 2022, ONLINE via ZOOM

Travelling the Danube sustainably by land and finding new inspiration for travel products as well as new clients for route-based trips along the river, is the goal of the Transdanube Travel Stories Project. The Panel should spread the outcome of the project so far: the narratives and the quality standards for experiences and travel products throughout the travel- and experience industry, as well as connect partners working in the field of sustainable travel and create new alliances. With the online panel on the  Transdanube Travel Stories, we want to reach out to tour operators and experience providers in particular, who should get to know the philosophy of the new narratives and thus get inspiration for new products or a modification of these. Travel professionals will be asked for pitches on best practice examples and give suggestions and ideas on how the topic can merge into new products.

We ask you to register here, to get the ZOOM Link for the participation:
https://www.reglist24.com/tourismpanel_tdts

Agenda

The Speakers

Moderation – Mag. Sylvia Amann:

Member of the European Capital of Culture Expert Panel of the European Commission (2015–2020)
Member of the Advisory Board UNESCO Media Art City Linz
Senior strategic policy advisor for Creative FLIP III – EU-Preparatory Action for Culture and Creative Industries
Expert for EU Creative Industries Policies Development and member of UNCTAD Creative Economy Experts Group
Cultural development expert for United Cities and Local Goverments Pilot Cities Programme
Thematic expert for Voices of Culture “Future-proof cultural policies outside urban areas“
Culture and Cultural Heritage Topic Coordinator for EU Urban Innovative Actions 2020

Prof. Georg Steiner:

Prof. Georg Steiner has been Linz’s tourism director since 2007 and accompanied the project “European Capital of Culture – Linz 2009”. This developed into the current positioning of the city of Linz as one of the most interesting cities in Austria, where tourist experiences are less about looking backwards historically and more about the present and the future.

Georg Steiner has teaching assignments at various universities. The Danube as a cultural travel route is a special concern of his, as is the development of narratives and real experiences: From enumeration to narration to experience.

Prof. Terry Stevens:

Author and international tourism consultant specializing in destination development and place-making.
He is the Founder and MD of the international, award winning, tourism consultancy Stevens & Associates specialising in tourism destination development and management. He has now worked in 55 countries around the world for international, national and regional tourism organisations as well as many private sector clients. Terry is the UN World Tourism Organisation’s Technical Expert on sports tourism and was one of the authors of the UNWTO / World Tourism Cities Federation report on ‘City Tourism Performance’ that included Linz as a best practice exemplar. He has published over 350 articles and books on all aspects of tourism development and regularly speaks at Global events and international conferences. Recently this included being part of the Barcelona Declaration entitled, ‘Better Places to Live, Better Places to Visit’. He is Visiting Professor at numerous universities. In 2021 he was one of the organisers of  the UNWTO / Catalan Tourist Board’s 1st World Sports Tourism Congress and chaired the Scientific Committee for the Congress. April 2020 he launched a new blog site to helps share ideas and knowledge about the roads to recovery for tourism. www.tourism-futures.com

Books:
Wish You Were Here Europe (2021)
Wish You Were Here: The Stories Behind 50 of the World’s Great Destinations (2020)

Prof. Gábor Bódis:

Lecturer at Budapest Metropolitan University and head of Hungary NEXT place branding association.

Influencer & brand booster. Well-experienced chief marketing decision-maker and thought leader with a strong brand-oriented approach combined with innovation and creativity, excelling in exploiting mutual synergies. Strengths in strategic planning in tourism and successfully coordinating creative industry players with a proven track record ready to be challenged.

Interdisciplinary competence – working and teaching in the fields of tourism, marketing and social studies, I have gained practical expertise in various areas: tourism, tourism marketing, destination management, branding, cultural tourism, sports management, geography, design and service design.

Member of the Association of Tourism Developers and Consultants,
Member of the Sports, Tourism and Hospitality Committee of the Hungaricum Committee,
Member of the Creative Industries Roundtable at the Ministry of Innovation and Technology

Journalistic experience:
4.10 Hungary. ETGG 2030, European SME Going Green 2030 Report Chapter, Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development – ZENAT Zentrum für Nachhaltigen Tourismus;

How to establish appropriate tourism after 2020? – Overtourism und tourism over: Recovery of tourism from COVID-19 in tourism regions with over- and undertourism – Università del Salento, Lecce. World Scientific Serie Publication Book, Series: Managing cultural tourism: a sustainable approach

Julia Balatka:

“Travelling leads us back to ourselves.”

Owner of JB Travel, expert in ecologically and socially responsible travel. She has worked in the tourism industry for over 20 years and founded Vienna’s first travel agency for sustainable travel. She was on the board of forumandersreisen, helped develop the Tourcert seal for tour operators and travel agents, was on the expert committee of the Austrian eco-label for travel and is also an accredited advisor for this label. She is co-founder of the Conscious Tourism Group eG (https://conscious-tourism.group) and up to becoming a Travelife Coach & Auditor, an international eco-label for tour operators and travel agencies. (www.travelife.info). Information on the SUSTOUR EU-Project on sustainable tourism certification and training find here: www.ectaa.org/en/sustour-project

Round Table

Bernd Loppow:

ZEIT REISEN Programme Manager
Travelling to countries near and far was already his favourite pastime during his school years. After studying economics in Hamburg and training at the Georg von Holtzbrinck School of Journalism, he started working for DIE ZEIT in mid-1989.

For twelve years he reported on encounters and experiences in foreign countries for the travel and business departments before founding ZEIT REISEN for the Zeitverlag in 2000. He particularly enjoys travelling with readers on the transcontinental trips with the ZEIT bus to Shanghai or around the Baltic Sea and on ski trips.

Dr. Roland Kastler:

Owner of Kastler Reisen
Studies in theology and philosophy, logician, systemic structural constellation, trauma educator
Firmly believing that travelling is a fantastic opportunity to widen horizons and experience the culture, history, spirituality and interconnectivity of people living in different countries, he has always put a lot of emphasis on including high quality “study tours” in the program of Kastler Reisen. As the Danube region provides fantastic opportunities to show how people in Europe and beyond are not only connected economically, but also philosophically and through shared cultural and historical experiences, he is particularly enthusiastic about the “Transdanube Travel Stories” project and everything that will grow from it.

Dr. Christoph Mülleder:

Owner of www.Weltanschauen.at

Founder of WELTANSCHAUEN (2012). “Weltanschauender” and traveller almost since birth in 1966. Matura and studies in business administration (doctorate) in Linz, studies in international humanitarian aid in Louvain-La-Neuve (B). Has been working in the field of humanitarian aid and development cooperation since 1992, first for the Red Cross and since 1998 for Caritas. He gained experience in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe as well as in Africa and got to know and appreciate many of these countries intensively. Since 2004 he has been responsible for the annual socio-ecological trips of Caritas to partner organisations abroad.

The topic of ecological and social sustainability has always been important to him and so all trips of WELTANSCHAUEN are focussing on that and also try to raise awareness for a fair travelling that creates benefits for the people in the destination and also the travellers and bring them together.

Sebastian Frankenberger:

He has been traveling with guests for about 20 years as an enthusiastic guide, tour leader, knowledge broker, entertainer and solution finder. In addition to his guiding activities, he runs an incoming travel agency for the placement of guides and therefore knows the customer side well.

He is involved at various association levels for the interests of tourist guides. He helped develop various guide websites and is servicing the congress websites of the Danube Moldau Guide Day, the FEG meeting and the austriaguides congress and is currently developing the new WFTGA website.

At the same time, he is active as a trainer in education and training and as a consultant for museums, hotels, bus companies and associations. The area of Experience Design and Story Telling is of particular concern to him. As a former theology student and long-time actor with Stadtfuchs and StadtLux, he developed his very own approach to staging guided tours.

He owns several companies (StadtLux: for costume theatre city tours in Austria), Tourismus-Training, Donau Guides: both networks that aim to make vision tourism a sustainable experience for providers, employees and guests. Sebastian is a speaker at tourism conferences, course leader and trainer of the Upper Austrian guide course and consultant for tourism companies. He lives in Passau, Linz and Vienna.