Inge De Lathauwer

As founder of the Sumba Hospitality Foundation, Inge De Lathauwer understands the potential dangers of mass travel an uncontrolled planning for upcoming destinations, so she works to ensure local communities are educated and prepared to welcome tourism, ensuring that they can benefit financially while preserving their culture and environment. Her foundation welcomes students from underprivileged backgrounds, providing them with 18 months of vocational education to find them hospitality employment, and its success seeing demand from investors and government to replicate the model increase enormously.

OUR BIGGEST ASSET: Creating Positive Partnerships with Local Communities

Community is an increasingly compelling buzzword in the luxury travel industry, but what does good community engagement look like and how can it heighten your operational and guest experience? Tourism relies on good service and positive community relations, so inclusive growth is not about developing isolated pockets of best practice but rather forging a local, sustainable economy for the greater good – especially where travel is a significance GDP contributor. This panel will take the audience on a journey exploring community relations from rainforest villages in Costa Rica to a hotel school for locals in Indonesia and empowering women from local tribes in Kenya.