We hope you are looking forward to joining us at the De Vere Beaumont Estate next week as much as we are looking forward to welcoming you. LATA Expo will be different this year, but we hope you agree the changes will make for a more intimate and beneficial event for you and your business.
Whether you are arriving on Sunday afternoon or Monday morning, please make your way to the hotel’s main reception to check in to your room, and then at the LATA desk to register and sign up for the LATA Expo WhatsApp Broadcast to receive reminders of the key timings and events taking place. Please do note that mobile phone signal is quite patchy at the hotel but there is complimentary fast Wi-Fi available.
For those joining us on Sunday, we hope you will enjoy the afternoon activities you have signed up to, and we look forward to catching up during the relaxed evening in the hotel’s historic chapel to begin LATA Expo 2024.
Kicking off Monday, we have an exciting morning conference programme hosted by broadcaster and travel journalist Simon Calder. There are a variety of panel discussions and keynote speakers covering topics including AI, female leadership, and inclusivity in travel. Looking at the current challenges and opportunities in travel and tourism, we hope these leave you feeling inspired.
Errol Lawson will provide his insight into embracing a ‘can-do’ mindset and James Levelle will close the conference sharing stories from his experiences hitchhiking through South America for his documentary Free Ride.
Your one-to-one meetings will then begin after lunch.
Monday’s new Gala Dinner will be a busy one – but it’s a chance to enjoy a dinner with your industry colleagues and friends, celebrating some fantastic achievements and successes with the announcement of both the LATA Responsible Tourism Awards and the LATA Achievement Awards. There’s no formal dress code so suggest ‘business attire’. The evening will conclude with an auction for the LATA Foundation. We have some fantastic prizes lined up so hope we can raise as much money as possible. More details on the prizes will follow this week.
On Tuesday morning we will start the day with a new thought-starter session led by The Long Run. We will be looking at using your community to tell your sustainability story, wherever you are in the supply chain and whatever stage of the sustainability journey you are at.
During this interactive session, we will be asking for your thoughts, so we all come away with some tangible actions. The rest of the day will be the usual one-to-one meetings that we know are integral to LATA Expo.
Tuesday night is the LATA Festival and if the weather is kind to us (keep your fingers crossed that the forecast is right) we will be outside for food, drinks, some festival games and music. We’ll move back inside there will be music and a casino for you to try your hand at.
On Wednesday morning we begin with the LATA Sustainability Conference looking at the business case for sustainability addressing the why, what and how. Thomas Power will start things off looking at why there is a business case. Journalist Chris Haslam will follow on from this leading a fireside conversation with Intrepid’s Darrell Wade to find out what the business case is. It promises to be a lively discussion with no questions off limit. The morning will conclude with the Long Run’s Anne-Kathrin Zschiegner hosting a panel to look at how you embed sustainability into your business.
The morning, and LATA Expo will conclude with the last round of meetings and the final lunch.
On Monday and Tuesday, we are joined by Mesi Balog from Treat your Staff, who will be starting both mornings with a ten-minute Mood Booster – some light stretching and an introduction to mindfulness. After lunch on both days there will also be a Midday Energizer to revitalise you for the afternoon’s meetings and on Tuesday, there will be a therapist around all day for short chair massages.
For the full LATA Expo Conference and the Sustainability Conference schedule please see here.