Annual lecture highlights tomorrow’s tourist

In front of an audience of alumni and industry guests, guest speaker Nick Chiarelli discussed the challenges and opportunities for the sector in a lecture entitled ‘Anticipating Tomorrow’s Tourist’.

Nick is Consultancy Director at the Future Foundation, a consumer insight partner to global agencies and brands. Formerly with the BBC, Nick is a frequent performer in international business forums, notably for such organisations as ESOMAR and Unicef, bringing trends analysis into the heart of business strategy in North America, Europe and the Middle East.

Nick outlined the emerging trends which include more spontaneity in travel, a continued reliance on technology, such as augmented reality, to enhance the experience, and a reversal of the traditional customer review, with brands rating their clients. The audience was also treated to some entertaining facts, such as more people are killed by selfie-related accidents than by sharks and the hotel in Japan wholly staffed by humanoid robots.

Your can view Nick’s slides from his presentation here.

After the lecture, Nick was interviewed on stage by compere for the evening Ian Taylor, Executive Editor of Travel Weekly, and took questions from the audience.

The event offered SHTM alumni the chance to meet and network with each other and industry guests at a drinks reception. Take a look at the pictures from the evening.

Professor Graham Miller, Head of the School, said: “We would like to thank Nick for his illuminating lecture –the future looks extremely exciting for the industry. It was great to see so many alumni at what has become a very popular event. We are extremely proud of their achievements and, through this annual lecture, we are providing a forum for leading figures from the industry to explore the topics of the day, debate, reconnect, share and benefit from the network which Surrey facilitates. Many guests have an ongoing involvement with the University and School and we thank them for their continued support.”

The next date for the diary is the alumni reception in the summer of 2016.