Luigi Cabrini

Mr Luigi Cabrini is the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Global Sustainable Tourism Council and an Advisor to the Secretary-General of the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO).

The Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC) is an international partnership with the aim of fostering increased knowledge and understanding of sustainable tourism practices, promoting the adoption of universal sustainable tourism principles and building demand for sustainable travel. At the heart of its work are the Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria for Hotels, Tour Operators and Destinations.Read more

Olivia Ruggles-Brise

Olivia is Director of Policy and Communications at WTTC. She oversees the delivery of WTTC’s policy campaigns of Freedom to Travel, Policies for Growth and Tourism for Tomorrow as well as the organisation’s strategic communications. Olivia is responsible for development of the programme for WTTC’s annual Global Summit.

Petra Stušek

Ms Petra Stušek is now in her third year as Managing Director of the Ljubljana Tourist Board. Ms Stušek is also a Board Member of an international European Cities Marketing, a non-profit organisation for improving the competitiveness and performance of the leading cities of Europe. Ms Stušek holds a degree of Faculty of Arts in Ljubljana and is completing a post-graduation study on Faculty of Economics for Master’s degree in Tourism and second one in Sales. She also successfully finished specialization in “Slovene School of Public Relations”. She is a passionate runner, cyclist, climber, skier. And, of course, traveler with passion. Read more

Maja Pak

Maja Pak, M. Sc., Acting Director of the Slovenian Tourist Board, dedicated her career to tourism. In January 2013, when the STB became part of the Public Agency SPIRIT, she took her prior position of the Department Manager for Research and Development. In August 2015, the STB gained its independence. From August 2015 until April 2016 Mrs. Maja Pak was an Acting Director of the STB. She was appointed a Managing Director on April 1st,2016. During her work Mrs. Pak completed her postgraduate studies of Entrepreneurship at the Faculty of Economics, University of Ljubljana, in 2003 and gained the title Master of Science. Read more

Herbert Hamele

Herbert Hamele holds a master in economies and tourism and started working in 1983 in the field of environmentally sustainable tourism development in Europe. In 1993 he founded and since then chairs the European network for sustainable tourism development ECOTRANS, registered as a not-for-profit association. After the Rio + 10 conference in Johannesburg together with a group of experts and in partnership with the European Environment Agency he developed the DestiNet.eu platform on the Internet for sharing knowledge and for facilitating networking on sustainable and responsible tourism. The platform has been registered as a “UN partnership for sustainable development” and provides transparency on meanwhile more than 170 standards and certificates for local businesses, destinations and tour operators. He co-founded and serves the Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC) as a board member and is sitting on advisory boards of various other initiatives and networks.

Paloma Zapata

In more than 20 countries, Paloma Zapata has worked to integrate travel and tourism into sustainable development planning. She has designed policies, tools and marketing strategies—often working in remote destinations and under challenging conditions. For example, she helped to produce sustainable tourism master plans for Belize, Bermuda and Colombia and developed a plan to empower disenfranchised communities in Cambodia’s Siam Reap region—all with the objective of using tourism as a means of creating long-term economic opportunity. As an experienced trainer, Paloma has worked with inbound adventure tour operators to adopt safety and security measures and delivered tourism development courses in Turkmenistan, best practice trainings for tour guides in the Dominican Republic and produced tourism management manuals for trainers in Belgium. Read more

Albert Salman

Albert Salman is a global leader in tourism destination sustainability. By working with industry and government partners on a day-to-day basis since 2006, he assisted many destinations in improving their attractiveness, mainly by implementing sustainability principles.

In 2014 he created his own company, Green Destinations and a partnership of experts in 23 countries. Together with partners he created the first competition “Sustainable Destinations Top 100”, in 2014 (now being repeated for 2016), and in 2015 the (GSTC-Recognised) Green Destinations Standard, with an online assessment and reporting platform and destinations database.

Chris Doyle

Since 2004, Chris has played a key role in the strategic direction and development of the Adventure Travel Trade Association, which serves more than 1,100 members (including tour operators, tourism boards, specialty agents, accommodations and industry partners) in 90 countries worldwide, each sharing a commitment to the sustainable development of adventure tourism. In addition to serving as European Editor for AdventureTravelNewsTM - the leading digital journal for the adventure travel trade, he oversees the ATTA's development efforts throughout Europe. He travels frequently in collaboration with public and private organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and development agencies as an ambassador and facilitator of best practices and long-range responsible tourism development planning. Read more

Salli Felton

With a background in environmental science and ecology, Salli has spent the last 20 years of her career supporting the private and public sectors to recognise and address the social and environmental impacts of their activities, creating stronger, more resilient and more sustainable models of operation. After relocating from her native Australia to the UK, she headed up environmental projects and assessment at one of the world's busiest airports, Heathrow, before joining Virgin Holidays as its responsible business manager, overseeing all of the tour operator’s CSR strategies and programmes. Salli joined the Travel Foundation - an independent charity that works with tourism businesses and destination stakeholders to create partnerships that ‘unlock the positive potential of tourism’ – in 2011 as its Head of Programmes and was appointed CEO in 2014. Recognised internationally as a trusted expert on sustainability issues and opportunities that face the travel industry, Salli is frequently called on for her expertise and insight by a range of governments, businesses and tourism member organisations. Read more

Sören Stöber

Sören is the Commercial Director for the ABTA-owned sustainability certification scheme Travelife for Hotels & Accommodations. He joined ABTA’s Destinations & Sustainability department in 2011. He is a sustainability professional with work experience in Germany, France and the UK - both within and outside the travel industry. He began his career in sustainability at the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Energy and Environment followed by group communications and social affairs positions in Germany's retail/mail order group KarstadtQuelle AG. From there he moved into tourism and to the UK to join Thomas Cook Group PLC. His experience at Thomas Cook includes Group Sustainability Manager and Interim Head of Sustainability. Sören holds a BA in Philosophy & Economics from Bayreuth University in Germany and MSt in Sustainability Leadership from the University of Cambridge. He also sits on the Board of the Roundtable Human Rights in Tourism and is a BSI/ISO principal expert for tourism services.

Marloes van de Goor

Marloes van de Goor speaks at GGDD as founder and president of Earth Travel, a data company that aims to lead global change in the area of sustainability with regard to tourism, animal welfare, food, recycling, and related contexts through innovative research, connecting data and providing data based solutions.

Marloes has been working as founder and president of various tour operators for over 10 years. More recently, she cofounded the International Institute for Animal Ethics that focuses on how moral knowledge and best practice can stimulate change in the use of animals in tourism, illegal trade, and many other contexts. Marloes is, together with her partners in academe and business, building bridges to respond multidisciplinary and ethically to the wave of responsibility and sustainability that currently permeates the tourism field.

Cinzia De Marzo

Cinzia De Marzo, laywer, specialized in European Union Law and Economy and European expert on sustainable tourism and indicators. From 2011 till 2016, she’s been working as national expert at the European Commission, DG GROW, Unit Tourism, Creative and emerging industries and she was responsible, among other tasks, for the development and the implementation of the European Tourism Indicator System – ETIS. She is currently EU legal advisor of the Council of Europe for managing the pilot test of ETIS within the transnational cultural routes. She collaborated with the UNWTO for the promotion of the Open consultation meeting of the International Sustainable Tourism Observatories – INSTO -, held in Madrid the 7-8 June 2016.

Jonathan B. Tourtellot

Jonathan B. Tourtellot directs the Destination Stewardship Center, successor to a program he founded at the National Geographic Society. There he instituted the landmark Destination Stewardship surveys reported annually as the cover story in National Geographic Traveler, 2004-2010. As writer and senior editor, he has written on travel, geography, the environment, and science. To encourage protection of distinctive places, he originated the concept of geotourism as defined via National Geographic: “Tourism that sustains or enhances the geographical character of a place—its environment, culture, aesthetics, heritage, and the well-being of its residents.” His blog posts appear in National Geographic Voices and the Huffington Post. He works with several international initiatives in support of sustainable tourism.

Ana Roš

Ana Roš, chef and co-owner, of Hiša Franko, spent 16 years revolutionizing her country’s food, bringing international attention to Slovenia. This is mostly due to her participation in culinary events such as Cook it Raw, Identita Golose, Squisito and Gelinaz. Also, her upcoming participation in the Netflix Original show Chef’s Table, airing on the 27th of May will put Slovenia on the map as a culinary destination. Read more