The world has changed and so must I.
I am pretty sure that I have heard that line before, but never has something been as true to me.

Looking back to the first lock-down in March 2020 it was all change.
My industry – tourism – was wiped out across the world and it was only when we lost the ability to and experience travel that we began to appreciate just how needed tourism is.

As it happens, 2021 was supposed to be the summer when we launched our new ‘experiences’ to the world. Sitting here now, at the start 2021 Samhain (Sow-In) – the Celtic winter – summer 2022 looks like people from around the world can embrace ‘Embrace’ once more.

As I said the world has changed and so must I.
At a domestic and community level there has been a profound increase in the amount of people appreciating what is on their own back doorstep. The silent valleys have replaced the bustle of cities; secluded rural areas have replaced overcrowded and world-renowned tourist hot spots; ice cold springs feed from deep in the mountains have replaced over crowed beaches…
You can see where I am going here; people have changed around the world.

Aware of these changes, I started to develop new offerings since the early days.
However, I needed to communicate them to the world; I needed to tell the right people.
Social media is a great tool, yet one only has to go on to Instagram to see how quickly posted images disappear in the sea of a hashtag or fall off the radar of a tik tok trend. In the past, we had trade shows in Ireland, or travelling to fairs in Ireland. Once, trade shows moved online – i.e. The World Travel Market and the several re-incarnations of Meet The Buyers – Zoom became a portal to people.

Our local community adopted Zoom very quickly with over 100 business representatives from my area meeting 3 times a week on Zoom not only to get help and support companies, but mainly to provide a psychological support while we watched our industry collapse. The use of Zoom then spread right across our industry. We could finally trade, but also talk and listen. Above all, we started to plan. Imagine: the platform we created and used in the past years, is even up for a best use of digital award in Northern Ireland.

Content changed too.

When cities went quiet, country roads – basically old horse and cart roads – that have been tarmacked-over became unmanageable.
When the first restrictions were lifted, it appeared evident that tourists wanted to go on the road less trodden; they wanted the perfect Instagram picture no one else had or had been to, they wanted quirky backdrops for tik tok dances. Visitors were determined to make a holiday out of it.
Suddenly – more so in the younger generations – everyone became a travel reporter.

Experience providers are still adapting to this. Certainly, there will always be a market for the normal holiday, yet a market for the Unique has emerged. In our case, for example, less known, unique places less trodden in the Sperrin Mountains in Ireland walks; energy walks tapping into earth natural energy sources that have attracted people to Ireland for 1000’s of years. The experience of making a Bodhran – the Irish goat skin drum – or dance Sean Nos – an old Irish dance.
When I headed back to zoom to share ideas on unique itineraries and activities like these, I realized it was what the world wanted.
Funny enough, recalling some of the early zoom meetings with people from Japan, China, North & South America and Europe it dawned on me that I was the experience as much as anything.
This rough-looking mountain man with long hair whose accent was maybe too strong. I must have impersonalised the idea of someone who is at one with the natural world around him.
At times I was even asked if I was a druid, and explained that a druid in Ireland is someone who shares knowledge by telling stories, protects the land and it’s people. People on our niche of the trade try always to centre their work on the appreciation of the environment, protecting the old ways from being lost to the new.

It is hard to get this message out in a world that has changed.
Yet, I am glad to have had the opportunity to realize that, through the direct contact with people and understanding how they look at experiences, I am able to say that there are many more people today who like this type of tourism. ‘Explorers’ looking for something different through an authentic and direct contact with people on the ground. This is a change.