As visitors have composite experiences delivered by multiple, independent, disconnected and often competitive suppliers, a community-driven approach can deliver higher levels of guest satisfaction.

Our sheer numbers as a species combined with instant global connectivity provide daily evidence of our interconnectedness and inter-dependence. Consequently, former assumptions of our separateness simply no longer work.

Living systems, not machines, must become our teachers and models now. The cubicles, boxes, and siloes that reflect the world as machine and that enable centralized control are proving to be impediments to problem solving and wealth creation in such a turbulent, rapidly changing world.

Nor is this the time for heroic leadership, with individuals leaping into action alone and competing to win the prize of solving one aspect of the problem. As the CEO of the McArthur Foundation said recently, “No individual can carry paradigm shifting thinking alone.”

The nature of our times calls for a new form of intelligence – the ability to contribute build, contribute to and manage the power found in networks of people. This capacity is called Collective or Collaborative Intelligence (CQ) and, since tourism is a network not an assembly line, its future success depends on our capacity to work for each other not against each other. This is why Conscious Travel works in community, creating action learning opportunities that are pursued together.

It is in community that we can learn new ways of seeing (understanding how wholes emerge from the synergy of parts) and being (learning how to listen, observe, adjust, adapt and co-create). It is in community that we also learn to share both responsibility and power – to harness “relational power,” which resembles a current that flows rather than a currency that is hoarded, and which empowers, elevates and enlightens rather than controls or dominates.