Education Sessions
The Peru Summit education program is designed to bring the lessons of meaningful travel to life. Rather than sitting in conference rooms, participants will learn through immersive experiences, conversations with local leaders and community partners, facilitated discussions, and peer exchange.
Along the journey, we'll explore some of tourism's most important opportunities and challenges, from community-based tourism and conservation to cultural heritage, destination stewardship, and responsible product development. Dedicated workshop sessions will help attendees connect what they're seeing on the ground to their own business goals, uncover opportunities for partnership, and identify practical actions they can take long after the Summit ends.
Participants will leave not only inspired by Peru, but equipped with new ideas, relationships, and opportunities to help shape a more meaningful future for travel.
October 20
Welcome to the Meaningful Travel Summit!
What to expect this week, Sustainability overview of Peru
Panel: Building Community Tourism in Peru
This panel will explore how community-based tourism can create meaningful economic and social benefits while meeting the practical needs of the tourism marketplace. The conversation will bring together community representatives from different regions of Peru and travel-industry partners to discuss local leadership, product development, market access, partnership models, and the conditions needed for community tourism to succeed over the long term.
Fireside Chat: Diving Deep into Meaningful Travel in Peru
Hear from a local voice helping shape tourism in Peru and explore what meaningful travel looks like from the destination perspective. Through personal experience and real-world examples, this conversation will connect Peru's tourism story to bigger questions around community, culture, sustainability, and the role our industry can play in creating positive impact.
Workshop/Group Discussion:
Now it's your turn. This interactive session will bring attendees together to reflect on what you've experienced so far, exchange perspectives with peers, and explore how the lessons from Peru connect to your own work. Through facilitated discussion and collaborative exercises, we'll dig into the opportunities, challenges, and ideas emerging from Day 1 of the Summit and begin turning inspiration into practical action.
October 22
Reflection and Lessons Learned so Far:
After several days of experiences, conversations, and connections across Peru, we'll come back together to reflect on what has stood out. This facilitated conversation will give attendees space to share observations, unpack key takeaways, and consider how what they've seen and heard might influence the way they think about their own role in tourism.
Panel: Cultural Tourism, Heritage, and Storytelling
Peru's cultural tourism is shaped by living traditions, Indigenous knowledge, archaeology, crafts, food, music, historic cities, and the communities that preserve and interpret them. This panel will consider how tourism can share these stories responsibly while respecting cultural authority, strengthening community participation, supporting preservation, and creating sustainable livelihoods.
FireSide Chat/Case Study:
Through a real-world story of meaningful travel in action, we'll explore what it takes to move from intention to impact. This conversation will dig into lessons learned, challenges encountered, and the partnerships and decisions that can help turn big ideas into meaningful change, offering fresh perspective as we begin to think about what comes next.
Making a Commitment:
A signature element of every Tourism Cares Summit, the Commitment Session challenges participants to reflect on what they've learned and identify a tangible action they will take following the event. Whether through product development, purchasing decisions, partnerships, advocacy, or internal initiatives, attendees leave with a personal commitment to advance more meaningful travel.
Partner Spotlights:
Throughout the Summit, you'll hear directly from local changemakers, community organizations, and tourism leaders putting meaningful travel into practice across Peru. These spotlights will go behind the experience to explore the challenges they're tackling, the approaches they're testing, the impact they're creating, and where opportunities exist for the travel industry to get involved. Expect real-world lessons, honest insights, and new ideas you can bring back to your own work.
All sessions are subject to change.