Regenerative Tourism in the Post-Pandemic World

As global tourism has grown, cities and destinations around the world have struggled to balance the need for tourism dollars with the quality of life for permanent residents. This reality is the subject of the 2023 Morrison Lecture, featuring Simon Woodward, author of World Heritage: Concepts, Management, and Conservation. Woodward will discuss the “pandemic reset” that many tourism economies experienced because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Locals began to reclaim their neighborhoods and city centers. Noise pollution all but disappeared and cruise ships no longer crowded ports. In Venice, dolphins returned to the city’s famed canals. As tourism comes back in full force, cities are trying out different measures such as regulating short-term rentals in historic city centers, banning cruise ships, and using social media to discourage bachelor parties. 

Woodward will discuss the “pandemic reset” that many tourism economies experienced because of the COVID-19 pandemic and how these efforts have affected residents and the travel industry. Woodward will be joined virtually by tourism authorities from Cusco, Peru, Amsterdam (Maya Janssen), Cape Town (Enver Duminy), and New Orleans (Walt Leger).

Meet The Experts

Dr. Simon Woodward

Dr. Simon Woodward has spent the last 35 years working as a consultant, lecturer, and researcher in the field of cultural and heritage tourism. Based in the UK, he has advised public, private, and third sector clients in many parts of the world, and helped prepare tourism strategies, management plans, and development plans for heritage destinations worldwide. Simon is currently completing work on a development strategy for an Indonesian National Park, a tourism masterplan for the Upper Nile in Egypt, and is delivering trainingin site management and development to a group of heritage property managers in Eastern Serbia. For almost 15 years, Simon was a key member of the team at Leeds Beckett University where he taught on the MSc program in Responsible Tourism Management. He is former Chair of the ICOMOS-UK Cultural Tourism Committee and a Trustee of two heritage NGOs in the North of England.

Maya Janssen

 Maya Janssen is the Managing Director for Insights and Marketing Strategy with Amsterdam & partners. She is a data-driven marketing and brand strategist who guides the development and implementation of impactful strategies and programs for residents, businesses, and visitors to Amsterdam and the Metropolitan Area of Amsterdam. Maya has broad experience in the field of urban tourism, leisure, hospitality, and mobility with an extensive knowledge of branding, data, and technology. She is coauthor of Amsterdam’s 2025 vision for a redesigned social, ecological,
and economically sustainable visitor economy with key recommendations for a balanced,
regenerative city.

Enver Duminy

Enver Duminy is the Chief Executive Officer of Cape Town Tourism, a role he has held since 2023. Enver has been involved in various groundbreaking projects, including pioneering the first-ever Responsible Pricing policy for the tourism industry in Cape Town, conceptualizing the first Mobile Visitor Information Vehicle in Africa, and
implementing the first-ever integrated management system in a tourism organization. His current focus is to work alongside his team and stakeholders, driving innovation and transformation through campaigns that raise
Cape Town’s profile as a leading and accessible global destination.

Walt Leger

Walt Leger is the President and CEO of New Orleans & Company, the official destination marketing and sales organization for the tourism industry of New Orleans. Representing over 1100 member businesses, New Orleans & Company is the tourism and hospitality industry’s official destination sales, marketing, and trade organization, responsible for driving billions of dollars of diverse annual business to the regional cultural economy. In a highly competitive global environment, the organization works to attract leisure and cultural travel, business meetings conventions, sporting, and special events while celebrating the richness of the city’s culture and enhancing the quality of life for every New Orleanian.

About the Morrison Lecture Series

The Jacob Haight and Mary Meek Morrison Memorial Lecture addresses topics in historic preservation and honors two longtime Vieux Carré residents, who were also ardent and tireless advocates for its preservation. Beginning in the 1930s and for decades following, the couple was in the vanguard of advancing preservation legislation and raising public awareness of issues in historic preservation.
 
The mission of the Morrison Lecture is to bring insight to the strengths and challenges of the Vieux Carré from various disciplines to educate about the value of preservation, and the lectures to have relevance to the Vieux Carré as a Living Historic District.
 
Previous Morrison lectures have included presentations from Pratt W. Cassity Jr. (2002 and 2014), Ed McMahon (2003), Anthony M. Tung (2006), Gregory B. Free (2008), Stanley A. Lowe (2010), Kirk Cordell (2012), Calder Loth (2016) and Costas Christ (2018). The Historic New Orleans Collection houses the Mary Meek Morrison and Jacob H. Morrison Papers, which consist of nearly 94,000 items.

This lecture is presented as a partnership between VCPORA, the Vieux Carré Commission Foundation, And The Historic New Orleans Collection.