TOURISM & HOSPITALITY KEYNOTES & WORKSHOPS
This isn’t about rooms, seats, or tables. And it’s not just about destinations, attractions, or guided experiences either. It’s about why people show up, how they choose you, and what makes them stay and experience in a world where presence is optional, loyalty is fluid, and memory is everything.
The Future of Belonging, Booking and Being There
From Tokyo to Tasmania, from Bangkok to Christchurch, from global summits to immersive visitor journeys, Morris has worked across the full spectrum of experience delivery from destination design to memory-making, from short stays to long-term brand belonging.
… & your organization could be next.

SEE WHAT’S COMING, MAKE SENSE OF IT, & ACT DECISIVELY
Morris’s Proven Track Record in Tourism, Hospitality, & Events
Morris doesn’t deliver shelf talks. He brings decades of foresight from inside the industry. He’s been consulting since the days of telex and 72-hour bookings and has guided clients through every shift since: the rise of fax, the explosion of online travel agents, the fall of commission models, and the birth of TripAdvisor (which he publicly defended when the rest of the industry booed it). He’s helped destinations, venues, and tourism operators respond to disruption and rebuild with purpose.
He’s advised iconic hotel brands, national and regional tourism bodies, luxury caterers, venue operators, inflight service providers, educators, and event leaders across Australia, New Zealand, Asia, Europe, Canada, and the United States.
He also spent 15 years at Holmesglen TAFE, where he was the founding architect of their final-year tourism and events program building the course from scratch, writing the curriculum, and designing the structure for one of Australia’s first industry-partnered training models. The approach he introduced students embedded inside real businesses, learning through live strategy and project delivery is still being used today, decades later. A testament to both its relevance and rigour.
TOURISM & HOSPITALITY KEYNOTE DESCRIPTION
In this keynote, Morris introduces how HUMAND (Humans + Understanding + Machines + AI + Navigation + Design) is already reshaping guest expectations, workforce structures, venue operations, trust infrastructure, AI-enabled service, digital-first bookings, food journeys, and the “work–leisure–wellness” blend now embedded in every destination choice.
Whether it’s preparing for the future of short stays, dining experiences, lunar tourism, or hybrid events, Morris shows your audience how to stay relevant, responsive, and human-first no matter where or how your guest arrives.
You don’t need another look at hospitality tech trends.
You need a plan to keep designing the kinds of places people still want to be in, work in, eat in, and return to even when the world around them keeps shifting.
Immediate Futures™:
The Future of Belonging, Booking and Being There
This is for anyone designing destinations, delivering experiences, or hosting humans in an age of restless travellers and rising expectations.
Experience now begins with a search engine, a swipe, a story, or a sensor.
Destinations are competing with identity, not just itineraries.
Visitors are digital workers, wellness seekers, micro-vacationers, experience collectors, content creators, or hybrid attendees often all at once.
Infrastructure is emotional now.
AI may plan the journey, handle the booking, and check the weather. But it can’t replace meaning.
TOURISM & HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY CHALLENGES
Pain Points & Tensions
cancel Expectations have exploded but so has operational pressure
cancel Innovation is demanded but rarely resourced
cancel Visitors want meaning but meaning means different things to everyone
cancel Everyone’s role is blurring and that’s creating cultural whiplash
cancel Climate is changing the calendar but the industry still plans like it’s 2015
cancel Mobility is becoming a barrier not a bridge
cancel Digital trust is fraying and no one’s ready to talk about it
TOURISM & HOSPITALITY
Case Studies
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Holmesglen
Holmesglen Didn’t Ask for Foresight. But That’s What They Got.
In 1995, Holmesglen was building a brand-new final-year tourism and events degree and they hired Morris as their first lead lecturer. But he didn’t just teach. He rewrote the script.
Morris created the curriculum, designed the course structure, and taught 80% of the non-financial final-year subjects across management, marketing, HR, and innovation while still running his own consultancy. Then he proposed something radical: an Industry Partner (IP) model where students wouldn’t just study theory they’d be embedded with real tourism and hospitality organisations, building marketing strategies and business plans for live client briefs.
He pitched it. Designed it. Sold it to both Holmesglen and the industry. And it worked.
Student engagement soared. Industry lined up to participate. And 90% of students were offered jobs by their IP hosts.
But foresight isn’t always easy. In that same first year, Morris warned the students that commissions the backbone of travel agent income would collapse. That online bookings would rise. That fee-for-service and experience curation would replace repetitive, back-end sales work. This was 1995. The internet barely existed. The comment caused waves. But it was right. And it gave a generation of students a head start on a future no one else saw coming.
Shift: From education as content delivery to education as co-created, real-time future readiness.
The result?: A nationally recognised program, a generation of future-fit professionals, and a lasting model of education–industry integration.
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Australian Tourism Council
The Future of Travel and Hospitality
Tourism Strategy & Global Foresight: Insights into global innovations, emerging travel behaviours, and the ripple effects on Australia's tourism sector.
Shift: From reactive tourism strategies to anticipatory planning for global shifts in travel and hospitality.
The result? A forward-looking approach that positions Australian tourism as a global leader in sustainable travel.
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Retail 2020
Retail 2020 Didn’t Want a Concept. They Wanted Proof You Could Walk Through.
For Diversified Exhibitions, Morris didn’t just give a keynote. He built a full-scale, immersive pavilion a living, walk-through exhibition of the future. It was designed to let over 100,000 attendees touch, taste, and interact with what tomorrow might feel like.
Inside the space: AI sommeliers, frictionless check-in and checkout, in-room dining through smart screens, voice-activated concierge assistants, digital mirrors, smart lighting and blinds, and checkout-free café stations. It wasn’t theory. It was foresight spatial, sensory, and real.Shift: From trend reports to walk-through foresight environments that mirror future hotels, venues, and retail spaces.
The result?: It became a benchmark for how strategy and storytelling can reshape experience design and inspired rethink across hospitality, tourism, retail, and event design.
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Tourism Export Council of New Zealand (TECNZ)
New Zealand’s Tourism Future, Twice Over
When Morris was booked not once, but twice (in 2012 and 2016) as the keynote speaker for the Tourism Export Council of New Zealand (TECNZ), it wasn’t for a recycled talk. It was a deep dive into the shifting wants of tomorrow’s traveller—micro-tourism, digital-first destinations, frictionless movement, and next-gen service. He brought future signals to life, proposed a 2025 tourism map, and helped operators reframe their thinking from seasonal bookings to lifelong regional relationships
Shift: From mass tourism models to intimate, anticipatory experience design.
The result?: TECNZ leadership called his presentations "game changing" and invited him to continue the foresight journey every four years.
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Caravan & Camping Industry Association of NSW (CCIA NSW)
Future-Proofing the Campsite
In July 2012, Morris was invited to speak at the annual conference of the Caravan & Camping Industry Association of NSW, held at the Fairmont Resort in the Blue Mountains. The theme: Still Ahead of the Game. His role? Make sure they stayed that way.
Morris delivered a keynote exploring the future of regional accommodation, shifting family travel behaviours, mobile-first bookings, and what it would take for campsites, cabins, and caravan parks to keep up with changing guest expectations. He challenged operators to reimagine their value not just as facilities but as full-spectrum experiences: part retreat, part memory-maker, part digital interface.
He also addressed workforce shifts, sustainability pressures, and the looming digital infrastructure gap between urban and regional operators. But it wasn’t alarmist. It was practical. Provocative. Grounded. And exactly what the room needed.
Feedback from delegates was described by the President as “very positive,” reflecting how well the foresight landed with operators on the ground.
Shift: From seasonal site management to year-round lifestyle-led destination design.
The result?: Reframed expectations, greater internal alignment, and a renewed focus on future guest needs all delivered in one keynote, still referenced years later.
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Global Hotel Convention
The Leading Hotels of the World Didn’t Want a Speech. They Wanted a Reframe.
At the global convention in Tokyo, with over 80 of the world’s top hotel GMs in the room, Morris was invited to deliver the opening keynote. But he didn’t talk about service excellence or tech trends. He talked about anticipation. Emotion. Belonging. And how the best luxury brands won’t win by looking expensive they’ll win by feeling unforgettable. He introduced BreadCrumb Innovation® and HUMAND as tools to shift luxury from polished history to strategic intimacy.
Shift: From heritage-first hospitality to emotion-led brand relevance.
The result?: The keynote sparked a wave of internal conversations, strategic rewrites, and direct rebookings.
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Swissôtel
Swissôtel Didn’t Want a Roadmap. They Wanted Permission to Rewire.
Long before their Accor acquisition, Swissôtel brought Morris to their leadership teams in Bangkok and Kolkata to help reimagine guest experience. The brief? “Help us navigate luxury, wellness, and automation without losing what makes us human.” Morris delivered custom foresight provocations on AI dignity, guest psychology, and sustainability storytelling and challenged leaders to think beyond service into systems.
Shift: From 5-star comfort to layered, ethical, future-aware experience design.
The result?: His frameworks were used to reposition key CX initiatives and create post-session strategy momentum across Asia Pacific.
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Meetings & Events Australia (MEA)
When the Unexpected Happened, Morris Set the Tone for the Entire Conference
Morris was already scheduled to speak at the MEA (Meetings & Events Australia) national conference. But when the headline international speaker couldn’t fly in, the organisers turned to Morris with less than 18 hours’ notice and one clear question: Could you open the entire conference?
He didn’t just say yes.
He reimagined the start of the event entirely.
Overnight, Morris built and delivered a high-impact future-state keynote Convention 2020 mapping the forces transforming the global events industry: from hybrid delivery to venue design, emotional resonance, automation, sustainability, and the economics of audience attention.
The session landed so powerfully it reshaped the tone of the entire event. Attendees called it “inspiring,” “visionary,” and “a much-needed call to evolve.” Multiple rebookings followed not because Morris filled a gap, but because he proved how critical real foresight is when disruption hits.
Shift: From opening logistics challenge to industry-defining moment of future clarity.
The result?: The most talked-about session of the conference and a reminder that sometimes, the best keynote isn’t the one planned, but the one that truly delivers.
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Tourism Australia
The Keynote That Opened Doors and Eyes
Tourism Australia’s grand annual conference brings together the entire ecosystem hotels, airlines, tour operators, government agencies, regional bodies, luxury providers, and global distributors in one room. When Morris was booked to open this flagship event, he knew the stakes. So did the audience.
He delivered a high-stakes keynote designed to provoke, unify, and elevate. He didn’t present a tourism forecast he gave the industry a foresight map: what Australians would seek in travel, how leisure would blend with wellness and purpose, why luxury was being redefined, and what it meant to host humans in a world of rising expectations and digital saturation.
He introduced his HUMAND model, challenged the room to think beyond bookings and bed nights, and mapped a tourism future that was designed from the traveller outwards not the operator inwards.
The keynote didn’t just land. It launched a wave. Within months, Morris was booked by multiple delegates in the room including Leading Hotels of the World, Swissôtel, and major hospitality and event organisations across Asia-Pacific.
Shift: From supplier-focused strategies to traveller-first transformation.
The result?: A defining keynote that reframed what Australian tourism could be and positioned Morris as the go-to futurist for providers ready to lead.
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Events Queensland
Futurevation at the Edge of the Map
When Events Queensland gathered regional leaders, tourism marketers, and festival organisers from across the state, they wanted the opening keynote to challenge assumptions and energise the future. They brought in Morris to do exactly that and he delivered Futurevation, a bold, thought-provoking session designed to reframe what regional events could become.
Speaking to a packed room in Cairns, Morris unpacked the coming shift in domestic travel, community identity, and what guests expect when they leave the city. He introduced the rise of “CUBs” Cashed-Up Bogans and argued that these emerging audiences weren’t fringe. They were the mainstream market waiting to be understood. He showed how future event design would blend lifestyle, loyalty, local pride, and on-demand culture. It wasn’t about chasing trends it was about building relevance from the ground up.
The keynote set the tone for the entire weekend. Organisers called it “mindblowing,” and Morris’s provocations became a reference point throughout the sessions that followed. As Kate Blumke, Manager of the Regional Development Program, wrote: “Your presentation was extremely interesting and certainly got people talking... a brilliant way to kick off the exciting program that unfolded over the weekend.”
Shift: From static event planning to future-shaped strategy built on audience insight and cultural design.
The result?: A catalytic keynote that framed the weekend and reshaped how Events Queensland thought about community, curation, and future regional impact.
“Futurist Morris Misel captivated the audience by discussing AI, workforce evolution and tools that can enhance our everyday lives.”
Lisa Dowie, CEO
THE FUTURE OF TOURISM & HOSPITALITY
Opportunities Ahead
check_circle Design for the journey, not just the stay
check_circle Stop selling destinations. Start building meaning
check_circle Rebuild loyalty around belonging, not discounts
check_circle Make infrastructure your brand’s quiet superpower
check_circle Use HUMAND to decide what to automate and what to humanise
Then | Now | Next: Tourism, Hospitality, & Events
In tourism, hospitality, and events, expectations are evolving faster than infrastructure. Travellers want connection without friction. Guests want autonomy with warmth. Attendees want immersion, meaning, and memory. And operators are caught between tradition, technology, and the growing pressure to redesign everything without losing what made them great to begin with.
Then (2010)
How many heads in beds and bums on seats?
Now (2025)
How do we create moments so meaningful, guests turn them into memory and memory into loyalty?
Next (2030)
What if our greatest asset isn’t the venue, the view, or the budget but the emotional legacy we design on purpose?
Looking Back, Seeing Ahead.
If you work in tourism, hospitality, or events, you already know the challenge. Guest expectations keep rising. Attention spans keep shrinking. Labour is harder to secure. Tech is moving faster than your training cycles. And the pressure to deliver standout experiences is now a baseline not a differentiator. That’s where Morris comes in.
For more than 30 years, Morris has worked behind the scenes and on the main stage with global hotel brands, national tourism bodies, inflight caterers, luxury venue groups, caravan networks, education providers, event organisers, and regional tourism alliances. Not just for inspiration but for foresight, provocation, decision-making, and strategic traction.
They don’t bring him in to dazzle the room. They bring him in to name what’s next and make it usable.
Whether he’s reframing destination strategy, redesigning guest experiences, pressure-testing product futures, or opening your flagship event, Morris bring swhat your audience and executive team actually need: clarity, momentum, and insight they can act on.
So, if your next summit, planning day, client event, or leadership offsite needs more than polish if it needs future-fit thinking that knows your industry inside and out, let’s talk.
Because in tourism, hospitality and events, the winners aren’t just the best hosts. They’re the first to read the room.
YOUR FUTURE STARTS NOW
Futurist Keynote Speaker Morris Misel
Morris Misel (Miselowski) is a global business futurist, keynote speaker, trusted media voice, and strategic advisor who has shaped the thinking of the world’s biggest organisations and brands to understand what tomorrow might look like – long before they experience it. Morris is known for making the future feel clear, actionable, and, most importantly, human. He has helped clients including ANZ, Microsoft, Visa, Make-A-Wish, Caltex, UBS, Call of Duty, BUPA, and BP become future-proof.
With more than 30 years of experience spanning 160+ industries, Morris has earned a worldwide reputation for his ability to decode the complexities of the future and translate them into tangible strategies that everyone in an organization can understand and implement. He’s regularly called on by journalists, broadcasters, and editors, including ABC, Mashable, CBS, Times of India, SBS, The Australian, Times Inc., The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, Sky News Business TV, The Herald Sun, and The Daily Telegraph, to explain what’s next and what to do about it.
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