How We Can Help To Bring Different Voices to Our Industry’s Discussions
Having written now a few times about Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, at FESTIVE ROAD we are now focused on moving from words to action. Words are important, don’t get me wrong, especially when dialogue around the topic is evolving at speed, but actually doing something to help tangibly shift to a more diverse, equitable and inclusive travel community is also important.
Or as Benjamin Franklin puts it, ”…Well done is better than well said.”
At the end of last year, we made commitments at FESTIVE ROAD to act. You can read more in our last post but Commitment #2 is to “Influence our Wider Network”.
How better to do that than encourage more diverse representation on the industry’s stages and virtual education platforms. It’s important to get beyond just asking people of colour to talk in panels on diversity, equity, and inclusion, to ensuring we have a diverse representation on all panels talking about all things industry related. The problem is, we often default to the same speakers because we know their style, their approach and knowledge. So, anything we can do to highlight people who aren’t presently in the spotlight to ensure we hear from as diverse voices as possible is really important.
Given that we put together a huge number of industry panels, and sometimes guide the media and associations on great speakers, we are therefore calling on our network to tell us about great speakers from a wide variety of ethnic groups who we should consider for future education sessions. This is a really great opportunity for all of us to recommend people of colour, whether they be peers, colleagues, or contacts, so we can identify the rising stars we don’t yet see on our sector’s stages.
If you have a suggested nominee we could talk to simply drop us a line at hello@festive-road.com with “Diverse Voices” as the subject line and help us collate a more diverse speaker roster, so that we may benefit from different voices creating a more rounded discussion.
Thanks for your support.
The FESTIVE ROAD Team
Further Reading: To take action yourself on increasing diversity on stage take a look at the top tips in this Harvard Business Review article entitled “What It Will take To Improve Diversity at Conferences”
