Retreat Overview
Sept 7 - Sept 30, 2020
Concept
The Virtual Retreat was co-created by Design Hotels and Unsettled as a month-long virtual journey of self-reflection and personal growth for hoteliers and travel advisors. Aimed at exploring both personal development and professional expansion, … See more
2. Study
The Virtual Retreat was based on an extensive research that Design Hotels conducted in collaboration with The Future Laboratory, which gave birth to a new concept: the Promadic Traveler. Promadic travelers are not defined by material wealth, but by experiences and intellectualism in response to their historical and cultural context . See more here
3. Themes
Each week, the Virtual Retreat explored the drivers behind the Promadic Travelers’ travel decisions, examining their mindsets and values. We spread these themes out across the month, allowing each week to focus and target different core values. See more here
4. Journey
The Virtual Retreat consisted of four core elements of programming. This uniformity allowed for continuity and deep examination of each theme through multiple angles. See more here
5. Platforms
The Virtual Retreat lived on multiple platforms in order to create a complete virtual space. We believe that learning only leads to human change if different touchpoints are being explored. To translate this philosophy, we introduced a variety of digital and physical touchpoints into the experience. See more here
6. Contributors
The Virtual Retreat was a collaboration with educators, artists and experts from various fields and industries to diversify and expand the program, which focus was on personal development and growth. This allowed for creativity and innovation within the experience. See more here
7. Testimonials
The Virtual Retreat had an impact of many people in the travel industry. Travel advisors and contributors shared what impact this journey had on their private and professional lives moving forward. See more here
8. Business Model
The Virtual Retreat’s format enables longer-term networking and fosters deeper connections. Moreover, its digital nature allows for international participation without any carbon footprint or travel costs. See more here
9. Impact
The Virtual Retreat is a platform that supports projects of people bringing a positive change to this world and to their local communities. We had the pleasure to welcome some of our community members sharing their life stories. See more here
Concept
We wanted to bring leaders from across the world, together on a transformational journey. Creating a virtual space to discuss their personal as well as professional experiences in order to regain confidence in the new direction of travel, and to support the group to overcome the downturn caused by Covid19.
Why Virtual Retreat?
In the past six months, cities and countries across the world have shut down; people have been isolating at home; and businesses have been taking a downfall due to Covid-19, which has affected every individual. Our time confined at home, however, allowed for personal reflection. However, this had to be done individually and for many without support of others. This is why we felt the need to create a space where we could foster human connection, share tools to help us manage our reflections and most importantly share our concerns and hopes for the travel industry. We believe the future of travel will be shaped not only by the consumers but also the travel advisors and hoteliers who create and sell experiences.
A four-week journey to discover and learn
Based on the following pillars:
A set of shared community principles to guide us
2. An approach to weekly content and sharing that pushes you to grow, connect, and discover
3. A set of four Promadic Travel inspired themes that focus our journey over the month
The Promadic Curriculum / Manifesto
In collaboration with Future Laboratories, Design Hotels released the Future Traveler 2030 report—focusing on the new type of traveler that we are expecting to emerge in the next decade. Covid-19’s impact on the travel industry has only reconfirmed our forecast and fast-tracked this new attitude and approach to travel.
The trend for Promadic Travel is pan-generational and international, representing a mindset that cuts across lines of identity. Promadic Travelers are not defined by material wealth, but by the experiential and intellectual in response to their historical and cultural context. Travelers are looking more and more towards purpose and progress, and with this comes a change from being one who consumes to one who contributes.
Every week we introduced a different value
Conscious Self-Awareness
The starting point for any journey is ourselves. It’s the lens that any and every experience must pass through. And so we began our journey here, centering ourselves in our personal narratives and histories with the theme of conscious self-awareness.
It is also our starting point for understanding our impact on the world around us, from a place of transparency, realism, and honesty. Promadic Travelers are conscious of their personal impact on their destination — economically, socially, and environmentally — as well as understanding that the places they go are part of their story and vice versa.
Purpose & Personal Development
The theme of purpose and personal development is to build on the understanding that we are not passive consumers. Instead, like the Promadic Traveler, we have a shared purpose to be collaborative, connective, creative, and culturally inquisitive. Together we are on the hunt to create and find meaning.
Our deep dive into the theme of purpose and personal development is guided by the idea that travel of the future should be proactive, purposeful, and foster sense of personal progress in each of us.
Connection & Community
Choosing how and when to connect, as well as who to connect with, will define the high-end travel experiences of the future. The Promadic Traveler’s desire for personal progress will not be divorced from his or her desire for collective progress and so the role of connection and community is magnified.
Our theme of connection and community lets us examine the roles we play in creating relationships, communities, and a shared culture. We looked at our personal types of connection and the external influences at play, including the way we integrate with our local communities and spaces, creating something that also represents the places and areas that we inhabit.
Personalized & Rare
A journey to better understand our roles as the creators and curators of our own experiences and the ways that we are all unique and different.
Diving into the theme of the personalized and the rare, we aim to discover and model our own uniqueness, uncovering the ways in which personalization is all about details and human service.
A journey to change habits
1
Unsettled Workshop
2
Hotel Discussion Panel
3
Connect Sessions
4
Design Hotels Original Experience
1. Workshop
These four personal workshops are designed to lead us on a unique self-development journey in the spirit of the Promadic Traveler. These weekly Tuesday calls will ask you to check in and work alongside us with live exercises, frameworks for lifestyle design, and some thoughtful discussions. These calls are open for all agents and advisors and only the five featured hotels of that week.
2. Hotel Discussion Panel
Hosted by Design Hotels, these weekly 1.5-hour-long themed panel discussions will feature the insights of our participating hotel visionaries and Originals as they share their perspectives on our weekly Promadic Travel themes.
3. Connect Sessions
One-hour long sessions allowing for participants to connect individually in short break out rooms. Each break out room lasts five minutes allowing for each participant to connect with multiple people in private rooms. Following the theme of the week, we ask participants questions allowing them to exchange their perspectives and brainstorm together around personal and professional subjects.
4. Design Hotels Original Experiences
Each week concludes with a discussion about the weekly theme with a creative experience allowing for participants to try new mindfulness tools to help them ground themselves within their routines. We have collaborated with talent and experts in different spheres of practice to share their craft and knowledge. Experiences range from breathwork to journaling workshops. Journaling Workshop with AllSwell Creative, Breathwork with Lisa De Narvaez, Community & Connection with Rockhouse Foundation & Espoir, Power of Melody with Andrei Matori
Physical Touchpoints
Physical Parcels – We wanted to make sure that this virtual retreat has a tangible element to the journey. Before the start of the retreat, each participant received a care package that consisted of physical letters providing directions for each week as well as a selection of tools that would be used throughout the retreat, i.e. notebooks for journaling, the promadic report, or palo santo for the breathwork session with Lisa.
Digital
Touchpoints
To ensure a holistic educational journey of transformation, we worked with several different digital platforms. With Teachable we brought the tools, resources, and coursework to the participants. This platform helped everyone to track and follow the ongoing projects. With the help of Slack we created a digital townhall where we built and curated a very personal interaction between the participants that was independent from time zones and allowed us to invite a truly global community. Zoom allowed us to create a personal connection with the participants and create a truly interactive session, and with Live Broadcasting Streams, we had the chance to invite musicians, facilitators and artists in high definition into the conversation.
Teachable - Learning Platform
Slack - Virtual Townhall
Andrei Matorin
Violonist / Personalized & Rare
“My intention is to create experiences that resonate with the deepest corners of the human soul. To touch that which we usually avoid in order to create connection and healing at a level we rarely experience.”
Lisa de Narvaez
Breathwork / Purpose & Personal Development
Lisa de Narvaez is a consciousness teacher committed to the evolution of humanity. Over the past 20 plus years, she has facilitated the transformational workshops around breath synchronization across the world. Her trailblazing methodologies have made her a crowd favorite among prestigious organizations such as Google, Summit Series, Habitas, Soho House, YPO, Well+Good and Bloomberg, amongst other emerging communities and private clients and leaders around the world.
Martin Raymond & Chris Sanderson
The Future Laboratory / Personalized & Rare
.
The Future Laboratory is one of the world’s most renowned futures consultancies. With a unique blend of trend forecasting, consumer insight, foresight, brand strategy and innovation, they inspire and future-proof organizations.
Carlos Couturier
Hotelier / Original / Grupo Habita / Purpose & Personal Development
“We use a local team every time we build a hotel, and we read the surroundings and their traditions to integrate the local culture into our project.”
Testimonials from the participants
After the one-month Virtual Retreat, we asked participants and facilitators to share their feedback and help us shape the future of this journey.
Some of our member hotels
that joined us on this journey
Full impact on People /
No Impact on the Planet
By 2030, the UN predicts that 4.9bn people will be urban dwellers, driving demand for deceleration and purposeful restoration, as Future Travellers seek to combat the pace of everyday life. The Promadic Travellers, will not be the passive consumers of the Experience Economy that dominated the 2010s. Instead, they will demand life-changing improvement through how, where and with whom they spend their time.
The Virtual Retreat is a concept that will remain relevant beyond the vaccine as we believe this digital component is a powerful tool that enhances real-world physical experiences. This format enables longer-term networking and fosters deeper connections. Moreover, its digital nature allows for an international audience reach, zero carbon footprint and zero travel costs. Self-development and creative learning will become paramount for travel experts and consumers.
Giving back to Community
with Rockhouse Foundation & Espoir School of Life
Throughout the Virtual Retreat we had the pleasure to host hoteliers who have gone beyond hotels and contributed to the communities they take space in through various initiatives and programs. When discussing the theme of Community & Connection we had the pleasure to host a conversation with Paul Salmon, the Original behind The Rockhouse Hotel and Skylark Negril Beach Resort, who is also the founder of Rockhouse Foundation, and shared about his community focused project in Jamaica. Paul was joined by Nicolas Gontard, the Original behind Kimamaya by Odin and co-founder of Odin Properties, who spoke about his Espoir School of Life Project in the Philippines. This beautiful and engaging conversation was hosted by Juliana Luna - an activist, artist, TEDx speaker, and member of the Design Hotels™ community.
“I feel a tremendous sense of pride for what we’ve achieved, both for employees and thousands of kids in the community.”
Paul Salmon
What People Are Saying
“I was a fan before, but now I'm a fan for life. The format and content was rich and diverse.”
— Angela Adto, Aza Luxury Travel, United States
“I’m so happy to be part of this group and be on the journey together exploring the Promadic Traveller and coming out of the retreat ready to fire up our industry in new and enlightened ways.”
— Yvonne Verstandig, Executive Edge Travel, Australia
“Being part of Virtual Retreat represents being in touch with the industry again, in a new approach and exploring new technologies.”
— Susanna Tavares, Villa Foz, Portugal
“It’s really great to see how everyone is connecting with their communities all over the world, and I think we can learn a lot from that. I see a lot of opportunities for the future.”
— Sabine Hermans, Hotel Arena, Netherlands
“For us the future is beyond exploring, beyond culture, beyond sustainability…I see more and more a hotel as a space holder to help [people] jump on a journey that is more than a simple vacation. And we can all use that common sense of being one, to guide people to that journey beyond Covid.”
— Daniel Laubner, Cervo Mountain Boutique Resort, Switzerland
“It was an amazing experience. I'm so glad I participated and am thankful that you invited me. The execution was first class.”
– Kim Rickles, Black Label Travels, United States
“This has been the most amazing experience I’ve attended since April of this Year. Everything was thoughtful and well planned down to the welcome kit we received by mail.”
– Kamala Cummings, In the Know Experiences, United States
“Very excited to be a part of this wonderful journey together. Sharing our knowledge, experiences and dreams for this incredible industry. Looking forward to building a better travel world in this new norm.”
— Gary Oakley, Oakley Travel Group, United States