The Future of Travel: An Award-Winning Travel News Reporter on Where We’re Headed and How We Choose to Get There

As one of the largest industries on the planet, travel can seem both monumental and resistant to change. But it’s an industry constantly in flux, and its future is one we can actively shape.

Award-winning journalist Lebawit Lily Girma — like Hidden Compass co-founders Sivani Babu and Sabine K. Bergmann — has researched and written extensively about travel during her career. For “The Future of Travel: An Award-Winning Travel News Reporter on Where We’re Headed and How We Choose to Get There,” Girma joins Babu and Bergmann for a lively discussion about where this multi-trillion-dollar industry is headed. As a full-time travel news reporter at Bloomberg Pursuits, Girma not only calls on her 15+ years of travel journalism experience, but on her mission to elevate sustainable and conscious tourism coverage in media.

That balance, between witnessing change and creating it, will be a theme throughout the discussion. The trio will touch on travel trends like tech innovations, inflation, and accessibility; on challenges from war to climate change to overtourism; and on how to shape travel moving forward. They will discuss what it means to decolonize travel, to embrace sustainability, and to cultivate a conscious mindset as we move through the world.

The future of travel remains unwritten but possibilities abound.

Bio

Lebawit Lily Girma is a full-time travel news reporter at Bloomberg Pursuits — the lifestyle arm of Bloomberg News and Bloomberg Businessweek — as well as a freelance award-winning journalist and the founder of the conscious travel site Tourism Lens. Lebawit counts more than 15 years of experience in the travel industry reporting on global tourism with a focus on sustainability, for business and consumer-facing travel publications.

This Ethiopian American lawyer ditched her Washington DC office for the road and a new career in travel storytelling in 2008, and her writing and photography have appeared in major publications: BBC, Conde Nast Traveler (US and UK), CNN, National Geographic Traveller UK, Travel & Leisure, Sierra, Lonely Planet, and The Guardian, among others, plus past in-flight magazines such as Delta Sky and MorningCalm (Korean Air).

For nearly two years during the Covid pandemic, Lebawit was also editor-at-large and full-time global tourism reporter at Skift, a news company focused on the business of travel. There, she wrote about the future of tourism and its recovery, from the evolution of tourism boards as destination stewards, to equity, responsible marketing, community tourism, and climate action, among other topics.

Lebawit appears regularly in the media, and she is sought out for industry events as a speaker or moderator on global tourism topics. Her appearances, including keynote speeches and interviews, include CNN with Richard Quest, Bloomberg CityLab, Skift Global Forum, ITB Berlin, WTM Africa, Alaska Media Road Show, Belize Digital Marketing Summit, CREST World Tourism Day Forum, and Women in Travel Summit.