Breakfast and Networking
Welcome to XDW 2026
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How Fast Should We Move with AI
Two years into widespread AI adoption, most destinations are still in the tactical phase: experimenting with individual tools, running small pilots and finding workflow shortcuts. This opening keynote sets out what AI-readiness actually looks like when tools, skills, workflows and structure are treated as one connected idea, and why the tactical phase has a ceiling that most organisations are closer to than they realise.
Supporting Industry AI Transformation: Creating the Change Tourism Austria Platform
As destinations look to scale AI adoption, national platforms have a critical role to play in translating capability into shared momentum. Teresa Karan from Austria Tourism outlines how the DMO is championing AI transformation through the Change Tourism Austria platform, a community-first initiative designed to help Austrian tourism businesses innovate, collaborate and integrate AI into everyday workflows.
Integrating AI Into Workflows
The sticking points for AI adoption tend to be internal. This session brings together Tomas Andersson from Stockholm Business Region and Panos Kokkalis from Marketing Greece to explore the process of building leadership confidence, creating the conditions for strategic thinking and equipping teams with the knowledge to move theory into practice.
Coffee and Networking
Zone Rotation
Strategy Room
Becoming AI-Ready
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Identifying the one or two moves that unlock everything else and how to build internal momentum without a perfect strategy. Centred on getting early wins that create confidence.
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The Lab
Building a Working Knowledge Base
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A live working session on what project knowledge is, what you can put into it and what it enables. Demonstrates the logic of MCP connections through a clear illustration.
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Debating Room
AI's Impact on Teams & Content
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Is the real barrier to AI in destinations people, not technology? Is AI just producing more content of low quality? Both sides argued through devil's advocate questioning.
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Advisory Clinic
Submitted Cases on AI-Readiness
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A focused advisory session built around cases submitted in advance. Facilitators identify common patterns, typical failure points and what good looks like in practice.
Enter the zone arrow_forwardFacilitators Report Back
A facilitator from each zone shares the outcomes, tensions and unresolved questions surfaced in their session. The de-brief brings the room back together before lunch with a shared sense of where the conversation has reached.
Lunch
Governance is the Most Misunderstood Word in AI
Governance has been framed as compliance, oversight, friction. A destination without a clear AI governance position is one operating without a strategic anchor. This keynote sets out what governance actually contains in practice (policy, accountability, transparency, data standards and procurement) and why August 2026's EU AI Act enforcement makes this an urgent strategic issue, not just a legal one.
Building an AI Governance Strategy
Maas van Drie and Sherry Bidgood from Aruba Tourism Authority sit down with Nick Hall for a fireside chat to walk through the work they did together to design Aruba's AI strategy. The conversation will cover the audit that opened the process, the readiness questions it surfaced and the role that governance played in shaping the strategy.
Exploring Governance Strategies in Practice
Alfred Wagenius from Visit Skåne provides an honest account of what governance and integration look like in practice, from the first steps taken to embed AI into workflows to the creation of disclosure policies. He explores the tensions that emerge when mandated tools and preferred tools don't align.
Coffee and Networking
Zone Rotation
Strategy Room
Building Your Governance Framework
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How destinations move from individuals using AI tools to an organisation with clear rules and standards. Map where you sit between phase one (efficiency) and phase two (reinvention).
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The Lab
Stress-Testing Your AI Policy
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Use the DTTT AI Transparency Framework on a real piece of work to generate a disclosure card, then draft a one-page AI policy you can take back and implement.
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Debating Room
Innovation or Protection
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Does governance slow AI adoption or make it sustainable? Should AI guidelines be shared openly with partners and communities, or does transparency create more problems than it solves?
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Advisory Clinic
Submitted Cases on Governance
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Built around governance documents, AI policies and framework drafts submitted in advance. Identify the most urgent gap between current AI use and a responsible, disclosed approach.
Enter the zone arrow_forwardFacilitators Report Back
A facilitator from each zone shares the outcomes, tensions and unresolved questions surfaced in their session. The de-brief brings the room back together at the end of Day 1.