Social impact

The Department of Tourism at the University of Otago is proud that the 17th World Leisure Congress is part of Tourism New Zealand’s Conference Impact Aotearoa. This is a world-leading programme supporting conference hosts to deliver more than just economic benefits to their communities. A Tourism New Zealand specialist works with each conference host in the programme, guiding them through the development of their social impact goal, and collecting data to measure and report on their success.

Aligned to the congress theme ‘Leisure: Learn Well, Live Well’ the 17th World Leisure Congress has two social impact goals:

1. To make leisure more inclusive for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, takatāpui and intersex (LGBTTQIA+) community in Aotearoa New Zealand.
   
   We know that the LGBTTQIA+ community around the world faces barriers to access, participation, and inclusion across the spectrum of leisure, and we will use the 17th World Leisure Congress as a powerful platform to help address this issue.
   
   A range of initiatives are being embedded into the conference delivery and programme to support this goal. They are designed to not only raise awareness of the problem, but also to provide inspiration and advice for leisure providers (local government, industry, academia) wanting to develop evidence-based best practice solutions and inclusion policies.
   
   
2. To provide PhD delegates with the skills, knowledge, understanding and connections they need to confidently transition into their chosen career path.
   
   This goal responds to an important issue for PhD students everywhere: that there is often a lack of help and understanding for them to make the transition from university into a career – whether in academia, industry, government or an NGO. We have carefully designed a day-long programme of workshops to be held as part of the 17th World Leisure Congress, to equip PhD student delegates with the confidence and tools to succeed.
   
   It will address questions such as: What can I do if I don’t want to be an academic? What should I say in a cover letter? What are employers really looking for? How should I talk about my PhD skills when I’m applying for a job in industry, government or an NGO? How is my PhD relevant outside academia? Why is my online presence important?
   
   Allowing a full day, rather than the usual half-day or less, enables us to provide a suite of workshops around topics that contemporary PhD students are grappling with, and offers the opportunity for them to develop a future-focused plan of action.

Having goals is meaningless if they are not both measurable and measured, so we have developed a range of indicators to measure our impact. As part of this we will be surveying delegates before and after the event, and we look forward to inviting your participation.