This year, Learn Tourism turns six.
And eleven.
Both are true.
Six years ago, we officially incorporated the organization that exists today. There were filings, structures, systems, and eventually nonprofit status. That's the date that fits neatly into an organizational history.
But it isn't when the work began.
The real story started about five years earlier—with questions.
Lots and lots of questions.
For five years before there was an organization to point to, there was learning, research, experimentation, travel, teaching, observation, failure, iteration, and a growing conviction that tourism deserved a different approach to professional education.
So as we celebrate our sixth official anniversary, I think it's worth celebrating the five unofficial years that made those six possible.
Those first five years weren't a startup in the conventional sense.
There wasn't a launch countdown in the background. There wasn't a polished business model waiting for the right moment. The idea of creating something focused on tourism education lived on the back burner while we kept doing the work, meeting people, traveling, teaching, and paying attention.
We experimented with technology.
We explored different business models.
We studied how adults actually learn—not just how organizations traditionally deliver training.
We became increasingly interested in psychology, behavior, motivation, accessibility, and what influences someone to act differently after a learning experience.
Most importantly, we listened.
We listened to destination leaders as they tried to engage their communities.
We listened to tourism professionals as they tried to advance their careers.
We listened to frontline workers expected to create extraordinary visitor experiences, sometimes without extraordinary resources.
We listened to businesses that needed people to understand not simply what they offered, but why it mattered.
And slowly, a philosophy emerged.
Education shouldn't simply transfer information.
It should create transformation.
When COVID arrived, much of the destination-related work we knew disappeared almost overnight.
It would be tempting to describe that moment as the beginning of Learn Tourism.
It wasn't.
It was the catalyst.
We had already spent five years asking questions, testing ideas, exploring technologies, examining teaching theory, and imagining what tourism education could become.
Suddenly, the back-burner idea moved to the front.
We incorporated.
We tested.
We built.
We changed things.
We changed them again.
And we began turning years of curiosity into an organization.
Looking back, I'm grateful we didn't start with all the answers.
We started with a willingness to keep learning.
That distinction has shaped almost everything about our culture today.
One idea became particularly important to us: education with empathy.
It's easy to build training around what an organization wants to say.
It's much harder—and much more valuable—to build learning around what another human being needs in order to understand, participate, grow, and act.
That means thinking about different learning styles.
It means meeting learners when and where they're available.
It means making education accessible rather than expecting people to reorganize their lives around it.
It means recognizing that knowledge alone rarely changes behavior.
And it means respecting the experiences people bring into the learning environment.
Those ideas became foundational to our mission: to educate, empower, and inspire tourism professionals so they can advance their careers, grow businesses, strengthen communities, and responsibly create life-changing travel experiences.
They also explain why science, business psychology, and adult-learning principles have become such important parts of our work.
We're still fascinated by one deceptively simple question:
What actually helps people learn?
Eleven years later, we're still researching the answer.
Experimentation sounds wonderfully innovative when you describe it retrospectively.
Living through it is considerably messier.
Some ideas worked.
Some didn't.
Some technologies looked promising and weren't.
Some assumptions needed to be discarded.
Sometimes the thing we thought people needed wasn't the thing they actually needed.
Those experiences taught us something that has become part of our organizational DNA:
Being wrong is useful when you're willing to learn from it.
That affects how we develop courses, work with partners, evaluate technology, and even think about our own expertise.
We don't want to become an organization that declares itself finished.
We want to remain an organization that is curious.
Our best question isn't, "How do we prove we're right?"
It's:
"What can we learn from this?"
Anniversaries invite reflection, so I've been thinking about what these eleven years have taught me.
A few lessons keep resurfacing:
That's the part I'm most excited about.
Not because I know exactly what Learn Tourism will look like eleven years from now.
I hope I don't.
A perfectly predictable future would suggest we stop experimenting.
Instead, I'm excited about the questions ahead of us.
How will AI change the way people learn?
How can behavioral science help tourism organizations create learning that leads to measurable action?
How do we make high-quality professional development accessible to people regardless of geography, income, language, job title, or organization size?
How can education help destinations build stronger relationships between visitors and residents?
How do we better equip frontline workers—the people who often have the greatest influence on a visitor's experience—with the knowledge, confidence, and resources they deserve?
How can learning help tourism become an even greater force for sustainable economic opportunity and community well-being?
And what don't we know yet that we'll discover along the way?
Those questions feel like the natural continuation of the questions we started asking eleven years ago.
Learn Tourism exists because thousands of people have been willing to learn alongside us.
Learners have challenged us.
Partners have trusted us.
Destination leaders have shared problems for which they didn't have easy answers.
Subject-matter experts have generously shared their knowledge.
Colleagues and friends have challenged our assumptions.
And our team has continually demonstrated that a learning organization has to be willing to apply the same principles to itself that it teaches to everyone else.
So yes, we're celebrating six years since incorporation.
But I'm raising a glass to all eleven.
To the five years when there wasn't an organization yet.
To the experiments that didn't work.
To the ideas scribbled down before we knew what they might become.
To the research that led to more questions.
To the people who taught us.
To the last six years of turning those lessons into something real.
And especially to whatever we're going to learn next.
Here's to the next eleven years of curiosity, experimentation, empathy, and learning.
With gratitude and a passion for learning,
-- Steve
Stephen Ekstrom is the embodiment of a passionate lifelong learner and a seasoned professional in the tourism industry, serving as the CEO and founder of Learn Tourism - the nonprofit academy. With over 25 years of experience, he has cultivated a deep understanding of tourism development and education, driven by his commitment to advancing the industry and fostering sustainable economies. Stephen's insatiable curiosity and love of knowledge have made him a proud nerd, constantly seeking to expand his expertise and share his insights with others. Alongside his faithful furry companions, Rudy and Marjorie, he embraces the digital nomad lifestyle, traversing the globe and immersing himself in diverse cultures. A dedicated advocate for continuous improvement, Stephen is a professional member of the Association for Talent Development and a member of Skal International. Stephen holds prestigious certifications in Inclusive and Ethical Leadership from USF, AI Governance and Ethics from Brown University, and Sustainable Business Strategy and Transforming Customer Experiences from Harvard Business School.