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
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
Tomas Andersson from Stockholm Business Region and Panos Kokkalis from Marketing Greece 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
Pick your Zone
Four zones running in parallel
Strategy Room: Becoming AI-Ready
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Most organisations are waiting for clarity before committing. This session works in the opposite direction: identifying the one or two moves that unlock everything else, the foundations that need to be in place before anything can scale and how to build internal momentum without a perfect strategy.
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The Lab: Building a Working Knowledge Base
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A live working session where attendees learn what project knowledge is, what you can put into it and what it enables. The session demonstrates the logic of MCP connections through a clear illustration. By the end, attendees leave with a functional knowledge structure they can replicate immediately.
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Debating Room: AI's Impact on Teams and Content
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Is the real barrier to AI in destinations people, not technology? Is AI producing more content but of lower quality? These questions are argued from both sides through a devil's advocate format to drive deeper thinking.
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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 across the submissions, typical failure points and what good looks like in practice.
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Lunch
Governance is the Most Misunderstood Word in AI
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 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 walk through the work they did with DTTT to design Aruba's AI strategy, covering the audit that opened the process, the readiness questions it surfaced and the role that governance played.
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.
Coffee and Networking
Pick your Zone
Four zones running in parallel
Strategy Room: Building Your Governance Framework
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A working session on how destinations move from individuals using AI tools to an organisation with clear rules and standards. Attendees work through the accountability question and map where their organisation sits between phase one efficiency and phase two model reinvention.
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The Lab: Stress-Testing Your AI Policy
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A practical session structured around the DTTT AI Transparency Framework. Attendees use the Framework on a real piece of work to generate a disclosure card, then stress-test a draft governance document and leave with a working draft they 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? Do AI Governance Committees need sceptics as a check against champions? Arguments from both sides, with a devil's advocate pushing harder questions.
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Advisory Clinic: Submitted Cases on Governance
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A focused advisory session built around governance documents, AI policies and framework drafts submitted in advance. Facilitators identify the most urgent gap between each organisation's current AI use and a responsible, disclosed approach.
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