Mountain to Sound Greenway Nature Walk · April 4 to 6
Seattle Harbor Symposium Convening · April 6 to 9
Camano Island Research Weekend · April 9 to 11
Travel and hospitality sit at a turning point. The Experience Economy reshaped this industry over two decades. What comes next is harder, less mapped, and more urgent. Communities are pushing back against extractive tourism. Travelers are looking for meaning and connection rather than another itinerary. Destinations are asking how to thrive without selling themselves out.
Nobody has convened this conversation across sectors before. That is what this week is for.
The Transformative Experiences field's first annual gathering. Eight days, three phases, built around one question.
What conditions, design choices, and economic structures create transformative experiences that contribute to full systems stewardship?
Experiences Throughout the Symposium
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Walk the Mountains to Sound Greenway on foot, with reflective practice, real conversation, and time in nature woven through each day, guided by Walking Mentorship.
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Fourteen other practitioners who arrive at the Symposium already a community, having slowed down and reconnected together before the work begins.
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Your trail observations open the Wednesday Field Observations session, where the cohort's lived experience helps the field name the conditions that actually make an experience transformative. What you notice on foot becomes part of the research.
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Three days, two nights, roughly 30 miles, North Bend to Issaquah. Nights at Salish Lodge and TreeHouse Point. Ticketed separately, 15 spots, arriving in time for the Tuesday reception. Includes Arrival Reception reception ticket.
The Symposium conveneing
April 6 to 9
Three days of programming where the field convenes to build what comes next. Anchored by Joe Pine and grounded in real Washington destination and hospitality work, the room moves through three movements: the conditions that make transformation possible, the design that creates it, and how its value flows back to communities. You leave with frameworks you can use, a hand in the field's standards, and the people to build alongside
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Move through two working days across three movements, Conditions, Design, Distribution, from Joe Pine's keynote to applied experience work to the session where the room refines the field's draft standards.
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Up to 150 leaders across six roles, destinations, hospitality, operators, designers, researchers, and philanthropists, joined by Joe Pine, University Of South Carolina, BVK, the Port of Seattle, and more.
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A sharper read on what makes your own experiences transformative, design principles pulled from real cases you can apply to your next project.. Contribution to standards that will help move transformative practices and impact forward.
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The Arrival Reception in Issaquah opens the week in place, over local food and the host community's 100-year vision. The Joe Pine Workshop is an optional deep session applying his framework to your live projects. And the Philanthropy and Travel Mastermind, an invited cultivation breakfast, gathers funders and stewards around moving capital into this work.
The NATURE Walk
April 4 to 6
More than a hike, this is a threshold. Guided by Walking Mentorship, a small cohort walks the Mountains to Sound Greenway over 2.5 days, using the rhythm of nature and real conversation to slow down, reconnect, and gain perspective before the work begins. You arrive at the Symposium not as a stranger but as part of a community, already present, grounded, and ready to build.
The Research Weekend
April 9 to 11
Where the week's conversation becomes the field's foundation, in the place that helps shape it. On Camano Island, a small cohort of researchers, funders, and practitioners turns what was learned at the Symposium Convening into the founding architecture of TTI's research arm, while living inside the island's own tourism, culture, and traditions. Two and a half days of building the field's questions, standards, and agenda, grounded in a community practicing what the field is trying to name.
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Turn what the field surfaced in Seattle into the founding architecture of TTI's research arm, the operating model, partnership procedures, and 2027 agenda, and study Camano's own tourism and cultural systems as a living case while you do it.
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An invitation and application -based cohort of 25, researchers, academics, and advisors.
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A named contributor role on the research charter, first right of proposal on the projects you help scope, and recognition in TTI's published research. You also leave with a shared research agenda and partnership model you can bring into your own institution, grant proposals, and collaborations, and a network of funders and researchers to build them with. You leave a founding architect of the field's research, not an attendee of it.
Every Moment advances purpose
education and equitable access, research and field building, or community stewardship.
Conditions
What makes experiences transform people, and lets value stay in a place.
Design
How practitioners craft those experiences, and how the field sets shared standards.
Distribution
How the value created flows back through communities, and how the field sustains itself.
How the SYMPOSIUM Unfolds
TUESDAY, April 6 · THE ARRIVAL RECEPTION
Pickering Barn, Issaquah · Seperately ticketed
Afternoon | Greenway Walk arrival | The trail cohort completes the walk ending at Jacob Two Trees.
4:15 PM | Shuttles from Bell Harbor | Coaches depart for Pickering Barn in Issaquah, included with the reception.
5:30 PM | Arrival Reception | Local food, Washington wine, and live music as the room comes together.
6:15 PM | Issaquah's vision | The host community's 100-year stewardship story, the week's first live case.
7:30 PM | Featured moment | A moment rooted in the place and its stewardship.
8:30 PM | Return shuttles | Two staggered departures back to Bell Harbor.
Wednesday, April 7· Thursday, January 21 - THE CONVENING
Two working days at Bell Harbor.
Wednesday · Conditions & Design
9:15 AM | Keynote, Joe Pine | The move from experience to transformation.
10:30 AM | Washington as a case | A living case with the Port of Seattle, Issaquah, and Camano.
11:30 AM | Field observations | The Greenway Walk cohort opens with findings from the trail and Walking Mentorship Transformative Experience Research conducted by Dr. Suzy Ross.
1:45 PM | Community Stewardship in Practice | Four destination leaders on what works, what stalls, and what a founding institution can hold.
3:15 PM | Connection Circles | Three rotating cross-sector conversations, where the mixed room builds the relationships that outlast the week.
Parallel | Joe Pine Workshop | Optional applied session on your live projects, with dinner.
Thursday · Design & Distribution
9:30 AM | Case studies | Course graduates present transformative design applied to real destinations, each case surfacing a principle the room can use.
11:00 AM | Land as Co-designer | Led by destinations and preserves doing the work, a design conversation on land as a partner for experience design, not a backdrop.
1:45 PM | Community engagement and marketing | How to connect the work to the communities and audiences it serves, drawn from destination practice but built for anyone carrying their work outward.
3:30 PM | Standards Working Session | The room refines the field's draft standards, the work everyone carries into what the field publishes.
Evening | Community dinner | Off-site and place-based
Friday, April 8- CARRYING IT FORWARD
Everyone leaves with something to build.
9:00 AM | Philanthropy & Travel Mastermind | An invited breakfast where funders and stewards work through how capital reaches the field.
12:30 PM | Camano departure | The research cohort leaves for the island, carrying the field's questions into the weekend.
Morning | Departures and peer time | The room disperses, each person carrying frameworks, relationships, and next steps into their own work.
