2026 Speakers

Joshua Ryan-Saha, Director of Tourism, Travel and Festivals, Edinburgh Futures Institutes

Joshua Ryan-Saha is Director of Tourism, Travel and Festivals at the Edinburgh Futures Institute, University of Edinburgh. He established Traveltech for Scotland, supporting over £20m in inward investment to the sector. He advises industry leadership on data, AI, and technology transformation. Globally, he delivers AI and innovation workshops, advising over 100 destinations as part of the AI for Opener for Destinations programme, American Hotel and Lodging Association and traveltech investors. His prior experience includes leading data science initiatives and leading innovation programmes like the Longitude Prize at Nesta, which featured on BBC Horizon’s Anniversary episode

Peter Haxton, Senior Policy Analyst, OECD

Peter is a Senior Policy Analyst with the OECD, and has been with the organisation since 2010. He works in the Tourism Policy and Analysis Unit, supporting the work of the OECD Tourism Committee. He is currently leading the OECD’s work on Improving the Evidence-Base for Sustainable Tourism Development, Preparing Tourism for Adaptation to Extreme Weather-related Events, and a National Tourism Policy Review of the United Arab Emirates. Other areas of recent work includes managing over 20 projects in seven countries, as part of the EU’s Technical Support Instrument (TSI) Tourism Flagship project, which focused on supporting EU countries to move towards more sustainable, resilient and digital tourism sectors, and supporting the Italian Presidency of the G7 to develop G7/OECD Policy Papers on Artificial Intelligence and Tourism, and Creating Economic Prosperity through Sustainable and Inclusive Tourism (2024). Peter has authored or managed the development of OECD Tourism Papers on Promoting the digitalisation of the tourism ecosystem in Italy: A focus on SMEs (2025), Measuring the digital maturity of tourism businesses in Slovenia (2025), Preparing the Tourism Workforce for the Digital Future and Preparing tourism businesses for the digital future (2020). Peter has held Senior Policy Advisor roles with the London Development Agency, Tourism Queensland, and the Australian Department of Industry, Science and Resources. He holds a Bachelor of Administration (Hons Class 1) from James Cook University, Townsville, and a PhD from the UTS Business School at the University of Technology, Sydney, Australia.

Sir Rod Drury KNZM, Founder, Xero

Sir Rod Drury KNZM founded global small business accounting platform Xero leading it to a top performing $AU20B+ ASX100 company employing over 5000 people in 25+ locations.
Rod is actively involved in several philanthropic initiatives in the Queenstown region as part of his wider influence for vision and strategy within New Zealand.
These initiatives include a broad renewable energy strategy that proposes among others, a new power cable into Queenstown increasing resilience and capacity of energy supply, electric R&D marine centre, public transport solutions, and policy. These all offer strategic support for the declared goal of Queenstown to become a net zero visitor economy by 2030.
Rod has also been heavily involved in mountain bike track building projects across the region, a vlogging space for international athletes, and putting Queenstown on the map as a world best mountain biking destination worthy of hosting global events. The new high performance sports facility ‘The Mill' opens this year.
In addition, Rod has donated generously towards local environmental initiatives such as Mana Tāhuna Lake Haye's restoration project, and the extension of the predator free trapping programme of Southern Lakes Sanctuary across Coronet Peak.

Professor James Higham, Department of Tourism and Marketing, Griffith University

James Higham is a Professor in the Department of Tourism and Marketing, Griffith University (Brisbane, Australia) and Honorary Professor at the University of Otago (New Zealand). His current collaborative research investigates extended reality (XR) technologies and the design and delivery of immersive and regenerative tourism in Aotearoa New Zealand. ‘Checking In’ - his fortnightly sustainable tourism podcast - is available on his website at https://jameshigham.com/pod/ and on LinkedIn and Spotify.