• Corporate Foundations & CSR Arms
• Global Tourism & Hospitality Brands
• Impact Investors & Inclusive Tourism Funds
• Multilateral & Development Institutions
• National / Regional / Local Tourism Boards & DMOs
• Philanthropic Foundations
• University Systems & Consortia

Tourism often concentrates profit and power far from local communities and keeps youth and local entrepreneurs in servitude roles.
Access Forward closes the gap between:

• Rhetoric: DEI, ESG, “inclusive tourism,” SDGs
• Reality: Who gets contracts, tells the stories, and shares in income

We do this by turning student-powered labs into engines for local leadership, ownership, and decent work (SDG 8).

None of those exactly. ACCESS FORWARD is a multi-year initiative, platform and program model. We sit at the intersection of:

• Experiential learning (student “micro-agencies” in 15-week labs)
• Tourism & hospitality (destinations, DMOs, brands, governments)
• Community & entrepreneurship (local founders, producers, culture-bearers)

Consultants write reports. Case competitions end at pitches. ACCESS FORWARD run structured repeatable cohorts over the course of multiple years that move from research to pilots to ecosystem building.

ACCESS FORWARD is a student-powered, community- and industry-informed tourism initiative that connects destinations, travel brands, universities, and local entrepreneurs to design inclusive, sustainable hospitality solutions aligned with SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth). It runs through structured, semester-long experiential learning labs where students act as “micro-agencies” working on real briefs from sponsors and communities.

We use a semester-long, 15-week experiential learning model that looks roughly like this:

1. Discover – Student teams (micro-agencies) research residents, travelers, and local industry around 6 core themes.
2. Design – They co-design solutions with communities and local partners.
3. Access – Teams explore channels, partners, and tools to bring solutions to market.
4. Activation & Management – They propose pilots, management models, and collaboration structures.
5. Deliverables & Competition – Final concepts and implementation plans are presented, judged, and prepared for next steps.

Each cohort is student-powered, community-rooted, sponsor-aligned.

Student teams choose from six themes that together give a 360° view of inclusive tourism:

1. Safety, Trust & Transparency
2. Accessible, Responsible & Sustainable Tourism
3. Locally-Led Hospitality Collaboration
4. Representative & Authentic Storytelling
5. Digital Innovation Drives Local Impact
6. Economic Inclusion & Market Access

These become lenses for research, ideas, pilots, and standards.

Key differences with ACCESS FORWARD:

• Runs across full academic terms, not a weekend.
• Rooted in real communities and destinations, not hypotheticals.
• Focused on implementation and ecosystem change, not just pitches.
• Anchored in SDG 8 / decent work and economic inclusion, not just awareness.

Depending on level of engagement, here are some examples:

1. New research and insight on travelers and local residents across multiple destinations
2. A pipeline of diverse emerging talent across global universities
3. Community-rooted pilots and concepts they can scale (products, programs, campaigns, tools)
4. Measurable SDG 8 outcomes—ventures, jobs, supplier pipelines, local revenue
5. Authentic narratives and PR grounded in real impact, not just messaging

Engagement is usually 1–3 years, with fees tied to cohort count, geography, and scope. Typical funding partnership models include:

• Lead / Anchor Partner – Multi-year, multi-cohort, multi-region leadership role
• Destination Partner – Geographically focused on National, Regional, or one or several destinations
• Thematic Sponsor – Focused on a theme (e.g., Digital Innovation, Economic Inclusion)
• Pilot Cohort – A single cohort to prove the model and build internal buy-in

ACCESS FORWARD is intentionally designed to operationalize SDG 8 (Decent Work & Economic Growth) and align with ESG/DEI by:

1. Tracking local jobs, ventures, revenue flows, and opportunities
2. Prioritizing Black-owned, women-owned, youth-led, and locally rooted enterprises
3. Embedding resident voice, safety, accessibility, and representation in every theme
4. Turning commitments and reports into concrete programs and pilots

ACCESS FORWARD handle program design, university relationships, and cohort structure. Partners typically:

1. Set goals and success metrics
2. Join key touch points (kickoff, midpoint check-ins, final showcases)
3. Provide feedback and decision-making on which pilots to explore

Most partners engage through a small core team, not a large task force.