Carolyn Childs

Carolyn Childs co-founded MyTravelResearch.com to help organisations across the visitor economy achieve their goals by making insight an accessible foundation for decision-making. Her career spans 30 years and 35+ countries on every inhabited continent and includes time with the International Air Transport Association (IATA), heading Travel Research Centre and founding the Australian travel research vertical for research giant TNS (now TNS Kantar). 

She is a top-rated speaker including as an annual presenter at the Mumbrella Travel Marketing Summit; has published an e-book on consumers in emerging markets, as well as white papers on Culture and Heritage Tourism, Luxury Travel, Indian and Chinese Outbound Tourism, serendipity in decision-making, passenger taxes and ASEAN liberalisation (co-authored with Chris Flynn). She created a database of 50+ trends impacting tourism which she has deployed for destinations and organisations around the world.

Carolyn is a Past President of the Travel and Tourism Research Association’s Asia-Pacific Chapter, a Certified Member of the Market Research Society, a member of the Advisory Panel of WTACH, a board member and Regional Tourism Ambassador for Australian Regional Tourism and has been on the UNWTO Panel of World Tourism experts.

In the heritage tourism space, Carolyn's work has included a pre-feasibility business case for an attraction on Lemnos to celebrate the role of Australian Nurses during WWI, which unlocked $500k (Australian) in further funding; tourism analysis for the award-winning Gosford Heritage Interpretation Strategy; tourism analysis and strategic branding advice for the Goldfields World Heritage Bid (bid currently underway); demand research as part of feasibility study to support successful bid Treasury funding for Sydney Justice and Police Museum; and user experience testing for a cultural walking trail (ongoing).