hospitality | tourism | travel | food & beverages | wellness | events
operators | suppliers | b2b services | industry bodies | education
Inspiring a Purposeful & Prosperous
Future of Hospitality
as if People, Place & Planet Matter
Join our tribe of over 10,000 leaders building a movement towards 1 million change-makers
REGENERATION • WELLBEING • GOOD-GROWTH
The Future of Hospitality is a global platform dedicated to reimagining how our industry leads, serves, and thrives. We help founders, leaders, destinations, and teams evolve beyond traditional models and embrace regenerative thinking - where purpose, prosperity, people, place, and planet work together to create sustainable success.
Through a weekly Substack, regular livestream expert conversations, a podcast, a community of like-minded souls, coaching and strategic advisory, we champion a new standard for hospitality: one that restores wellbeing, strengthens businesses, and enriches the ecosystems they touch. Take your next steps toward a more resilient, impactful, and inspiring future.
How You Can Engage With Us
Social Posts
Substack Newsletter
Livestream conversations
Podcast
Community
Book
Speaking
Workshops
RETREATS
This Is what We Value
5 Pillars of Success
PURPOSE-DRIVEN
A clear, values-driven reason for being that guides decisions, inspires teams, aligns strategy, and ensures every action contributes meaningfully to long-term impact.
PROSPERITY-ALIGNED
A regenerative approach to business success where profit, wellbeing, resilience, and shared value grow together, enabling people, communities, and environments to thrive.
PEOPLE-CENTRIC
A commitment to nurturing staff, guests, partners, and communities through dignity, wellbeing, inclusion, empowerment, and leadership that creates vibrant, human-centred hospitality cultures.
PLACE-BASED
A deep relationship with local environments, culture, resources, and heritage that shapes distinctive experiences, strengthens community identity, and supports sustainable regional prosperity.
PLANET-CONSCIOUS
A responsibility to protect and restore ecosystems through circular practices, minimising food waste, efficient operations, climate-positive choices, and innovation that regenerates natural resources for future generations.
BIO: David Carruthers
G'day, I'm David.
Regenerating Hospitality, Tourism, Travel, Wellness & Food
Purposeful Prosperity, as if People, Places & Planet Matter
Regenerative Leadership with Humanity and Wellbeing
More info on my LinkedIn
Future of Hospitality was born out as we came out of the pandemic restrictions. Everybody was excited to trade again and the only, but big, problem was lack of staff.
From the vantage point I was looking from, I could see danger coming around the corner, and in early 2022 began to warn about what looked like a perfect storm of concurrent crises, that everybody is now well aware of, and has wreaked havoc on the industry.
In addition to video and audio livestreamed events, we quickly reached 10k+ subscribers to our newsletters.
As we approach 2026, I'm evolving the livestreams to become conversations with other industry experts - conversational, with Q&As.
I'm consolidating 3 newsletters with 10k+ subscribers into a single Substack newsletter.
I'm also introducing a community platform to create a space where like-minded souls can learn more and learn together.
The podcast that's been on my to-do list the entire time is now ready to launch with purpose, as I travel the world visiting Exemplars of regenerative hospitality, tourism and food businesses, and podcasting to amplify their voices. By the end of the year, I'll have a book chapter for each visit and a guide to a better way to do business published in time for WTM 2026. I'll be posting this trip to social in real-time.
Our Manifesto for a
Thriving Future of Hospitality
Each Pillar of Success has strategy / policy areas that will become the focus of the conversations we co-create in our newsletter, livestreams, podcast episodes and community. Our tribe members are at various points on their learning curve. All are welcome.
Purpose→
← We're both attracting leaders who are already purpose-led and also encouraging leaders to develop a purpose they work towards.
← Profit is critical to the longevity of the business, but profit is a measure of success, not the purpose of the business.
← Your purpose will not only get you out of bed in the morning, but it will inspire your employees, customers, and community.
Prosperity→
← We focus on sustainable success for all stakeholders: founders, investors, leaders, teams; from operators, suppliers to services.
← We encourage long-term investors who value what hospitality is all about, and also encourage employee ownership options.
← We take a more holistic approach to the idea of prosperity considering wealth, health and vitality as well as financial.
People→
← We advocate for leadership with humanity, encouraging emotional intelligence, with all humans we engage with.
← We put wellbeing wisdom first, as a value influencing culture, for the benefit of our employees and others we connect with
← We commit to developing our people, through training and development that allows them to fulfil their potential for us & them.
Place→
← We encourage our tribe to engage with their communities, finding causes to support that allows us to make a difference.
← We commit to using local independent suppliers, farmers, & other companies to retain wealth in our communities, where possible.
← We protect our communities, from all things from economic extraction to littering. We respect the place we operate from.
Planet→
← We commit to circular approaches to material use, reducing, reusing and recycling, heading to zero food waste and landfill.
← We minimise energy use, electrifying kitchens, using renewable energy and self-sufficiency where possible.
← We actively participate in and/or support rewilding and nature restoration activities and projects in our local area.
C O M M O N Q U E S T I O N S
Frequently Asked Questions
Question 1: What is the Future of Hospitality?
David launched Future of Hospitality as a 'thing' on LinkedIn in April 2022, after doing two months of "Hospitality Conversations" livestreams and realising there was a lot of pressure with staffing, but leaders weren't seeing the Sabre-Tooth Tigers coming around the corner. He launched monthly livestreams and a newsletter that, alongside 2 others, now has 10k+ subscribers. David's goal is to create conversations about what sort of industry we want to have, as opposed to just waiting to see what we're given.
Question 2: How can I get involved?
You can Follow David's posts on LinkedIn, attend livestream conversations, and the newsletter is currently being migrated to Substack with a podcast on its way. David's goal is to turn the 10k+ currently subscribed into a million leaders who want a better industry where people, places and planet matter as much as profit targets. We'd love to have you on board.
Question 3: What is the Community Space that's coming?
The community space will be up and running by the end of this year, providing a space for like-minded hospitality, tourism, travel, food and bev humans to share ideas, learn from each other and create the future you want. There will be some basic-level wellbeing and goal-setting online resources provided to the tribe. I want to create connection, collaboration and community, so that we share not only better ways to operate our businesses (as if people, places and planet matter) but also better ways to care for ourselves and those around us. I believe 'hospitality' is at its essence, 'humanity' at its very core and that our industry can help heal the world and bring people together to share culture, rather than see us divided.
Question 4: What are the livestream events about?
The livestream events have evolved since they were launched in May 2022. The current iteration of livestreams is short conversations (25-ish minutes) between David and another industry expert, about the Future of Hospitality in relation to their area of expertise, with a 15-20 minute live Q&A.
Question 5: What's the Podcast about and when will it be launched?
The Future of Hospitality podcast is launching in early January. These will be weekly long form interviews with operators who are Exemplars of regenerative, sustainable, wellbeing-led and community-oriented businesses. The aim is to amplify their voices in a sea of mainstream noise. David will be travelling to some of these businesses and brands, as well as some being carried out remotely. They'll be available on your favourite podcast channel. If you're following David on LinkedIn and subscribed to the Substack you won't miss it.
More questions? Reach out and ask.
Join my Substack tRIBE
Subscribe to my
Future of Hospitality Newsletter
Subscribe for free to get my weekly Future of Hospitality newsletter. If you're a regular Substack user, I'll be also be sharing Notes, videos and pods there, as well as LinkedIn. Future of Hospitality is my legacy project. It's a tribe of industry leaders who care about what the future holds and how our broader industry ecosystem can evolve for sustainable success, as if people, places and planet actually matter. Subscribe and join the tribe and the journey.
Expert conversation
Register for my next
Future of Hospitality Livestream Chat
Two industry experts, who advise operators, in conversation, LIVE, talking about the future of hospitality, tourism, travel, wellness, leisure & food, and sharing strategies (for free!) with their audience, who can ask questions, broad or specific, live in the moment.
Our Future of Hospitality livestreams began in early 2022, and David has been inspiring leaders to create a thriving and regenerative future of hospitality, as if people, places and planet matter, ever since. Join us for these LIVE Chats.
Register for my
Future of Hospitality LIVE Expert Chats
Two industry experts, who advise operators, in conversation, LIVE, talking about the future of hospitality, tourism, travel, wellness, leisure & food, and sharing strategies (for free!) with their audience, who can ask questions, broad or specific, live in the moment.
Our Future of Hospitality livestreams began in early 2022, and David has been inspiring leaders to create a thriving and regenerative future of hospitality, as if people, places and planet matter, ever since. Join us for these LIVE Chats.
Next Livestream
I recently met with Rocco Bova and immediately connected with him on a values level, which always inspires me.
Rocco is doing some amazing work, and I'd like to share some of that work with you. Not that he needs any introduction to the 90k+ folks following him on LinkedIn.
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