GDS-Awards 2026 Shortlist Highlights Destinations and Leaders Driving Regenerative Change

The GDS-Awards will take place on 17 June 2026 in Szczecin, Poland, as part of the broader GDS-Forum & Impact Day (16–18 June 2026). The Awards act as a key moment within the programme, bringing together destinations, organisers and industry stakeholders to recognise initiatives and individuals advancing sustainability, impact and regenerative approaches across the global business events ecosystem.

The GDS-Movement sits at the centre of this ecosystem. It convenes destinations, organisers and industry stakeholders around sustainability, impact and regenerative economy principles, supported by research, white papers and practical tools designed to accelerate real-world implementation. Its work operates at the intersection of measurement, behaviour change and system-wide collaboration, challenging the sector to move beyond aspiration into credible, accountable action.

This year’s edition features three core categories – the Impact Award, the Innovation Award, and the newly introduced Changemaker Award – each reflecting a different dimension of transformation within destinations and the wider events ecosystem.

Team photo of the organisers of the GDS-Forum & Awards 2024 in Bruges © GDS-Movement

 

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IMPACT AWARD (in collaboration with #MEET4IMPACT)

The Impact Award recognises destination management organisations that are actively building structured approaches to legacy and long-term societal impact through business events. It highlights destinations that are embedding economic, social and environmental outcomes into their event strategies, moving beyond isolated initiatives towards integrated impact systems. Finalists are evaluated by an independent panel of experts.
 

Shortlisted destinations:

• Barcelona Convention Bureau (Barcelona, Spain)

Barcelona Convention Bureau’s legacy programme, launched in 2025, is designed to embed long-term impact into congress activity through structured collaboration with local stakeholders across five impact areas: economic diversification, community, knowledge sharing, environment and sectoral development.
 

• Göteborg & Co, Gothenburg Convention Bureau (Gothenburg, Sweden)

Göteborg & Co’s EVS38 congress in 2025 brought together around 80 stakeholders across sectors to strengthen Gothenburg’s leadership in sustainable transport and electromobility, combining demonstration projects, education and talent initiatives within a unified legacy framework.
 

 
 EVS38 Congress 2025 at the Swedish Exhibition & Congress Centre in Göteborg | Photo: House of Vision/Göteborg & Co. 
 

• Invest in Bogotá (Bogotá, Colombia)

Invest in Bogotá’s Beyond the Event programme integrates environmental, social and economic measurement into a single model, allowing organisers to quantify and act on impact while linking carbon compensation initiatives to local community benefits.
 

• Fáilte Ireland (Ireland)

Fáilte Ireland’s Business Events Impact and Legacy Programme, embedded in its national strategy, combines training, funding, storytelling and structured impact frameworks to ensure conferences deliver measurable value aligned with national priorities and the UN SDGs.
 

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INNOVATION AWARD

The Innovation Award recognises destinations that are developing new approaches, tools or programmes to improve sustainability performance in measurable and scalable ways. Submissions are assessed based on innovation, outcomes, storytelling, engagement and leadership.
 

Shortlisted destinations:

• Gdańsk Tourism Organization (Gdańsk, Poland)

In Gdańsk, accessibility has been redefined as a participatory system rather than a compliance exercise. Since 2022, the destination has worked with auditors with disabilities who conducted 184 audits across 17 venues, leading to the development of 16 Communication Cards co-created with Deaf communities and now used across multiple venues to improve accessibility and communication.

Gdańsk's old town at nighttime
 

• Göteborg & Co (Gothenburg, Sweden)

In Gothenburg, the Gothenburg Meal project reimagines culinary identity through collective design, involving citizens, chefs and food communities in the creation of Gothenburg Royale, a sustainable reinterpretation of the city’s iconic dish built around circular food principles.
 

• Ottawa Tourism (Ottawa, Canada)

Ottawa Tourism’s À la Carte programme, launched in 2024, is Canada’s first destination-led food recovery initiative, connecting hospitality partners with community organisations to redirect surplus food towards food insecurity solutions, supported by a destination-wide impact dashboard.
 

• VisitAarhus (Aarhus, Denmark)

VisitAarhus’ campaign “So Much to Enjoy, So Close to You” reframes tourism competitiveness through proximity, positioning the region as a low-emission destination while embedding sustainability across strategy, media production and measurement.
 

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CHANGEMAKER AWARD (NEW for 2026)

The Changemaker Award is a new category recognising individuals driving regenerative transformation within destinations. It highlights professionals who are translating ambition into implementation, enabling cross-sector collaboration, and embedding regenerative thinking into destination practice.

Unlike the other categories, the winner will be decided through a live community vote during the GDS-Awards ceremony.
 

Shortlisted individuals:

• Matti Pollari (Visit Tampere, Finland)

Matti Pollari has played a key role in embedding sustainability into Tampere’s wider urban and climate governance structure, ensuring tourism is not treated as a parallel agenda but as part of city-level transformation. His work focuses on aligning destination development with municipal climate objectives, strengthening stakeholder coordination across public and private actors, and advancing structured carbon-neutral tourism pathways. He has also been instrumental in operationalising the Sustainable Travel Finland framework locally, translating national ambition into practical tools and measurable progress at destination level.
 

• Jac Callan (Visit Belfast, Northern Ireland)

Jac Callan has been a driving force behind Belfast’s shift towards a more regenerative and impact-led destination model. Her work focuses on building a connected ecosystem across venues, industry partners, community stakeholders and policy actors, ensuring sustainability is embedded as a shared responsibility rather than a standalone programme. She has helped move Belfast from project-based initiatives towards a more structured, city-wide approach to regeneration, with particular emphasis on collaboration, long-term legacy thinking and practical implementation within the business events space.
 

• Fanny Beaulieu Cormier (Tourisme Montréal, Canada)

Fanny Beaulieu Cormier operates at the intersection of strategy, capability-building and delivery within Montréal’s regenerative tourism agenda. Her work has centred on developing a clearer strategic direction for sustainable tourism while actively building the partnerships and funding structures needed to make implementation possible. She has trained hundreds of stakeholders across the ecosystem, strengthened alliances between public and private actors, and supported the development of initiatives that link destination performance with tangible community and environmental outcomes. Her focus is on ensuring regenerative tourism is not conceptual, but operational and embedded across the destination system.
 

• Petra Stušek (Ljubljana Tourism, Slovenia)

Under Petra's leadership, Ljubljana has become a recognised sustainable destination where tourism supports community, culture and daily life. The city's tourism strategy has been explicitly linked to quality of life for residents, with strong emphasis on inclusion, seasonality management and community participation. She has actively worked to ensure residents are part of decision-making processes around tourism development, while also strengthening Ljubljana’s international role as a reference point in regenerative destination thinking. Her approach consistently frames tourism not as a pressure point, but as a tool for improving urban liveability and long-term resilience.