We will probably find a new way of travelling in the next months after the lockdown: travelling only domestically by car, looking for different destinations such as mountains, parks, jungles where we can get in contact with nature and respect the social distancing.

Patrizio Ambrosetti is an Italian manager born and raised in Rome and educated in New York City - a six years Digital Nomad on the road. Former Competitive Alpine skier, since 2015 he has led the expansion of the fastest growing companies in the world. Currently he is redefining the future of hospitality, co-working and remote work for modern travellers leading the launch strategy for new markets and the global and local partnerships at Selina.

Selina is a hospitality and lifestyle brand, blending accommodation with co-working, recreation, wellness, and local experiences, and operates in 75 locations throughout Latin America, USA and Europe. We had a chance to hear Ambrosetti speaking at a webinar about the future of tourism, and learn his innovative approach to lead partnerships.

According to Patrizio, global partnerships are not the right way to go in the upcoming future. Many of the multinationals’ employees are currently in furlough, therefore the time to make a decision can be very long and companies can lose opportunities. Differently, Ambrosetti believes that the future is within local partnerships and local communities.

“COVID-19 proved to us that the power of the local community is now stronger than ever. The pandemic created a greater sense of community, and smaller companies are gathering together to survive and fight the crisis. They have smaller costs compared to bigger companies such as multinationals, so local companies can share operations, facilities and promote each other becoming stronger and bigger, if united.”explained Ambrosetti.

Even though Selina is a global company, Ambrosetti explained that the local community approach is the secret sauce of its success. Local artists, designers, chefs, artists are the ones who build the new Selina along with its team. In addition, Selina created a Global Hospitality Program - a training program that reduces socio-economic barriers and up-skills locals to be eligible for hospitality industry job opportunities based on industry theoretical training, on-the-job training and a unique focus on experience-based tourism programming for the millennial market.

Following this approach, Ambrosetti is trying to build long term partnerships for Selina with all the startups and companies that operate at the local level rather than aiming at global companies and multinationals.

As stated in the beginning of this article, this new world needs new rules. Perhaps it’s not the time of 'the bigger you are...', but 'the more you are...'. It’s time to bet on something and, as we all know, unity is strength.