Vocalista – Giving a voice to communities

Annabel Illingworth, founder of Vocalista, has spent her career immersed in the travel sector, from working as a seasonal employee to becoming a travel journalist and consultant for high-profile projects.  

Her career has taken her across the globe, from researching responsible tourism in Antarctica for TIME magazine to consulting on an Indian Ocean atoll project. But it was Skye, her family home for 15 years, that provided the perfect testing ground for Vocalista. 

"Skye is a microcosm of the global tourism challenge - over-tourism, environmental impact, and local development. If we can get the balance right here, we can replicate our model anywhere." 

Annabel believes that destinations should be great places to visit, but not at the expense of people who live and work there. She identified a major gap to achieving the balance between social, cultural, environmental, and economic factors: the lack of an effective mechanism to understand how people on the ground truly feel about tourism and development.

What makes Vocalista special?

Vocalista is a ground breaking platform designed to bridge this gap. It enables real-time gathering of local and community perspectives, as well as crowd-mapping of environmental data, feeding valuable insights to decision-makers at all levels - from individual businesses to national policymakers. 

The platform functions as a "virtual town hall," using communication and collaboration tools combined with innovative data visualisations. The goal is to blend big data with human sentiment, ensuring that every voice counts.  

As Annabel puts it: "We aim to empower people to influence matters that impact them while providing decision-makers with real-time evidence to guide their choices. Vocalista is about collective intelligence, action, and impact - helping stakeholders self-organise for the common good."