Dr. Auliana Poon heads Leve-Global. She is a courageous and passionate businesswoman. Auliana Poon established Caribbean Futures Limited that became Tourism Intelligence International in 1990; Villa Being, Tobago, in 2000; Being Sustainable in 2010; the Tourism Intelligence Academy in 2015; Lévé -the Event in 2016 and Leve-Global, that aims to cooperatively elevate Tourism, Trade and Lives, in 2018.

A trained Economist, Dr. Auliana Poon graduated with a B.A. (hons.) and M.Sc. (Economics) from the University of the West Indies, (Trinidad). She attended the Sussex University (England), where she graduated with a D. Phil in 1988. Poon was the first person in the world to qualify with a doctorate in Technology and Tourism. She delivered the ‘Intelligent Island’ public Lecture in Singapore in 1991. travel, Auliana Poon led the teams that developed the tourism policy and strategy for the new South Africa; developed strategies for trend-setting companies such as Sandals Resorts International (Jamaica) and Conservation Corporation (Africa); and developed the ‘tourism begins at home’ programme that sparked the turn-around in the Bahamas Tourism Industry. Auliana Poon also led her company’s technical support teams in implementing the European Union-funded Euro 6 million Sustainable Tourism Development Programmes (2003-2007) in the Commonwealth of Dominica and in St. Vincent and the Grenadines (2007-2009). She undertook the competitive assessment of the Barbados Tourism Industry; developed the framework for the management and promotion of the Abu Dhabi Tourism Industry and the Singapore Tourism Board; developed the Marketing and Human Resource Development Strategies for Mozambique and Malawi. More recently, she worked on the National Export Strategies for The Gambia, Jamaica mand Mozambique.

Auliana consulted more than fifty countries worldwide including Abu Dhabi, Australia, Barbados, the Bahamas, Iceland, Indonesia, Jamaica, Mauritius, Mozambique, Singapore, Seychelles, South Africa, Swaziland and Switzerland. Poon was the senior economist at the Barbados-based Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO) where she visited and provided technical support to the organisation’s 30 member states. She was the USAID advisor to the Belize Tourism private sector.

An experienced researcher and analyst with fiercely independent thought, Auliana believes that developing countries cannot continue to compete with Sun, Sand, Sea, Oil and Natural Gas alone. For success and sustainability, a more people-centred, culture-oriented, innovation-based, sustainability-directed, technology-focused and talent-driven approach is needed.

Auliana Poon is credited with:

Inventing the concepts of ‘Old Tourism’ and ‘New Tourism’ to describe the rapid and radical transformation of the travel and tourism industry.
Developing the concept of ‘Responsible Tourism’ as a fundamental premise of the post-Aparthied South Africa tourism policy and growth strategy in the early 1990s.
Developing the Pro-Planet, Pro-People tourism strategy for St. Kitts (2013)
Producing one of the most referenced works on travel and tourism, ‘Tourism, Technology and Competitive Strategies’ that one review claims “should certainly be on the compulsory reading list of all those seeking to advise and direct strategic plan for both old and new tourism destinations”.

Advising Abu Dhabi to ‘stay different’ from Dubai; to focus on its culture, heritage and traditions and to assume its role as a true capital of the Emirates, with an appropriate icon – The Pearl – a pearl-like glass structure on 11 floors, out at sea, that would celebrate the life and times of its late Ruler Sheik Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan.