As someone who has spent a great deal of time travelling across Australia in recent years, Charlie Douty knows first-hand what it's like to experience discrimination as a member of the LGBTIQ+ community.

In response, he's made it his mission to do something positive to address this and in February of this year launched Welcome With Pride, an inclusion, training and accreditation program for tourism and hospitality businesses of all shapes and sizes in Australia.

Developed through community research in conjunction with over 1000 LGBTIQ+ travellers, Welcome With Pride’s programs directly reflect the voices and real-world needs of this diverse community.

To date, Charlie has delivered inclusivity training to thousands of businesses in partnership with industry leaders such as ATEC, Hilton, Destination New South Wales and Tourism Western Australia.

He firmly believes LGBTIQ+ people should have the freedom to express themselves authentically and feel that powerful feeling of belonging when they're on holiday.

It was my great pleasure to chat with Charlie recently about all he's achieved to date and his many exciting plans for the future and I've no doubt you'll get as much value out of listening to this conversation as I did having it.

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