Good news in tourism March 22 – 28, 2020

Pub­lished Sunday to be ready Monday, “Good news in tour­ism” is the per­fect pick-me-up for the start of a new week in travel & tour­ism. And go!

“GT” stuff first (scroll down to skip):

The “Good Tour­ism” Blog will push through this COVID-19 crisis, bring­ing you the usu­al links to pos­it­ive industry news and ideas via “Good news in tour­ism …” (proudly estab­lished Decem­ber 1, 2019), “GT” Insights (inspir­ing since 2017), and “GT” Des­tin­a­tions (NEW!).

NOW The “Good Tour­ism” Blog offers you and/or your organ­isa­tion a com­pli­ment­ary pub­lic rela­tions and brand-build­ing oppor­tun­ity. It’s free-of-charge but please take it ser­i­ously as it will be an invest­ment of “GT’s” time proof­ing, pub­lish­ing, and pro­mot­ing your ideas as much as it is an invest­ment of your time writ­ing them down. (Treat it like a part­ner­ship that could lead to friend­ship.) 

So if your work-related activ­ity has slowed or stopped due to coronavir­us COVID-19 and you have a lot of free time, it might be a good time to reflect on your vis­ion, achieve­ments, mis­takes, and les­sons learned. Tell the story of your “Good Tour­ism” jour­ney. Share your “Good Tour­ism” Insights (PDF). 

Mean­while, please sub­scribe to “GT’s” weekly e‑news (it’s free) and fol­low “GT’s” vari­ous socials, such as “GT’s” new Linked­In page.

Community leadership during the COVID-19 crisis

At writ­ing this seg­ment, your cor­res­pond­ent had just spoken to Chris Flynn of “GT” Insight Part­ner the World Tour­ism Asso­ci­ation for Cul­ture & Her­it­age who said the super­mar­ket shelves in his corner of Australia’s largest city, Sydney, were still being sold out of cer­tain goods every day due to coronavir­us fears. 

In your correspondent’s remote corner of West­ern Aus­tralia, how­ever, the loc­al inde­pend­ent gro­cer is going above and bey­ond to ensure that there is enough food and essen­tial sup­plies for the loc­al com­munity. (Oth­er small towns across Aus­tralia have exper­i­enced shop­ping raids by hoard­ing city-slick­ers and tour­ists passing through.) Meas­ures taken in Wal­pole include pri­or­it­ising the eld­erly and the most vul­ner­able. Fur­ther­more, only loc­als or those who have com­pleted self-isol­a­tion may shop in-store. (Recent arrivals to the area can have sup­plies delivered to them.) The rur­al com­munity centred around this tiny town is rightly appre­ci­at­ive and proud of their loc­al supermarket.

For for­go­ing fast and easy profits by put­ting the com­munity first — and for being a long way ahead of shire, state, and fed­er­al gov­ern­ments in recog­nising and respond­ing to prob­lems — “GT” gives a big shout out and thanks to Neal Grif­fiths and his team at Wal­pole IGA Pion­eer Store, Jason & Chantelle Calleja at Fours Sis­ters Cof­fee & BP, and all the oth­er loc­al busi­nesses who are doing the best they can, includ­ing the tour­ism-reli­ant busi­nesses col­lect­ively rep­res­en­ted by the Wal­pole-Nor­na­lup Vis­it­ors Centre. 

Thank you!

Mean­while, across the Indi­an Ocean to the north and west of Wal­pole, “eco­tour­ism oper­at­ors in sev­er­al parts of India have called for build­ing com­munity resi­li­ence as they take stock of losses amid the coronavir­us dis­ease (COVID-19) pan­dem­ic […] eco­tour­ism oper­at­ors and grass­roots con­ser­va­tion work­ers involved in eco­tour­ism have ris­en up to the chal­lenge of stop­ping fur­ther spread of the vir­al dis­ease by con­duct­ing aware­ness cam­paigns for their loc­al communities”. 

Community-led tourism

Crisis or not, in good times and in bad, for rich­er or poorer, and all over the world, tour­ism min­is­ters, des­tin­a­tion marketers/managers, lobby groups, asso­ci­ations, con­sult­ants, aca­dem­ics, media, and cap­tains of the tour­ism industry can learn much from the example these people have set: 

Forgo easy profits. Put the host com­munity first! 

Last week’s “GT” Insight post about com­munity-based des­tin­a­tion plan­ning as a vac­cine or treat­ment for over­tour­ism (and oth­er ills) attrac­ted inter­est­ing com­ments from Geof­frey Lip­man, co-founder of “GT” Insight Part­ner SUN^x — Strong Uni­ver­sal Net­work. 

Prof Lip­man wrote: “I truly believe the loc­al stake­hold­er and gov­ernance over­ride is taken care of in the “green” (SDG tagged) element.……the 17 goals/ 169 targets/ 200+ indic­at­ors reflect the best future for everything.” 

(For full con­text, please read the post and com­ments.)

Your cor­res­pond­ent is highly skep­tic­al. How many lay­ers of gov­ern­ment are there between a host com­munity and the United Nations’ 17 Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Goals?

But dis­agree­ment between “GT” and its part­ners is okay as far as “GT” is con­cerned. “GT” is a plat­form for ortho­dox and het­ero­dox views and wel­comes civ­il­ised debate among fel­low travel & tour­ism stake­hold­ers. That’s the whole point! One can­not be “truly sus­tain­able” and “sin­cerely respons­ible” without con­sid­er­ing every angle.

You are a tour­ism stake­hold­er — yes, YOU! — so what’s your view? Join the conversation.

Do you dis­agree with any­thing you have read on “GT”? Com­ment below or share your “Good Tour­ism” Insights. Diversity of thought is wel­come on The “Good Tour­ism” Blog. 

If you find “GT” con­tent inspir­ing, inter­est­ing, some­what amus­ing, or at least dif­fer­ent then surely it’s worth a stream­ing ser­vice sub­scrip­tion or some­thing lock­down-appro­pri­ate … Please …

COVID-19 from the top

The United Nations World Tour­ism Organ­iz­a­tion (UNWTO) launched the hasht­ag cam­paign “#travelto­mor­row”, which is cute. The “lead­ing inter­na­tion­al organ­iz­a­tion in the field of tour­ism” also announced that it would pick win­ning ideas for tour­ism industry recov­ery and pub­lic health! Return­ing to more famil­i­ar ter­rit­ory, UNWTO then dazzled us with the dar­ing pre­dic­tion that inter­na­tion­al tour­ism arrivals would fall this year. Clever.

To their great cred­it, how­ever, UNWTO has opened up its e‑library to every­one for free until the end of April.

Oth­er “lead­ing” organ­isa­tions have been con­spicu­ously quiet, includ­ing one of your correspondent’s former employers. 

The European Tour­ism Mani­festo joined the World Travel & Tour­ism Coun­cil in put­ting its hand out on behalf of its mem­bers to demand fin­an­cial assist­ance from tax­pay­ers. The ETM also wants visas to be sim­pli­fied, traveller’s taxes of vari­ous sorts reduced or waived, and des­tin­a­tion mar­ket­ing budgets increased. 

This isn’t par­tic­u­larly good news, is it? It is an industry lobby group doing its job by ask­ing for spe­cial treat­ment on behalf of its mem­bers. (Psst! The most power­ful and effect­ive lobby groups do that sort of busi­ness behind closed doors rather than make a pub­lic song and dance about it.) 

More inter­est­ingly … 

The Carib­bean Hotel and Tour­ism Asso­ci­ation (CHTA) urged its stake­hold­ers to take advant­age of tour­ism industry-ori­ented resources set up to con­tain the spread of COVID-19, and to remain optimistic.

In the USA, the Hawaii Tour­ism Author­ity set up a com­mand cen­ter in the Hawai‘i Con­ven­tion Cen­ter to sup­port, coordin­ate, and execute state and county dir­ect­ives. Fur­ther­more, the Cen­ter and hotels are “talk­ing to Hawaii Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency offi­cials about offer­ing space for emer­gency use.”

Des­pite the train crash that is tour­ism in crisis, the rehab­il­it­a­tion of Bor­a­cay Island in the Phil­ip­pines remains on track. Road and drain­age infra­struc­ture is under­way as planned. And the roads already com­pleted are “appre­ci­ated by tour­ists and res­id­ents” alike. 

The Tour­ism Revital­iz­a­tion of Icons Pro­gram in Nova Sco­tia, Canada con­tin­ues to improve tour­ism infra­struc­ture through the crisis. The pro­gram involves CAD 6 mil­lion (USD 4.27 mil­lion) over three years (up to 2021). “Site recip­i­ents include Peggy’s Cove, Hal­i­fax Water­front, Cabot Trail, Bay of Fundy, includ­ing Anna­pol­is Royal.”

Optim­ist­ic offi­cials in Bangladesh expect Sabrang Tour­ism Park, the coun­try’s “first tour­ism-based spe­cial eco­nom­ic zone”, to start wel­com­ing vis­it­ors this year. Con­struc­tion of key facil­it­ies is ongo­ing. “The crisis is tem­por­ary […] devel­op­ment work is permanent.”

“The crisis is tem­por­ary […] devel­op­ment work is permanent.” 

Paban Chow­dhury of the Bangladesh Eco­nom­ic Zones Authority

Kara Neil, head of aca­dem­ics at Vatel Hotel and Tour­ism Busi­ness School in Rwanda, argues that the hos­pit­al­ity & tour­ism (H&T) work­force is “at the front­line” of glob­al health crises there­fore “there is an urgent need for H&T schools to integ­rate glob­al health train­ing into their curricula”. 

Cent­ral China’s Hen­an province plans to lend at least CNY 1 bil­lion (USD 141 mil­lion) to “help revive the cul­tur­al and tour­ism sec­tors that have been hammered by the nov­el coronavir­us outbreak”.

Culture & heritage

Com­munity mem­bers, urb­an and region­al, all across Aus­tralia are “fun­drais­ing, peti­tion­ing, and enlist­ing advocacy groups to per­suade coun­cils to save his­tor­ic build­ings”. As a res­ult, coun­cils are “pri­or­it­ising their her­it­age build­ings as they are ‘real draw cards for tour­ism and eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment’”.

Bot­swana is boost­ing invest­ment in cul­ture and cul­tur­al tour­ism, includ­ing plans to estab­lish a Nation­al Arts Coun­cil and con­struct a state theatre.

Egypt’s Min­is­ter of Tour­ism & Antiquit­ies Khaled Al Anani and Min­is­ter of Trans­port Kamel Al-wazir agreed to study how to con­nect Red Sea beach tour­ism with Nile Val­ley cul­tur­al tour­ism via overnight sleep­er rail ser­vices between Hurghada and Luxor.

Tracks & trails

Wales is work­ing on a forest that will “run the length and breadth of the land, con­nect­ing exist­ing pro­tec­ted wood­land envir­on­ments with large-scale tree-plant­ing pro­jects”. Inspir­a­tion for the nation­al forest was the Wales Coast Path, a hik­ing trail that every year “attracts mil­lions of tour­ists”.

The 42-km walk­ing and cyc­ling trail, the Great West­ern Gre­en­way in Ire­land, is 10 years old. And there are plans to extend it. As “one of the most import­ant pieces of tour­ism infra­struc­ture ever developed in Mayo” the pro­ject would nev­er have happened “but for the cooper­a­tion of the 162 landown­ers along the route”. And it has had a “hugely pos­it­ive impact on loc­al tour­ism and busi­nesses”. 

Have a good week!

Fea­tured image (top of post): A masked and gloved couple in love at the 2010 Car­ni­val of Venice. By Frank Koval­chek (CC BY 2.0) via Wiki­pe­dia.

To help your cor­res­pond­ent keep his energy-effi­cient lights on, please con­sider a private one-off gift or ongo­ing dona­tion. THANK YOU to those who have! <3

Dis­claim­er 1: It is “GT’s” policy to fully dis­close partner/sponsor con­tent. If an item is not dis­closed as part­ner or spon­sor-related then it will have caught “GT’s” atten­tion by some oth­er more organ­ic means. Part­ner with “GT”. You know you want to.

Dis­claim­er 2: None of the stor­ies linked from this week’s post have been fact-checked by “GT”. All ter­min­o­logy used here is as the linked sources used it accord­ing to the know­ledge and assump­tions they have about it. Please com­ment below if you know there has been buzzword-wash­ing or blatant non­sense relayed here, but be nice about it as the linked sources might get offen­ded. (“GT” won’t.) And as for “GT” bring­ing it to your atten­tion so that you might be the one to set the record straight, you are welcome! 🙂