Good news in tourism April 12 – 18, 2020

Pub­lished Sunday to be ready Monday, “Good news in tour­ism” is the almost-fam­ous pick-me-up for the start of a new week in travel & tour­ism. “This “Good news” stuff is sooo cool … bet­ter than their early stuff. It’s only a mat­ter of time before “Good Tour­ism” goes main­stream, though …” “Bro! Relaaaaax … “GT” ain’t ever selling out yo.”

And go!

Words and phrases of interest to The “Good Tour­ism” Blog, such as “eco­tour­ism” and “sus­tain­able tour­ism” are find­ing them­selves in the gos­sip media over spec­u­la­tion wheth­er the artist formerly known as Prince Harry has dis­carded or replaced his roy­al sur­name. That’s some­thing, right!? 

As we have already known for some time, Henry “Harry” Mount­bat­ten-Wind­sor (the roy­al sur­name in ques­tion) has jumped into bed with travel & tour­ism industry cor­por­ate giants in a … ahem … “bold new glob­al ini­ti­at­ive” to “change the impact of travel”. It’s called Travalyst. Good luck to them. Let’s hope these MNCs don’t get too bold. And let’s hope Henry doesn’t get caught hitch­ing rides on too many private jets. 🙃

COVID ops

The Golden Tri­angle Asi­an Ele­phants Found­a­tion is livestream­ing daily from their camp in north­ern Thai­l­and. Accord­ing to “GT” Friend John Roberts they are doing it to bright­en the days of every­one in pan­dem­ic-related lock­down across the world. “We go [to the camp] twice a day 7:30 am & 4 pm Thai time [0030 & 1100 GMT]. The videos are left up for about 24 hours. The edu­ca­tion­al ones by my team stay up forever.” (Call­back: Mr Roberts wrote the “GT” Insight “Ele­phant tour­ism: The harms of received wis­dom” in 2017. In 2019 your cor­res­pond­ent wrote the fea­ture “Ele­phants are smart: What if tour­ism jobs were good for them?”, which included input from Mr Roberts. With the tour­ism taps turned off, what now for ele­phants?)

While we’re in Thai­l­and … It was repor­ted that the tour­ism sec­tor is ask­ing for industry-spe­cif­ic health and safety reg­u­la­tions to deal with “a crisis in con­fid­ence” exacer­bated by SARS-CoV­‑2. Sur­awat Akara­woramat, VP of the Asso­ci­ation of Thai Travel Agents reck­ons a Tour­ists Safety Act would fil­ter out the dodgy oper­at­ors who have been dam­aging the repu­ta­tion of the King­dom since before COVID-19. Cham­nan Srisawat, Pres­id­ent of the Thai Fed­er­a­tion of Pro­vin­cial Tour­ist Asso­ci­ations, sees an oppor­tun­ity for tour oper­at­ors to handle smal­ler groups to main­tain phys­ic­al dis­tan­cing prac­tices as well as to focus on “less crowded, second-tier provinces and loc­al communities”. 

South Africa’s Tour­ism Min­is­ter Mmamo­loko Kubayi-Ngubane asser­ted that “any per­son or small busi­ness in the tour­ism sec­tor, regard­less of their skin col­our, can apply for fin­an­cial relief from the Tour­ism Relief Fund”. This came after Afri­For­um said that it had served the tour­ism depart­ment with court papers over alleg­a­tions that the fund dis­crim­in­ated against white people under Broad-Based Black Eco­nom­ic Empower­ment (BBBEE or B‑BBEE) prin­ciples. (Afri­For­um is a not-for-profit that seeks to pro­tect the rights of minor­ity white Afrik­an­ers.) That star­ted off as good news, but by the end of the week it was repor­ted that oth­er organ­isa­tions — The Demo­crat­ic Alli­ance (DA), Solid­ar­ity, and the Insti­tute of Race Rela­tions — had joined Afri­For­um in threat­en­ing to take leg­al action against the gov­ern­ment. The Tour­ism Min­is­ter penned an op-ed about it all.

Edinburgh’s tour­ism & hos­pit­al­ity industry lead­ers have begun talks with the city coun­cil on how Scot­land’s cap­it­al can recov­er after the coronavir­us lock­down. Coun­cil lead­er Adam McVey said a roundtable meet­ing had reaf­firmed the aims of Edinburgh’s 10-year tour­ism plan: “It is so import­ant to the future of our Cap­it­al that we remain com­mit­ted to sus­tain­able and respons­ible tour­ism when busi­nesses open again […] to put our people, place and envir­on­ment at the heart of our plans.”

The Respons­ible Tour­ism Mis­sion in Ker­ala, India is rolling out short videos fea­tur­ing artis­ans and craftspeople. With 500 two- to five-minute videos already in the can, the agency hopes to con­vert view­ers into vis­it­ors post-virus.

In Mary­land, USA, not-for-profit her­it­age tour­ism organ­isa­tions loc­ated with­in the bound­ar­ies of a Cer­ti­fied Her­it­age Area may be eli­gible for emer­gency oper­at­ing grants of up to US$20,000 from the Mary­land Her­it­age Areas Author­ity to help them “safe­guard her­it­age resources”.

Sis­ters city in Ore­gon state, USA is using the coronavir­us moment to fig­ure out how to make itself a “four-sea­son” des­tin­a­tion via low- and shoulder-sea­son events. There are calls for the cre­ation of a Sis­ters Events Com­mit­tee com­pris­ing rep­res­ent­at­ives of the usu­al stake­hold­ers plus “city residents”. 

Like many des­tin­a­tions, Belarus will likely make domest­ic tour­ism a corner­stone of  post-pan­dem­ic tour­ism pro­mo­tion and eco­nom­ic recovery.

Don’t let a crisis go to waste

Hint: To skip this oppor­tun­ity, simply scroll down to the next subheading …

How about reflect­ing on your achieve­ments, mis­takes, and les­sons learned; telling the story of your jour­ney and what “Good Tour­ism” means to you; out­lining your vis­ion for the future of travel & tour­ism; shar­ing your “GT” Insights? ← Opportunity.

Can’t write? Non­sense! Of course you can. And your cor­res­pond­ent will help you by proof-read­ing and lightly edit­ing your “GT” Insight to ensure your hap­pi­ness before it goes live. It’s all part of the “GT” ser­vice for “GT” Friends. ← ↑ Opportunity!

⇈ OPPORTUNITY! ⇈

Sub­scribe to “GT’s” weekly e‑news (it’s free) and fol­low “GT’s” vari­ous socials, such as its Linked­In page. And if you find “GT” inspir­ing, inter­est­ing, some­what amus­ing, or at least dif­fer­ent then surely it’s worth a little some­thing to you.

Please …

It would mean a big some­thing to “GT”! 

Community-centric tourism

“No one bene­fits as much from the pre­ser­va­tion of loc­al his­tor­ic sites and build­ings nor suf­fers as much by their destruc­tion as the cit­izens of a com­munity,” accord­ing to Shel­ley Smith of Tul­lahoma, Ten­ness­ee, USA. “It is the com­munity mem­bers who live and work in his­tor­ic homes and neigh­bor­hoods who see the pos­it­ive effects of rehab­il­it­a­tion pro­jects every day, but the entire com­munity profits from the eco­nom­ic and social bene­fits gained through the revital­iz­a­tion of its down­town and the rehab­il­it­a­tion of the community’s his­tor­ic assets.” 

Com­munity-based rur­al tour­ism sits among a raft of eco­nom­ic enhance­ment and ser­vice deliv­ery pro­grams to be rolled out by the state of Sabah, Malay­sia to tackle poverty. This came to light as Yang di-Per­tua Negeri (cere­mo­ni­al gov­ernor) Tun Juhar Mahirud­din announced that totally pro­tec­ted areas would cov­er at least 30% of the state by 2025; up from the pre­vi­ous under­tak­ing of 25%. Sabah is on the island of Borneo.

Viet­nam’s cent­ral coast province of Quang Nam, with the UNESCO-lis­ted Hoi An and My Son, is look­ing at a “sus­tain­able mod­el” to “attract more tour­ists, cre­ate more jobs”.

Odds & ends

Newsy bits that don’t eas­ily fit into this week’s arbit­rary clusters:

From the cham­pagne froth of the podi­um into every­day use by the rest of us, the com­pet­it­ive world of auto­mot­ive racing has sparked all sorts of innov­a­tions that have found their way into reg­u­lar road cars: gains in power, per­form­ance, effi­ciency, safety, and more. Organ­isers of Air Race E hope elec­tric air­plane racing will also spark leaps in tech­no­logy that will fur­ther the cause of com­mer­cially-viable elec­tric avi­ation.

Be healthy. Be happy. Have a good week!

Fea­tured image (top of post): Recently taken in by the Golden Tri­angle Asi­an Ele­phant Found­a­tion (GTAEF) because she and her mahout are unem­ployed, Boon Rod is among the many ele­phants affected by the coronavir­us-induced tour­ism crisis. Image: GTAEF.

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

You are a tour­ism stake­hold­er — yes, YOU! — so what’s your view? Do you dis­agree with any­thing you have read on “GT”? Join the con­ver­sa­tion. Com­ment below or share your “Good Tour­ism” Insights. Diversity of thought is wel­come on The “Good Tour­ism” Blog. 

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! 🙂