Good news in tourism Mar 29 to Apr 4, 2020

With insights rep­res­ent­ing the small, the medi­um, and the large; the private, the pub­lic, and the PPP; those who care about profit and those who are not-for-profit; received wis­dom and het­ero­dox views; The “Good Tour­ism” Blog is a truly inclus­ive plat­form for the travel & tour­ism industry as it grapples with respons­ib­il­it­ies, dreams of sus­tain­ab­il­ity, and searches for a path to recov­ery … 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!

Import­ant “GT” stuff first:

Accord­ing to its founder Kar­en Sim­monds, inde­pend­ent lux­ury travel agency Travel Mat­ters was built upon the strong sense of respons­ib­il­ity she feels for travel & tour­ism des­tin­a­tions. In a fresh “Good Tour­ism” Insight, Ms Sim­monds sum­mar­ises her agency’s ori­gin story and philo­sophy, and what she’s doing to help com­munit­ies vul­ner­able to the coronavir­us COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

As Innov­a­tions Man­ager for the Ger­man Nation­al Tour­ism Board (GNTB), Olaf Schlieper is the chief scout for issues and trends in travel & tour­ism. He is par­tic­u­larly inter­ested in sus­tain­able tour­ism and access­ible des­tin­a­tions. In a fresh “Good Tour­ism” Insight, Mr Schlieper tells us why Ger­many wants trav­el­lers to “FEEL GOOD” about sus­tain­ab­il­ity.

Chris Flynn of “GT” Insight Part­ner the World Tour­ism Asso­ci­ation for Cul­ture & Her­it­age spoke to Ger­ard (Ged) Brown of Low Sea­son Trav­el­ler on a pod­cast about how tour­ism might be reima­gined as it searches for a path to recov­ery from the health and eco­nom­ic crisis caused by COVID-19. Mr Flynn reck­ons now is the per­fect time for des­tin­a­tions to be under­tak­ing car­ry­ing capa­city stud­ies for the bene­fit of all tour­ism stake­hold­ers, espe­cially host com­munit­ies. 

And “GT” reck­ons Mr Flynn is right. 

“GT” rant alert. To skip, scroll down to the next subheading. 

Everything most of us dis­like about mass tour­ism, host com­munit­ies also dis­like thanks to the NIMBY (not in my back­yard) atti­tude. Crowded pub­lic spaces? NIMBY. Envir­on­ment­al degrad­a­tion? NIMBY. Erod­ing cul­ture? NIMBY. Crum­bling her­it­age? NIMBY. Over­flow­ing land­fill? NIMBY. Food and water insec­ur­ity? NIMBY. Excess­ive hous­ing costs? NIMBY. Etc. 

So when it comes to what hap­pens “on the ground” — tour­ism policy, immig­ra­tion policy, energy policy, infra­struc­ture, zon­ing, or whatever — it is per­haps best to con­sult with people who live on and around that ground. Why? Because it’s their back­yard! 

This isn’t a swipe at the obvi­ous cari­ca­tures on the right. Pas­sion­ate “pro­gress­ives” who pop­u­late the chat­ter­ing classes in travel & tour­ism and broad­er soci­ety also have to learn to trust people and to engage with them. The arrog­ant air of mor­al, social, or intel­lec­tu­al superi­or­ity some pro­gress­ives con­spicu­ously sig­nal isn’t pro­gress­ive at all. It’s regress­ive and, frankly, “deplor­able”! And ordin­ary people, increas­ingly, resent it.

To the extent lib­er­al demo­cra­cies (for example) have delivered unpre­ced­en­ted levels of human flour­ish­ing and con­tin­ue to uphold hard-won civil rights and envir­on­ment­al stand­ards, it is because they (in this example) are lib­er­al demo­cra­cies — every­one has a say and a vote. Thus your cor­res­pond­ent implores the left side of polit­ics to stop whin­ing about unex­pec­ted elect­or­al out­comes and ima­gined injustice and start listen­ing to and enga­ging with their work­ing class base … their com­munity.

But what would “GT” know?

‘Wēijī’, the “danger at a point of juncture”, & an opportunity

More “GT” stuff. To skip, scroll down to the next subheading. 

It turns out that the Chinese word for crisis, wēijī, does not in its writ­ten form include the char­ac­ter for “oppor­tun­ity”. Rather than sig­ni­fy­ing “danger” and “oppor­tun­ity” as is a com­mon mis­ap­pre­hen­sion, wēijī rep­res­ents “danger at a point of juncture”. 

Regard­less, this doesn’t remove the fact that one faces a choice wheth­er or not to make the best of a bad situation. 

Your cor­res­pond­ent, on behalf of The “Good Tour­ism” Blog, has made a choice to push through this SARS-CoV­‑2 crisis, to con­tin­ue 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, at this junc­ture, The “Good Tour­ism” Blog offers you an oppor­tun­ity to reflect on your achieve­ments, mis­takes, and les­sons learned and to out­line your vis­ion for the future; to tell the story of your “Good Tour­ism” jour­ney; to share your “GT” Insights. 

While the oppor­tun­ity is free-of-charge, please do take it ser­i­ously as it will be as much an invest­ment of “GT’s” time proof­ing, pub­lish­ing, and pro­mot­ing your ideas as it is an invest­ment of your time writ­ing them down. (Hint: It is also a pub­lic rela­tions and brand- and link-build­ing oppor­tun­ity for your organisation.) 

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

If you find “GT” con­tent inspir­ing, inter­est­ing, some­what amus­ing, or at least dif­fer­ent then surely it’s worth some­thing to you … Please …

Pandemic perspective

Tour­ism is a sign of human flour­ish­ing; a rare phe­nomen­on in our spe­cies’ his­tory. It is a lux­ury. Tour­ism is the caffè e latte froth of suc­cess­ful mar­ket eco­nom­ics; the non-essen­tial dis­cre­tion­ary spend­ing that is derived, ulti­mately, from the sur­plus of much more vital goods and ser­vices. This is, of course, why travel is among the first items to be scaled back or struck off most house­hold budgets in times of hard­ship. It is why gov­ern­ments shut it down to tight­en secur­ity and main­tain order. They don’t shut down farms.

Guess what: If true sus­tain­ab­il­ity includes the abil­ity to exist con­stantly in any set of cir­cum­stances then tour­ism can nev­er be sus­tain­able. Of course that is not what our industry means by “sus­tain­able tourism”. 

It turns out that basics such as food, water, shel­ter, and health are much more import­ant than travel & tour­ism (except when travel is neces­sary to secure those essen­tials). Who knew? Col­lect­ively the travel & tour­ism industry needs to know. And it should be reminded of it often dur­ing frothy times so as not to get “too big to fail” or so arrog­ant that it is happy to over­ride the con­cerns of host com­munit­ies. 

Tour­ism jobs and busi­nesses — and blogs! — are import­ant to those who have them, of course, but not at the expense of deliv­er­ing the basics to every­one dur­ing a health and eco­nom­ic crisis, such as this new coronavir­us pandemic. 

That’s why, in that sense, it is good news that the Phil­ip­pines Depart­ment of Tour­ism (DOT) will return some PHP 8 – 10 bil­lion (USD 160 – 200 mil­lion) in funds to the nation­al gov­ern­ment for its fight to con­tain COVID-19. The funds come from the PHP 14 bil­lion (USD 270 mil­lion) earli­er announced for tour­ism recov­ery pro­jects, which in turn was more than half of a nation­al pan­dem­ic recov­ery pack­age of PHP 27 billion. 

Tour­ism Sec­ret­ary Ber­na­dette Romulo Puyat expects some of the returned money will be spent quar­ant­in­ing return­ing OFWs (over­seas Filipino work­ers). She asked the accom­mod­a­tion sec­tor to help house those work­ers because “it’s bet­ter for [hotels] to be earn­ing a little from these guests, than none at all”.

Jamaica’s Min­is­ter of Tour­ism Edmund Bart­lett has appoin­ted Dr Elaine Wil­li­ams as Coordin­at­or of Pan­dem­ics at the Glob­al Tour­ism Resi­li­ence and Crisis Man­age­ment Centre. “Glob­al pan­dem­ics, such as the coronavir­us, threaten the lives and live­li­hoods of so many and there is a need to build capa­city for clin­ic­al resi­li­ence to mit­ig­ate against them,” he reportedly said.

In the USA, the former Vice Pres­id­ent of Mar­ket­ing for the Hawaii Tour­ism Author­ity (HTA), Frank Haas, sees an oppor­tun­ity for sus­tain­ab­il­ity as HTA plans for recov­ery. Mr Haas reck­ons the industry should focus on devel­op­ing improved tour­ist exper­i­ences to attract a smal­ler volume of high-spend­ing tour­ists. “We need to have tour­ism be what it should be, which is a con­trib­ut­or to the eco­nomy and a con­trib­ut­or to qual­ity of life.”

Also in the USA, the Wash­ing­ton Tour­ism Alli­ance (WTA) launched the Show WA Love web­site, which offers a plat­form for Wash­ing­to­ni­ans to pur­chase gift cards now for future use. WTA is a mem­ber­ship-based not-for-profit organ­isa­tion estab­lished after the Wash­ing­ton State Tour­ism Office closed in 2011.

The UK’s Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund announced GBP 50 mil­lion (USD 61.9 mil­lion) of “life­line” emer­gency fund­ing to sup­port her­it­age pro­jects dur­ing the pandemic.

Wildlife & nature-based tourism

Good wild­life news from Myan­mar: “Accord­ing to an annu­al sur­vey con­duc­ted in Feb­ru­ary 2020 […] Myan­mar’s Irrawaddy dol­phin pop­u­la­tion was coun­ted at 79 indi­vidu­als, a sig­ni­fic­ant increase from 72 indi­vidu­als coun­ted in Feb­ru­ary 2019.” It’s the highest num­ber recor­ded since records star­ted more than a dec­ade ago. This news appeared in a news­let­ter from the Liv­ing Irrawaddy Dol­phin Pro­ject; the sub­ject of a won­der­ful “GT” Insight by Paul Eshoo pub­lished in January.

In Africa, black rhino num­bers have more than doubled from about 2,500 in the 1990s to 5,600 now, accord­ing to the Inter­na­tion­al Uni­on for Con­ser­va­tion of Nature (IUCN). How­ever, there is still much to do. “This will be an ongo­ing chal­lenge, par­tic­u­larly as wild­life tour­ism has been hard hit by the glob­al coronavir­us pan­dem­ic,” said Dr Jacques Flamand of the South Africa-based WWF Black Rhino Range Expan­sion Project.

The rewild­ing of beavers in the River Otter in Devon, Eng­land has brought envir­on­ment­al bene­fits to the river and eco­nom­ic bene­fits to loc­al com­munit­ies. Busi­nesses have “received a boost thanks to an increase in eco-tour­ism from vis­it­ors hop­ing to spot the UK’s first wild beavers in 400 years”.

As Forestry Admin­is­tra­tion offi­cials in Cam­bod­ia’s Kam­pong Thom province began study­ing the eco­tour­ism poten­tial of the Prey Kbal Bei Com­munity Forest in San­tuk dis­trict, Wild­life & Nat­ur­al Resources Pro­tec­tion Organ­isa­tion Dir­ect­or Touch Nora said tour­ism is a great way to improve the people’s lives and reduce eco­nom­ic migra­tion. 

Electric aviation

Avi­ation industry employ­ees’ “eyes glit­ter when elec­tric avi­ation is men­tioned”, accord­ing to the Nor­d­ic Net­work for Elec­tric Avi­ation (NEA). Its boss, Maria Fiskerud, believes elec­tric avi­ation has arrived and is here to stay. She says Nor­d­ic coun­tries want to set the glob­al stand­ard for elec­tric avi­ation and its infra­struc­ture. Ms Fiskerud reck­ons one third of domest­ic routes in Sweden will be elec­tri­fied by 2030.

In the USA, a Bur­l­ing­ton, Ver­mont-based com­pany that is devel­op­ing an elec­tric ver­tic­al-lift (eVTOL) air­plane has cre­ated a pro­to­type char­ging sta­tion for elec­tric air­craft; a struc­ture likely to be crit­ic­al to the future of elec­tric aviation.

Odds & ends

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

Pur­su­ing the idea that teach­ing someone how to fish is bet­ter than passing them fil­lets, a few tour com­pan­ies are break­ing from the estab­lished trend of donat­ing to loc­al char­it­ies by instead invest­ing in loc­al microfin­ance pro­grams. This “allows for a more diverse array of busi­nesses to be fun­ded bey­ond those that might appear glam­or­ous in mar­ket­ing materials.”

Byron Shire Coun­cil­lors voted to resur­rect a rail ser­vice between Byron Bay and Mul­lumbimby in New South Wales, Aus­tralia. The pro­ject prom­ises “a great social and envir­on­ment­al out­come from some­thing that also bene­fits tour­ism”, Cr Richard­son reportedly said.

Have a good week!

Fea­tured image (top of post): Down­town Seattle, Wash­ing­ton state, USA at sun­set. By Tiffany Von Arn­im (CC BY 2.0) via Flickr.

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! 🙂