Good news in tourism May 24 – 30, 2020

… because it’s every­one’s business! 

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 “Good Tour­ism” (“GT”) stuff first: 

How does a spe­cial forces sol­dier become a pro­ponent and awardee for sin­cerely respons­ible tour­ism? In a “GT” Insight pub­lished Tues­day, Shane K Beary of Track of the Tiger TRD and Volun­teers Without Bor­ders takes us back to his past before ask­ing us to con­sider his vis­ion for a more equit­able com­munity-based travel & tour­ism industry. And it’s all about the sup­ply chain!

Remind­er: Register here for the final instal­ments of the webin­ar series “Keep­ing the Dream Alive”. The series has been organ­ised by “GT” Insight Part­ner the World Tour­ism Asso­ci­ation for Cul­ture & Her­it­age to help travel & tour­ism through the COVID-19 crisis. Pod­cast record­ings of past epis­odes are also available.

Health & safety

As more places open up, or plan to, it seems the defin­i­tion of “respons­ible tour­ism” must now include stand­ards for hygiene, san­it­a­tion, and phys­ic­al dis­tan­cing. Des­tin­a­tions and oper­at­ors keen to open for busi­ness may be well-served by con­stantly remind­ing — and requir­ing — loc­als, vis­it­ors, staff, and guests to strive for and main­tain high standards. 

WTTC says they will be hand­ing out health-related — rub­ber? — stamps of approv­al, which have been ticked off by glob­al big travel brands and the glob­al big gov­ern­ment tour­ism organ­isa­tion … Glob­al­ists rejoice! 

But more nimble des­tin­a­tions are way ahead of the UNWTO and co … So they should be. And they pre­sum­ably heed appro­pri­ate med­ic­al advice for loc­al con­di­tions and their spe­cif­ic circumstances …

Phys­ic­al dis­tan­cing reg­u­la­tions in res­taur­ants and cafes, and pas­sen­ger lim­its on fer­ries have been imposed in Greece as it races “to sal­vage its tour­ism sea­son”. Fur­ther­more, intens­ive care units have been placed on five islands: Les­bos, Sam­os, Rhodes, Zakyn­thos, and Corfu. There was already one on Crete. Reg­u­lar ferry ser­vices to the Greek islands restar­ted on Monday as cafes and res­taur­ants also opened. 

Cam­bod­ia’s Min­istry of Tour­ism is work­ing with the private sec­tor to intro­duce stand­ard oper­at­ing pro­ced­ures for health & safety, “adding to the Min­istry of Health’s guidelines”. These will be intro­duced by the end of May. (By the way, more than 4,000 of the 250,000 vis­it­ors to eco­tour­ism attrac­tions in the first two weeks of May were foreign.)

Indone­sia’s Min­istry of Tour­ism & Cre­at­ive Eco­nomy will tri­al its CHS (clean­li­ness, health, and safety) pro­gram in Bali. The pro­gram aims to increase trust in Indonesia’s tour­ism industry among domest­ic and for­eign trav­el­lers. Pres­id­ent Joko “Jokowi” Widodo says tour­ist des­tin­a­tions, to be eli­gible for reopen­ing, should first have a COVID-19 basic repro­duc­tion rate (R0) of less than one.

Thai­l­and’s Tour­ism & Sports Min­istry wants the COVID-19 Situ­ation Admin­is­tra­tion to gradu­ally lift the lock­down on domest­ic tour­ism from June 1. The Tour­ism Author­ity of Thai­l­and is hop­ing “70% of the tour­ism sup­ply chain will join the new safety stand­ards of the Safety & Health Administration”. 

The Emir­ate of Shar­jah will strictly adhere to the UAE’s health and safety pro­to­cols as it pur­sues a phased reopen­ing of its hos­pit­al­ity, eco­tour­ism, and leis­ure sec­tors. Accord­ing to its COO Ahmed Obaid Al Qaseer, the Shar­jah Invest­ment & Devel­op­ment Author­ity “has a single-minded approach in enfor­cing these pro­to­cols and [we] expect our guests to fully cooper­ate and take indi­vidu­al respons­ib­il­ity”. The policy is much the same in the Emir­ate of Ras Al Khaimah.

In South Aus­tralia, a “step two eas­ing of restric­tions” will be brought for­ward to Monday, June 1. Ven­ues are being asked to com­plete a COVID Safe Plan for poten­tial inspec­tion by SA Health or SA Police offi­cials. Alco­hol can be served without food! “This means our city’s many wine bars and our region­al pubs can re-open to the com­munity and help entice even more South Aus­trali­ans to get out and exper­i­ence our state,” South Aus­trali­an Tour­ism Com­mis­sion chief Rod­ney Har­rex said.

The Yarra Ranges Coun­cil in Vic­tor­ia, Aus­tralia is ask­ing vis­it­ors to avoid over­crowding at tour­ist attrac­tions, includ­ing out­doors. Coun­cil­lor Jim Child: “If you’re plan­ning a vis­it to the Yarra Ranges, please be flex­ible and will­ing to find a new spot to vis­it if you see a full car­park. […] We have hun­dreds of reserves, parks and beau­ti­ful out­door areas and if we’re all mind­ful of each oth­er, we’ll be able to keep enjoy­ing them …”

Cathy Ritter of the Col­or­ado Tour­ism Office in the USA says there has been “a slow but steady return of tour­ism spend­ing”. Her Office is ask­ing trav­el­lers to “prac­tice our new defin­i­tion of respons­ible tour­ism”, which includes “show­ing care for the people who call those des­tin­a­tions home”. (Unfor­tu­nately, main­stream media failed to show care recently, by allegedly tak­ing Ms Ritter’s words “com­pletely out of con­text”. What’s new?)

At the loc­al level, Dur­ango, Col­or­ado is launch­ing a safety-focused cam­paign, #Care­ForDur­ango, to high­light what the town’s busi­nesses are doing to “keep their prop­er­ties clean and cus­tom­ers and res­id­ents safe”. Vis­it Dur­ango boss Rachel Brown wrote: “Dur­ango is a healthy com­munity and we plan on keep­ing it that way.”

Montana, USA will enter phase two of its plan for “Reopen­ing the Big Sky” on June 1. Gov­ernor Steve Bul­lock announced “addi­tion­al resources for com­munity test­ing and con­tact tra­cing in high-vis­it­a­tion com­munit­ies, an inform­a­tion­al cam­paign to edu­cate vis­it­ors on respons­ible travel, and a grant pro­gram for small busi­nesses across the state to imple­ment safety measures”.

In Chica­go, Illinois, USA, more than 250 loc­al tour­ism, hos­pit­al­ity, and MICE organ­isa­tions have signed a “pledge prom­ising align­ment, col­lab­or­a­tion and socially respons­ible tour­ism and hos­pit­al­ity that will instill con­fid­ence in res­id­ents and vis­it­ors as they return to Chica­go” post-lockdown.

Parks & recreation

Pakistan PM Imran Khan will soon launch “a major pro­tec­ted area ini­ti­at­ive”. The Min­istry of Cli­mate Change will estab­lish “six mod­el nation­al pro­tec­ted parks in dif­fer­ent areas of the coun­try”. Cli­mate Change Min­is­ter Malik Amin said that they will pre­serve hab­it­at and wild­life through a focus on eco­tour­ism. It’s all part of the “Green Stim­u­lus” for “green jobs” as well as the “Bil­lion Tree Tsunami Program”.

“Big waves of vis­it­ors dur­ing the hol­i­day sea­son” will not be part of the “new nor­mal” for Thai­l­and’s nation­al parks, accord­ing to Dum­rus Phop­ra­sit, dir­ect­or of the Nation­al Park Office. Lim­its will be placed based on car­ry­ing capa­city. Tour­ists will be required to “register for a vis­it or book tick­ets in advance”. And each of the King­dom’s 157 nation­al parks will be closed for at least two months every year.

In Malay­sia, Pahang Tour­ism & Cul­ture Min­istry chair Datuk Idrus Yahya reck­ons tour­ism oper­at­ors with a stake in Taman Neg­ara Nation­al Park are plan­ning for a “new nor­mal” with new mes­saging and stand­ard oper­at­ing pro­ced­ures. (In the Malay lan­guage, taman neg­ara means “nation­al park”.)

As part of South Aus­tralia‘s broad­er “Parks 2025” strategy, the AUD 5 mil­lion (USD 3.3 mil­lion) Nature-Based Tour­ism Co-Invest­ment Fund will “sup­port loc­al jobs, bene­fit tour­ists [and the] com­munity and have pos­it­ive con­ser­va­tion out­comes”, the state’s Min­is­ter for Envir­on­ment & Water Dav­id Speirs said. Tour­ism Industry Coun­cil of South Aus­tralia chief Shaun de Bruyn reck­ons 20% of tour­ism dol­lars spent in the state has “a nature and her­it­age tour­ism component”. 

“GT” is hungry. Feed “GT”.

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

“GT” is hungry. “GT” is hungry for ori­gin­al content. 

An open invitation

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

You don’t have to be invited by a “GT” Insight Part­ner to con­trib­ute a “GT” Insight. This is an open invit­a­tion from “GT” to you. Simply fol­low the simple “GT” Insight guidelines.

Even if you’re weird …

… “GT” will pub­lish your ideas; so long as they are with­in the bounds of leg­al­ity, top­ic­al­ity, decency, and good faith, and they meet the “GT” Insight guidelines.

A fas­cin­a­tion with “weird” is why many of us like to travel. Yet some who advoc­ate for “diversity” have for­got­ten what diversity really means. Diversity can be so weird as to be con­front­ing. Diversity does not care about any­one’s feel­ings or polit­ic­al lean­ings. Diversity is all about authen­ti­city!

“GT” offers a “safe space” for all sorts of per­spect­ives on “Good Tour­ism”, includ­ing weird ones. Be authen­t­ic. Be you, because — to be cheesy about it — there’s no-one bet­ter at being you than … you! And what bet­ter time than now to stand out from the crowd?

So go ahead and share your “GT” Insights, even if they’re weird … 

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Of course you can write! And “GT” will help you by proof-read­ing and lightly edit­ing your “GT” Insight to ensure your hap­pi­ness before it is pub­lished. It’s all part of the “GT” ser­vice for “GT” Friends made pos­sible by “GT” Part­ner NewMedia.pro. And if you are a con­fid­ent writer, you will undoubtedly appre­ci­ate the value of a fresh pair of eyes. (Yuor cro­erpsnoendt culod bne­fiet form taht oacscoilalny.)

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Don’t feed their machines. Feed “GT”. Share your “GT” Insights.

Friends in need are friends indeed

As lock­down lengthens, more tins rattle … Here are fun­draisers well worth con­sid­er­ing due to the involve­ment of “GT” Friends:

“GT” Insight Part­ner Second Look World­wide is endors­ing a worthy fun­draiser organ­ised by “GT” Friend James Nadi­ope. Mr Nadi­ope said: “Since Uganda went into quar­ant­ine with total lock­down fol­lowed by curfew many fam­il­ies where we work go empty stom­ach with no food to eat. I would like to appeal to all well-wish­ers for fin­an­cial dona­tions to help these vul­ner­able fam­il­ies.” [Call­back: In Janu­ary, Mr Nadi­ope con­trib­uted a “GT” Insight into “How bees, trees, & tour­ism reduce human-wild­life con­flict in Uganda”.]

The tem­por­ary clos­ure of Car­damom Ten­ted Camp due to the COVID-19 shut­down has meant that forest patrols by Wild­life Alli­ance rangers in Botum Sakor Nation­al Park in south­w­est Cam­bod­ia may have to be sus­pen­ded. The rangers’ equip­ment, food, and wages are provided in entirety by the Golden Tri­angle Asi­an Ele­phant Found­a­tion (GTAEF) and Car­damom both of which depend on tour­ism. And there is no tour­ism. An emer­gency fun­drais­ing page to keep rangers employed and adequately sup­plied is live … and worthy. [“GT” Friends Willem Niemeijer and John Roberts are asso­ci­ated with the fun­draiser via Car­damom and GTAEF respectively.]

The expres­sion “an ele­phant in the room” means an uncom­fort­able truth we can­not ignore. With tour­ism cash flows stemmed, many Asi­an ele­phants and their mahouts in Thai­l­and and else­where are in deep trouble. “GT” Friend Hol­lis Burb­ank-Ham­marlund of Work for Wild Life Inter­na­tion­al wrote about why that’s the case and how we can help.

Not a fun­draiser as such, but an idea for accom­mod­a­tion pro­viders: “GT” Friend Rachel Sher­wood, a travel blog­ger from Oxford­shire in Eng­land, is organ­ising well-deserved hol­i­days for health­care work­ers at the front lines of the coronavir­us COVID-19 fight. Oper­a­tion Recu­per­a­tion is col­lect­ing pledges from accom­mod­a­tion pro­viders and second home own­ers from all over the world. “GT” invited Ms Sher­wood to write about “Oper­a­tion Recu­per­a­tion” and how hotels and resorts can get involved.

Follow, flatter, finance

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Join the con­ver­sa­tion. With­in reas­on — leg­al­ity, top­ic­al­ity, decency, and good faith — all points of view are wel­come … espe­cially flat­ter­ing ones, of course! 😎

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Please …

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Thank you very much to those who have donated. 😍 Note: Giv­en “GT’s” propensity to rattle cages, your correspondent’s start­ing assump­tion is that dona­tions should be kept private and con­fid­en­tial. If you are happy to be pub­licly acknow­ledged that would be bril­liant. Simply let your cor­res­pond­ent know. Thanks!

Pandemic ponderings

The “thou­sands” of work-per­mit hold­ers leav­ing Cay­man Islands due to job loss opens the door for Cay­mani­ans to take a look at tour­ism careers or tour­ism busi­nesses of their own, accord­ing to Depart­ment of Tour­ism Dir­ect­or Rosa Har­ris. The DoT has put on free webinars to help them. She reck­ons the Brit­ish Over­seas Ter­rit­ory is still a desired des­tin­a­tion. And com­munity-based tour­ism remains a priority.

Gab­ri­el Far­ru­gia, Pro­jects Officer, Malta Tour­ism Soci­ety: “On a loc­al level, stake­hold­ers involved in the tour­ism and her­it­age industry are faced with two options. The first is to work hard to reach the num­ber of tour­ists as exper­i­enced pri­or to the glob­al COVID-19 world. Secondly, they can go for a more sus­tain­able tour­ism growth [by] adopt­ing an integ­rated approach involving stake­hold­ers dir­ectly influ­enced by tour­ism [includ­ing aca­dem­ics and com­munit­ies] who could be involved in cre­at­ing com­munity-based tour­ism pro­grammes, bring­ing vis­it­ors in con­tact with loc­al cus­toms, cuisine and curiosities.”

Chuck Thi­beau­lt, chief of Cent­ral Counties Tour­ism in Ontario, Canada, reck­ons the per­cep­tion of tour­ism needs to change from attract­ing people from afar to strength­en­ing the fab­ric of the loc­al com­munity. Geor­gina Cham­ber of Com­merce boss Jen­nifer Ander­son agrees. She reck­ons res­id­ents who shop and exper­i­ence her town as tour­ists are vital to com­munity recov­ery and busi­ness survival.

Odds & ends

Good news bits ‘n pieces that don’t eas­ily fit into this week’s arbit­rary clusters:

The first flight of the “largest all-elec­tric com­muter air­craft yet” took place Wed­nes­day in Wash­ing­ton state, USA. Elec­tric motor star­tup Mag­niX ret­ro­fit­ted a Cessna 208B Grand Cara­van — “one of the most widely-used middle-mile air­craft” — with a 750-horsepower elec­tric propul­sion sys­tem. Accord­ing to Mag­niX chief Roei Gan­zarski, a 30-minute flight in that air­craft would nor­mally con­sume more than US$300 worth of jet fuel, where­as the 30-minute test flight in the eCara­van used less than US$6 worth of elec­tri­city. Mag­niX expects to receive FAA cer­ti­fic­a­tion by the end of 2021.

Three agen­cies have had their “busiest book­ing day on record”, accord­ing to Steve Wroe, chief of Dayles­ford Mace­don Tour­ism in Vic­tor­ia, Aus­tralia. Overnight stays are allowed from Monday, June 1 under the state gov­ern­ment’s gradu­al eas­ing of restrictions.

Nepal’s gov­ern­ment has alloc­ated NPR 1.26 bil­lion (USD 10.3 mil­lion) for tour­ism pro­mo­tion in the next fisc­al year and will “provide travel leave for civil ser­vants” to sup­port domest­ic tour­ism.

“Gotta go? Then go!” A high school girl took an extraordin­ary 150-kilo­metre jour­ney from her remote vil­lage in Ker­ala, India to sit a Sec­ond­ary School Leav­ing Cer­ti­fic­ate exam­in­a­tion. Embark­ing in the wee hours of Tues­day morn­ing, Sridevi walked sev­en kilo­metres through a forest before trav­el­ling 143 kilo­metres by bike and ambu­lance. She was only 30 minutes late and was allowed to sit the exam in a room by herself.

Stay healthy, smile, and have a good week!

Fea­tured image (top of page): Wel­come. We are open. By Ketut Subiy­anto (CC0) via Pexels.

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! 🙂