Good news in tourism Jul 26 to Aug 1, 2020

… because it’s every­one’s business! 

Pub­lished every Sunday, “Good news in tour­ism” is the per­fect pick-me-up for the start of a new week in travel & tourism. 

This week in “Good news …”:

• Policy & governance
• Stayc­a­tions, hyper­loc­al tour­ism, & domest­ic tourism
• Nature-based tour­ism & ecotourism
• Art, cul­ture, & heritage
• Friends indeed
• Odds & ends

It’s “Good Tour­ism”. And go!

“GT” Friend Susanne Beck­en wrote about “regen­er­at­ive tour­ism” dur­ing the week: “The very basic under­pin­ning of regen­er­at­ive tour­ism is that it is under­stood to occur with­in an eco­sys­tem of nat­ur­al, social and cul­tur­al ele­ments and inter­ac­tions. Tak­ing a hol­ist­ic approach is essen­tial in under­stand­ing pos­it­ive effects (e.g. heal­ing) as well as unin­ten­ded con­sequences (e.g. degradation).”

Dr Beck­en pre­vi­ously worked on a sus­tain­able tour­ism dash­board that would extend data gath­er­ing, mon­it­or­ing, and report­ing sys­tems to “non-eco­nom­ic indic­at­ors that reflect the full suite of sus­tain­ab­il­ity dimen­sions”. (In 2017 she wrote a “GT” Insight about it; the very first “GT” Insight!) Will such an object­ive, meas­ur­able approach work for the new­er buzz­phrase “regen­er­at­ive tour­ism”? For the sake of sus­tain­able / regen­er­at­ive out­comes, one would hope so. 

On anoth­er top­ic of import­ance to the future of our industry, UK Jet Zero Coun­cil mem­ber Prof Iain Gray of Cran­field Uni­ver­sity reck­ons it is only a mat­ter of time before net-zero avi­ation is a real­ity. He com­pares zero-emis­sion air travel with JFK’s moon shot — “We are going to need the same com­mit­ment, resource and ded­ic­a­tion that the US showed when Pres­id­ent Kennedy com­mit­ted their nation to land­ing a per­son on the moon with­in a dec­ade” — an ana­logy Prof Geof­frey Lip­man of “GT” Part­ner SUN^x — Strong Uni­ver­sal Net­work has used for years.

Helena Egan, founder of Plan­et Egan and former head of industry rela­tions at Tri­pAd­visor, has joined the team at “GT” Insight Part­ner the World Tour­ism Asso­ci­ation for Cul­ture & Her­it­age (WTACH).

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Policy & governance

Judy Omumbo of the Kenya-based Afric­an Academy of Sci­ences reck­ons Horn of Africa states should pri­or­it­ise low-car­bon devel­op­ment and chan­nel funds towards adapt­a­tion pro­grams in nat­ur­al resource-based sec­tors such as tour­ism, agri­cul­ture, and energy. The Horn of Africa includes Ethiopia, Somalia, Erit­rea, and Dji­bouti.

Mizoram, India is draft­ing a new “respons­ible tour­ism policy” to “meet present require­ments” (and secure fund­ing) accord­ing to state tour­ism min­is­ter Robert Romawia Royte. Mizoram wants to “access the up-mar­ket slot”. The land­locked state shares a bor­der with Bangladesh and Myanmar.

Chief min­is­ter Jam Kamal Khan Alyani of Balochistan province in south­w­est Pakistan has alloc­ated PKR 150 mil­lion (USD 900,000) for a mas­ter plan. “There are vast oppor­tun­it­ies for invest­ment in the tour­ism sec­tor,” he said. Balochistan is the largest yet least-pop­u­lated of Pakistan’s four provinces.

New Zea­l­and tour­ism min­is­ter Kelvin Dav­is announced the sev­en mem­bers of a new “tour­ism futures taskforce”. With the help of a 34-mem­ber advis­ory group, the taskforce is expec­ted to deliv­er draft recom­mend­a­tions by Decem­ber 2020.

Auck­land Trans­port has con­sul­ted with the Waiheke com­munity and partnered with the Waiheke Loc­al Board on an integ­rated 10-year trans­port plan that factors in pres­sures from tour­ism and pop­u­la­tion growth on the island. Waiheke is the second-largest and most pop­u­lous island in the Hauraki Gulf off the coast of Auck­land, New Zea­l­and.

The County of Hawaiʻi in Hawaiʻi state, USA has released a five-year tour­ism plan for Hawaiʻi Island — the Hawaiʻi Island Tour­ism Stra­tegic Plan 2020 – 2025 (PDF) — which emphas­ises respons­ible tourism.

Sustainable tourism & responsible travel is everyone’s business

Free­dom of move­ment is a basic human right. And the travel & tour­ism industry is everyone’s busi­ness. “Every­one” includes not only those who earn a liv­ing in the travel & tour­ism industry, but also people who travel, and people who live in places trav­elled to and through. EVERYONE. Please share “Good news in tour­ism” with your friends and col­leagues. And dive deep­er into “Good Tour­ism” Insights for ideas on how to make sus­tain­able tour­ism and respons­ible travel bet­ter … for you, for your people, and for your place. For they are your people. And it is your place.

Staycations, hyperlocal tourism, & domestic tourism

Domest­ic air travel will return to pre-pan­dem­ic levels two years ahead of inter­na­tion­al air travel, accord­ing to pro­jec­tions from the Inter­na­tion­al Air Trans­port Asso­ci­ation (IATA) and Tour­ism Eco­nom­ics. That’s still two years away for domest­ic (2022); four years for inter­na­tion­al air travel (2024).

Clin­ton Thom, gen­er­al man­ager of a hotel in South Africa: “While the Tour­ism Busi­ness Coun­cil of South Africa (TBCSA) strongly lob­bies for a phased reopen­ing to inter­na­tion­al tour­ists from as early as Septem­ber 2020, loc­al oper­at­ors would be well advised to fol­low the lead of many oth­er coun­tries abroad who are — first and fore­most — look­ing to their own loc­al mar­kets to help set the sec­tor on the road to recov­ery.”

Green­land’s new ini­ti­at­ive to boost domest­ic travel & tour­ism is a sub­sidy for travel between towns and vil­lages. This is in addi­tion to dis­count sub­sidies on domest­ic accom­mod­a­tion and tours announced in June. Green­land is an autonom­ous ter­rit­ory with­in the King­dom of Den­mark.

Ker­ala Tour­ism will work with oth­er states to “ensure a hassle-free exper­i­ence” for tour­ists trav­el­ling domest­ic­ally in India. Ker­ala tour­ism min­is­ter Kadakam­pally Surendran added: “We expect to wel­come guests in the next one or two months.”

Tour­ism in Tah­le­quah, cap­it­al of the Cher­o­kee Nation, is bene­fit­ting from the clos­ure of inter­state travel as loc­als choose stayc­a­tions. Tah­le­quah Tour­ism dir­ect­or Gena McPhail said people liv­ing with­in a 170-kilo­metre radi­us were vis­it­ing Illinois River and Lake Ten­k­iller. “People are want­ing to get out and do things [and] it’s a safe vaca­tion­ing option.” Cher­o­kee Nation is based in Oklahoma state, USA.

In Cali­for­nia, USA, Orange County Vis­it­ors Bur­eau boss Laurie Pao­li­celli says every research study she has read indic­ates that “people have cab­in fever and want to get out, but not too far away [and where it is] safe, san­it­ised, driv­able, people are wear­ing masks and that they can vis­it and often­times be home that same evening”.

In Ontario province, Canada, Tour­ism Bar­rie is fol­low­ing “three simple strategies: response, recov­ery, and resi­li­ence”, accord­ing to ite boss Betsy Dean. Ms Dean laid out an 18-month plan that starts with a focus on hyper­loc­al stayc­a­tions.

The importance of good partnerships

Many com­ment­at­ors would like to see pre­vi­ously over­crowded des­tin­a­tions recov­er from the COVID-19 depres­sion with a focus on qual­ity rather than quant­ity. That would be nice, of course, par­tic­u­larly if host com­munit­ies want that. How­ever, some or many extant tour­ism stake­hold­ers will likely go out of busi­ness should this hap­pen. Don’t let one of those be you. Stay as pos­it­ive as you can be. And seek out good part­ner­ships with those who make you their pri­or­ity. 

“GT” is a good part­ner. Please veri­fy that claim with a Good Part­ner. And then ask your cor­res­pond­ent about part­ner­ship oppor­tun­it­ies. There’s some­thing for everyone.

Nature-based tourism & ecotourism

Busi­ness is good for some in Palm Beach County, Flor­ida, USA. Eco­tour­ism and out­door-ori­ented busi­nesses are report­ing much bet­ter res­ults than dur­ing the same peri­od last year as people break out of their lock­down blues. 

Con­ser­va­tion NGOs in South Africa have wel­comed the phased reopen­ing of the nature-based tour­ism sec­tor. The Wil­der­ness Found­a­tion Africa, Wild­life & Envir­on­ment Soci­ety South Africa, Bird­Life South Africa, and the Endangered Wild­life Trust believe nature-based tour­ism is “one of the few sec­tors that stands to revital­ise our eco­nomy and bring much-needed income back into South Afric­an households”.

Domin­ic­an Repub­lic’s Min­istry of Envir­on­ment & Nat­ur­al Resources reopened pro­tec­ted areas to eco­tour­ism on Monday. To ensure the health of vis­it­ors, envir­on­ment min­is­ter Ángel Estévez indic­ated that there would be a strict health and safety pro­tocol to follow.

“After see­ing nature boun­cing back” dur­ing the coronavir­us lock­down, a par­lia­ment­ary pan­el in Bangladesh has recom­men­ded keep­ing nation­al parks closed to tour­ists for cer­tain peri­ods every year.

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Art, culture, & heritage

Billy FitzHer­bert of the Oxford Busi­ness Group: “Saudi Ara­bia’s far-reach­ing devel­op­ment strategy, Vis­ion 2030, has ear­marked tour­ism – spe­cific­ally Islam­ic her­it­age tour­ism – as an engine for growth in the Kingdom’s non-oil eco­nomy, with Med­ina set to play a cent­ral role in these efforts.”

“It’s good for tour­ism, it’s good for eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment, and it really can add a lot of char­ac­ter to a com­munity,” Benton­ville city plan­ning man­ager Shelli Kerr said of art. She reck­ons the open­ing of the Crys­tal Bridges Museum of Amer­ic­an Art in 2011 con­trib­uted to the over­all devel­op­ment of the ninth-largest city in Arkan­sas, USA.

Friends indeed

As inter­na­tion­al travel bans lengthen, belts tight­en fur­ther in places pre­vi­ously reli­ant on for­eign tour­ism … Here are fun­draisers worth con­sid­er­ing because “GT” Friends & Part­ners are involved. (This con­tent has appeared in “Good news in tour­ism” before, so enjoy it again or scroll down to the next sub­head­ing to skip.)

Khiri Reach, the char­it­able arm of “GT” Part­ner Khiri Travel, has set up a fund to sup­port freel­ance tour guides. Khiri Reach boss Nia Klatte said: “We want to sup­port a group of people who are among the very hard­est hit by the cur­rent crisis: our freel­ance guides. Unfor­tu­nately, in South­east Asia, the gov­ern­ment safety nets are extremely min­im­al if they exist at all for freel­an­cers. And while some domest­ic tour­ism is com­ing back, it will take months or years for tour­ism activ­it­ies to return to ‘nor­mal’.”

“GT” Insight Part­ner Second Look World­wide is endors­ing a fun­draiser organ­ised by “GT” Friend James Nadi­ope, who 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 wrote about “How bees, trees, & tour­ism reduce human-wild­life con­flict in Uganda”.]

Many Asi­an ele­phants and their mahouts in Thai­l­and and else­where are in deep trouble. That’s why Hol­lis Burb­ank-Ham­marlund, founder & dir­ect­or of “GT” Insight Part­ner Work for Wild Life Inter­na­tion­al, would ask that you con­trib­ute to the Ele­phant Health­care Emer­gency Life­line Fund, which helps keep veter­in­ari­ans on the job deliv­er­ing essen­tial emer­gency veter­in­ary care to ele­phants that need it most … when they need it most.

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 Ten­ted Camp both of which depend on tour­ism. And there is no tour­ism. An emer­gency fun­drais­ing page is live. [“GT” Friends Willem Niemeijer and John Roberts are asso­ci­ated with the fun­draiser via Car­damom and GTAEF respectively.]

Not a fun­draiser as such, but a great idea for accom­mod­a­tion pro­viders: “GT” Friend Rachel Sher­wood is organ­ising well-deserved hol­i­days for health­care work­ers at the front lines of the COVID-19 fight. Oper­a­tion Recu­per­a­tion is col­lect­ing pledges from accom­mod­a­tion pro­viders and second home own­ers from all over the world.

Odds & ends

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

The City of Poreč, Croa­tia last year adap­ted the Euphrasi­an Basilica and Lun­go­mare prom­en­ade accord­ing to USEFALL (UNESCO Site Exper­i­ence For All) pro­ject prin­ciples. USEFALL makes her­it­age sites more access­ible for people with lim­ited mobil­ity. Poreč is keen to roll out more access­ible tour­ism adapt­a­tions next year.

Kan­napuram, a pan­chay­at (vil­lage coun­cil area) in Ker­ala, India has declared itself an “Indi­gen­ous Mango Her­it­age Area” due to its more than 200 vari­et­ies of mango.

Stay healthy, smile, have a good week … And when you can travel again, remember:

It’s not ‘no’. It’s ‘know’.

Gotta go? Then go!
If you’ve time, go slow
If you don’t, try low
Do what you know is good
And know there is more to know

Fea­tured image (top of post): Petals with­in petals. Image by Dav­id Gill­banks (CC BY 4.0).

Donations, diversity, disclaimers

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! 😍

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. And you will be sup­port­ing an inde­pend­ent pub­lish­er with your ori­gin­al content.

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! 🙂