Host communities are at the core of tomorrow’s sustainable tourism

The post-pan­dem­ic future of travel & tour­ism will be more com­munity-based than it has been, accord­ing to sus­tain­able tour­ism expert Eva Moss­berg. In this “Good Tour­ism” Insight, Ms Moss­berg points to the vil­lage of Baan Talae Nok in south­ern Thai­l­and for an example of how and why.

“Humans are not per­fect decision makers. Not only are we not per­fect, but we depart from per­fec­tion or ration­al­ity in sys­tem­at­ic and pre­dict­able ways.” (Bazer­man, 2020). 

When we are little, our decisions, both good and bad, are usu­ally rewar­ded right away with car­rots and sticks. As we mature into adult­hood, car­rots and sticks give way to a com­plex maze of decision mak­ing pro­cesses. We make choices based on information. 

And herein lies a prob­lem: Inform­a­tion, the lack there­of or its poor qual­ity. For example, in a glob­al sur­vey con­duc­ted by Booking.com for their 2019 sus­tain­able travel report, 72% of people in a sur­vey said that sus­tain­able tour­ism is very import­ant to them; but in the same sur­vey, only 50% said that they under­stood how to travel sus­tain­ably, and 37% of respond­ents had no idea how to make sus­tain­able travel choices (Booking.com 2019). Due to spe­cial­isa­tion and niche mar­ket­ing it’s easy to see why it can be confusing.

Clear as mud: Defining sustainable tourism & community-based tourism

Accord­ing to the UNWTO “Sus­tain­able tour­ism devel­op­ment requires the informed par­ti­cip­a­tion of all rel­ev­ant stake­hold­ers, as well as strong polit­ic­al lead­er­ship to ensure wide par­ti­cip­a­tion and con­sensus build­ing. Sus­tain­able tour­ism should also main­tain a high level of tour­ist sat­is­fac­tion and ensure a mean­ing­ful exper­i­ence to the tour­ists, rais­ing their aware­ness about sus­tain­ab­il­ity issues and pro­mot­ing sus­tain­able tour­ism prac­tices amongst them” (n.d.). In today’s some­what super­flu­ous and often­times over­lap­ping world of tour­ism defin­i­tions — nature-based tour­ism, eco­tour­ism, volun­tour­ism, etc — many, if not most, do in fact fall under the umbrella of sus­tain­able tourism. 

Com­munity-based tour­ism (CBT), a sus­tain­able option for com­munit­ies all around the world, is built on the pil­lars of sus­tain­able tour­ism with a par­tic­u­lar focus on cre­at­ing authen­t­ic con­nec­tions between vis­it­ors and host communities. 

Sustainable tourism in Thailand

In early 2020, our GLP Films crew trav­elled to the vil­lage of Baan Talae Nok on the Anda­m­an Coast in south­ern Thai­l­and to help bring to life their unique story of CBT. Work­ing closely with the loc­al com­munity lead­ers and Anda­m­an Dis­cov­er­ies, the res­ult of this col­lab­or­a­tion was the award-win­ning series Sus­tain­able Thai­l­and. 

In response to the dev­ast­a­tion fol­low­ing the 2004 tsunami, Baan Talae Nok chose com­munity-based tour­ism in order to recov­er, rebuild, and provide sup­ple­ment­al income for fam­il­ies to send their kids to school. 

When COVID-19 effect­ively hal­ted travel glob­ally in 2020, GLP Films fol­lowed up with Lind­sey Red­ing of Anda­m­an Dis­cov­er­ies for an inter­view as part of the #Tour­ismStrong series, an uplift­ing video series cel­eb­rat­ing the resi­li­ency of the travel industry through pos­it­ive tour­ism stor­ies amidst the COVID-19 glob­al pan­dem­ic. In the inter­view below she repor­ted that while tour­ism has come to a stop for now, the Baan Talae Nok com­munity is liv­ing sus­tain­ably off loc­al resources and the man­groves as they always have.

When tour­ism restarts, Baan Talae Nok is poised to reopen with exper­i­ences that sup­port people and the plan­et, bring­ing trav­el­lers closer to nature through safe and mean­ing­ful com­munity-based tourism.

What the future holds: Travellers want sustainable and authentic experiences

Trav­el­lers are also catch­ing on to sus­tain­able travel and com­munity-based tour­ism. Accord­ing to Booking.com’s 2019 report on sus­tain­able tourism: 

• Sus­tain­able exper­i­ences are sought-after with 68% of trav­el­lers want­ing to see the money they spend go back into the loc­al community.
• Authen­t­ic exper­i­ences are increas­ingly being sought, with almost three quar­ters (72%) of glob­al trav­el­lers look­ing for exper­i­ences that reflect the nat­ive cul­ture. Work­ing with loc­al hosts is integ­ral to this, and recom­mend­ing hid­den gems that will both sat­is­fy this interest while encour­aging vis­it­ors away from areas already over­burdened by tour­ism is a great way to engage in sus­tain­able practices.

As we get ready to travel again, we owe it to ourselves, the triple bot­tom line, and future gen­er­a­tions to under­stand our own lim­it­a­tions and seek out inform­a­tion that will allow us to make more whole­some choices and use travel as a force for good.

To learn more about the exper­i­ences avail­able in Baan Talae Nok, and to cre­ate your own sus­tain­able trip, check out GLP’s resources for sus­tain­able tour­ism in Thai­l­and. Also, if you know of sim­il­ar stor­ies on this top­ic, or have a story to tell, please email GLP Films.

What do you think? Share a short anec­dote or com­ment below. Or write a deep­er “GT” Insight. The “Good Tour­ism” Blog wel­comes diversity of opin­ion and per­spect­ive about travel & tour­ism because travel & tour­ism is everyone’s business.

References

Bazer­man, M. H. (2020). Judg­ment and decision mak­ing. In R. Biswas-Dien­er & E. Dien­er (Eds), Noba text­book series: Psy­cho­logy. Cham­paign, IL: DEF pub­lish­ers. Retrieved from http://noba.to/9xjyvc3a

Bookings.com (2019, April 17). Booking.com reveals key find­ings from its 2019 sus­tain­able travel report. Retrieved from https://globalnews.booking.com/bookingcom-reveals-key-findings-from-its-2019-sustainable-travel-report

TEDx­Stock­holmSalon (2019, Oct 2). Doug Lansky: How to save Tour­ism from itself. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Imbj0F-gUSw 

UNWTO (n.d.) Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment. Retrieved Dec 8, 2020 from https://www.unwto.org/sustainable-development

UNWTO Glob­al Report on Adven­ture Tour­ism (2014). Retrieved from https://skift.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/unwto-global-report-on-adventure-tourism.pdf

Fea­tured image (top of post): Fresh squid over an open fire. “When tour­ism restarts, Baan Talae Nok is poised to reopen with exper­i­ences that sup­port people and the plan­et, bring­ing trav­el­lers closer to nature through safe and mean­ing­ful com­munity-based tour­ism.” Image sup­plied by GLP Films.

About the author

Eva Moss­berg is a “lead­er, innov­at­or, and adven­ture­some expert” in sus­tain­able tour­ism. Her exper­i­ence spans more than 20 years and includes all facets of domest­ic and inter­na­tion­al oper­a­tions and logist­ics for vari­ous glob­al edu­ca­tion­al tours and pro­grams, from pro­gram devel­op­ment and risk man­age­ment pro­to­cols to sourcing new des­tin­a­tions and stra­tegic part­ner­ships across Europe. 

With under­gradu­ate and gradu­ate degrees in hos­pit­al­ity and tour­ism, Eva is cur­rently involved in sev­er­al ini­ti­at­ives and organ­isa­tions, such as spe­cial advisor to GLP Films; stra­tegic part­ner­ship and pro­gram man­ager with RISE Travel Insti­tute; and founder & CEO of her own Exper­i­en­tial Exped­i­tions. Eva is based north of Boston, Mas­sachu­setts, USA and loves any­thing and everything outdoors.