Good news in tourism March 1 – 7, 2021

March 7, 2021

Calmness calls out the clouds at The Knoll, Walpole, Western Australia
Click here for your invitation to write for "Good Tourism" ... Feel free to pass it on.

Because: “You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer your­self any dir­ec­tion you choose.” _ Theodor Seuss Geisel (Dr Seuss)

Pub­lished most Sundays, “Good news in tour­ism” is the per­fect pick-me-up for the start of a new week in travel & tour­ism … everyone’s business.

(Click / touch an item to go straight to it.)

It’s “Good Tour­ism”. And go!

Keep up with “GT”

If you like “GT” and you don’t want to miss a thing, sub­scribe to “GT’s” free e‑news:

(Please check your email/junk to confirm)

“GT” Insights & “GT” Partner news

“Good news in tour­ism” had a two-week break so there is a lot to catch up on in terms of “GT” Insights and “GT” Part­ner news:

Tan­ner C Knorr picks up themes dis­cussed in a webin­ar by the US-based Cen­ter for Respons­ible Travel and maps them onto five core ten­ets of the Future of Tour­ism Coali­tion. Pub­lished on Tues­day, “Cli­mate change, COVID-19, and the need for glob­al sys­tem­ic change” is Mr Knorr’s fourth “Good Tour­ism” Insight. Tan­ner is the founder of two “GT” Part­ners: Second Look World­wide and Off Sea­son Adven­tures

Not to be con­fused with dog­ging, WWOOF­ing is a rur­al tour­ism concept that com­bines volun­tour­ism with organ­ic farm­ing and cul­tur­al exchange. In her “GT” Insight pub­lished on Thursday, former WWOOF­er and cur­rent aca­dem­ic Yana Wen­gel explains why WWOOF and oth­er altern­at­ive forms of tour­ism could be just what we need. “WWOOF! An altern­at­ive tour­ism in times of turmoil”

YW TCK gnews 1024
Yana Wen­gel (bot­tom left); Tan­ner C Knorr (right)

Travel & tourism’s host com­munit­ies need altern­at­ive vis­ions for devel­op­ment and the power to choose between them, accord­ing to lec­turer and writer Jim Butcher in “Tourism’s demo­crat­ic defi­cit” pub­lished Feb­ru­ary 25; his second “GT” Insight.

Sonia Beckwith’s tiny Aus­trali­an eco­tour­ism oper­a­tion Live Nin­ga­loo faced an exist­en­tial crisis in 2020, like so many travel & tour­ism busi­nesses glob­ally did (and still do). In her second “GT” Insight, pub­lished Feb­ru­ary 23, Sonia shares the value of caring — a lot! — and how she has har­nessed and sus­tained it in “What to keep, change, do in a crisis (and why we should give a sh*t)”.

sb jb enews 1024
Sonia Beck­with (left); Jim Butcher

For the sake of grow­ing well-being and shar­ing the tour­ism com­mons with the great­er major­ity, cir­cu­lar eco­nom­ic approaches to travel & tour­ism must replace neo­lib­er­al cap­it­al­ist growth mod­els. To make that argu­ment, aca­dem­ic research­er Phoebe Ever­ing­ham takes a crit­ic­al the­or­et­ic­al approach. It’s a “Good Tour­ism” Insight pub­lished Feb­ru­ary 18. “Travel & tourism’s ‘crit­ic­al’ rethink and its imper­at­ive shift to cir­cu­lar economics”

We have an oppor­tun­ity now to reflect on val­ues that mat­ter to the travel & tour­ism industry even after the pan­dem­ic ends, accord­ing to Raki Phil­lips of the Ras Al Khaimah Tour­ism Devel­op­ment Author­ity. In his “GT” Insight pub­lished Feb­ru­ary 16, Mr Phil­lips explained how the Emir­ate is embed­ding sus­tain­ab­il­ity into everything it does. “Sus­tain­able tourism’s end­less bal­an­cing act: Pre­serving, pro­mot­ing Ras Al Khaimah”

raki phoebs
Raki Phil­lips (top left); Phoebe Ever­ing­ham (right)

Her­man Hov­en, CEO of “GT” Part­ner Khiri Travel, is a found­ing sig­nat­ory on an industry-led peti­tion to open Thai­l­and safely to travel & tour­ism from July 1 this year. It is thought that by July 1, vac­cin­a­tion rol­louts in major inbound tour­ism mar­kets will be well advanced and Thai­l­and itself will have had time to admin­is­ter jabs to all its front­line health, trans­port, hos­pit­al­ity, and tour­ism work­ers, as well as its most vul­ner­able pop­u­la­tions. And a firm date gives every­one some­thing to plan for and aim at. 

Regis­tra­tions are now open for the Strong Earth Youth Sum­mit by “Good Tour­ism” Part­ner SUNx — Strong Uni­ver­sal Net­work. To take place April 29 & 30, the event is the first to be “designed by and for the youth to take action and build a com­munity around Cli­mate Friendly Travel”.

Not only has he writ­ten two “GT” Insights, Kev­in Phun of “GT” Part­ner The Centre for Respons­ible Tour­ism Singa­pore (CRTS) also has plenty to say in pod­cast form. This week, “GT” recom­mends listen­ing to Mr Phun’s pod­cast epis­ode on: “What does it mean for travel and tour­ism to be car­bon neut­ral? (6 mins 31 secs). Last week in the e‑newsletter, “GT” recom­men­ded “Envir­on­ment­al injustice and cli­mate change adapt­a­tion” (6 mins 3 secs); the week before, “Envir­on­ment­al injustice and respons­ible tour­ism” (6 mins 26 secs). Kev­in is also keen for you to join him on his upcom­ing vir­tu­al net­work­ing tours of Edin­burgh, Scot­land and a few cit­ies in Switzer­land.

“Good Tour­ism” Insight Part­ner Work for Wild Life Inter­na­tion­al has launched a new fun­drais­ing cam­paign called “HUNGER HURTS ELEPHANTS”. Hol­lis Burb­ank-Ham­marlund said: “The pan­dem­ic is grind­ing on into year two. And the dry sea­son is offi­cially upon Thailand’s Chi­ang Mai region, lim­it­ing the avail­ab­il­ity of veget­at­ive for­age for ele­phants. Now, we are receiv­ing dis­turb­ing reports from our Thai vets that many ele­phants are going hungry. This is espe­cially true for lactat­ing moms and their babies.” Read more about it here. The new fun­draiser is part of W4WL’s ongo­ing Ele­phant Health­care & Wel­fare Emer­gency Life­line Fund, which has kept 16 ele­phant veter­in­ari­ans on the job in Thai­l­and since April 2020. 

In oth­er W4WL news, 105 ele­phants liv­ing in the Chit­wan region of Nepal (PDF, hos­ted off­s­ite) will receive “much-needed veter­in­ary care, includ­ing a health check-up, body con­di­tion eval­u­ation, foot care, deworm­ing, and more” thanks, again, to the Life­line Fund.

“GT” Insight Part­ner Plan­et Hap­pi­ness has a new logo. It’s very nice too. See it below.

Back to news menu ^

The importance of good partnerships

Many com­ment­at­ors would like to see des­tin­a­tions recov­er from the COVID-19 depres­sion focused 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. Don’t let one of those be you. 

Seek out good part­ner­ships with those who make you their pri­or­ity. 

planet happiness logo 300w x 250h

“GT” is a good part­ner. Please veri­fy that with a “GT” Part­ner and then ask about part­ner­ship oppor­tun­it­ies. There’s a part­ner­ship oppor­tun­ity for every­one — big or small; pub­lic or private; com­mer­cial or not-for-profit — because travel & tour­ism is every­one’s busi­ness. All “GT” Part­ners enjoy: a 125 x 125 “Good Part­ner” but­ton; input into “GT’s” cur­ated list of worthy char­it­able causes “Friends indeed”; and the out­stand­ing oppor­tun­ity every week to con­trib­ute pos­it­ive news items to these almost-fam­ous “Good news in tour­ism”  posts and/or the “GT” news­let­ter.

Tourism policy & governance

Canada: BC has fun­ded 54 “com­munity-based” infra­struc­ture pro­jects to help the tour­ism industry recov­er after COVID. Approved pro­jects include camp­grounds, recre­ation­al vehicle sites, hik­ing and moun­tain bike trails, boat ramps, vis­it­or amen­it­ies, and Indi­gen­ous inter­pret­ive centres. 

Domin­ica: The newly re-elec­ted pres­id­ent of the Domin­ica Com­munity Tour­ism Asso­ci­ation Josephine Dub­lin-Prince wants com­munity tour­ism to be taken ser­i­ously. Min­is­ter for tour­ism Den­ise Charles reaf­firmed the government’s com­mit­ment to it.

Ire­land: The Shan­non river has a new EUR 76.5 mil­lion (USD 92 mil­lion) mas­ter­plan that “envis­ages a future where ‘slow travel’ can attract more vis­it­ors and increase dwell-time in Ireland’s hid­den heart­lands”.

Phil­ip­pines: Siqui­jor province will reopen its tour­ism industry this month with the “full sup­port” of the Phil­ip­pines Depart­ment of Tourism.

Thai­l­and: Her­man Hov­en, CEO of “GT” Part­ner Khiri Travel, is a found­ing sig­nat­ory on an industry-led peti­tion to open Thai­l­and safely to travel & tour­ism from July 1

USA: The Hawaiʻi Tour­ism Author­ity (HTA) has pub­lished the Maui Nui Des­tin­a­tion Man­age­ment Action Plan 2021 – 2023 (PDF, hos­ted off­s­ite), which was developed by multi-stake­hold­er steer­ing com­mit­tees that included res­id­ents. The plan focuses on act­ing on the four pil­lars of HTA’s Stra­tegic Plan 2020 – 2025 (PDF, hos­ted off­s­ite): nature, cul­ture, com­munity, and brand.

Back to news menu ^

Support “GT”

If you find “GT” inspir­ing, inter­est­ing, some­what amus­ing, or at least dif­fer­ent then surely it’s worth a little some­thing to you.

It means a huge some­thing to “GT”. Thank you very much to those who have donated. 😍

Ecotourism & nature-based tourism

India: Uni­on tour­ism sec­ret­ary Arvind Singh has reportedly said that sus­tain­ab­il­ity is the only way for­ward for the tour­ism industry in Jam­mu and Kash­mir. Adven­ture tour­ism will serve as the main attrac­tion he reckons. 

India: Tamil Nadu’s state forest depart­ment has formed the Tamil Nadu Wil­der­ness Exper­i­ences Cor­por­a­tion to cre­ate and facil­it­ate eco­tour­ism exper­i­ences

Iran: Deputy tour­ism min­is­ter Vali Tey­mouri reck­ons Iran’s west­ern province of Kordest­an (Kur­distan) could be a nature-based tour­ism hub

Miyane village, Kurdistan province, Iran. By Γεωργός (CC BY-SA 4.0) via Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurdistan_Province#/media/File:Miyane_village.jpg
Miy­ane vil­lage, Kur­distan province, Iran. By Γεωργός (CC BY-SA 4.0) via Wiki­pe­dia.

Ire­land: Tour­ism min­is­ter Cath­er­ine Mar­tin reck­ons her des­tin­a­tion needs “policies that will sup­port the devel­op­ment of eco-tour­ism, so as to build a green­er, clean­er, health­i­er and more envir­on­ment­ally friendly tour­ism”.

Mex­ico: Kuxatur (“liv­ing tour­ism” in May­an), an “envir­on­ment­ally-friendly” ini­ti­at­ive in Quintana Roo that seeks to give vis­it­ors an “authen­t­ic cul­tur­al exper­i­ence”, now has US$1.4 mil­lion from the United Nations Glob­al Envir­on­ment Facil­ity (GEF).

Rwanda: Pres­id­ent Paul Kagame is the sixth Afric­an head of state to have joined the Giants Club, “fur­ther strength­en­ing Rwanda’s com­mit­ment to pro­tect wild­life hab­it­at while unlock­ing great­er value from nature-based busi­nesses”.

Viet­nam: Kien Giang province in the Mekong Delta is plan­ning to fur­ther devel­op eco­tour­ism in the U Minh Thuong Nation­al Park.

Back to news menu ^

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 from 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.

Climate-friendly travel & tourism

Costa Rica: The Nation­al Forest Fin­an­cing Fund and the Costa Ric­an Tour­ism Insti­tute are encour­aging vis­it­ors to work out their car­bon foot­prints and con­trib­ute to a loc­al refor­est­a­tion effort or oth­er sus­tain­ab­il­ity initiative.

Singa­pore: The Sen­tosa Devel­op­ment Cor­por­a­tion (SDC) says it will work towards car­bon-neut­ral­ity by 2030 in cooper­a­tion with some 200 busi­nesses on the resort island. Pri­or­it­ies will be energy, food waste, and “green travel options”. SDC and state investor Tem­asek have signed a MOU to “test solu­tions” to lower the island’s car­bon footprint. 

UAE: In part­ner­ships with Siemens Energy, Abu Dhabi-based clean energy firm Mas­dar, and Japan’s Marubeni Cor­por­a­tion, Eti­had Air­ways is explor­ing the use of syn­thet­ic fuel; hydro­gen mixed with carbon.

UK: Rolls-Royce’s all-elec­tric ‘Spir­it of Innov­a­tion’ air­craft has moved around on the ground a bit. That does­n’t sound too excit­ing, but taxi­ing is only a take-off away from a first flight and a shot at the all-elec­tric avi­ation speed record.

rolls royce all electic spirit of aviation
Rolls-Royce’s all-elec­tric ‘Spir­it of Innovation’

USA: Air­line chiefs have their hands out for Amer­ic­an tax­pay­er funds. At least it’s for some­thing decent; green(er) avi­ation fuel. The CEOs of Amer­ic­an Air­lines, United Air­lines and Delta Air Lines met vir­tu­ally with White House offi­cials. Delta, mean­while, announced that it would spend more than USD 30 mil­lion to off­set most of its 2020 emis­sions.

USA: Google cofounder Sergey Brin’s ven­ture, Light­er Than Air, is devel­op­ing air­ships; “a fam­ily of air­craft with zero emis­sions that, when used for ship­ping goods and mov­ing people, would sub­stan­tially reduce the glob­al car­bon foot­print of aviation”.

Back to news menu ^

Friends indeed

“Friends indeed” are worthy travel & tour­ism industry fun­draisers and char­it­able causes. Please help if you can. Share the page with your social net­works. And link to it from your web­site or email signature.

Cruise & maritime tourism

Canada: Cruise the Saint Lawrence approves the Québec government’s action plan for pro­mot­ing “respons­ible and sus­tain­able tour­ism” because the main points are reportedly in keep­ing with the trade asso­ci­ation’s sus­tain­able devel­op­ment strategy.

India: Vis­it­ors may soon be able to hop along Karnataka’s 320-km coast by sea­plane if a pro­pos­al is approved. This may help extend cruise pas­sen­gers’ time spent in the state.

Indone­sia: The folk song “Nenek Moy­angku Seor­ang Pelaut” (or “Our ancest­ors are sea­farers) refers to the mari­time wealth of the world’s largest archipelago. Accord­ing to a column in The Jakarta Post, tap­ping this nat­ur­al bounty respons­ibly is key to tour­ism “becom­ing a source of new eco­nom­ic growth that is more equit­able and sus­tain­able”.

Boats and beach. Bali, Indonesia. By keulefm (CC0) via Pixabay. https://pixabay.com/photos/bali-beach-travel-boats-vacations-237196/
Boats and beach. Bali, Indone­sia. By keule­fm (CC0) via Pixabay.

Iran: Cul­tur­al her­it­age, tour­ism, & han­di­crafts min­is­ter Ali-Asghar Moun­es­an will work with trans­port & urb­an devel­op­ment min­is­ter Mohammad Eslami on devel­op­ing mari­time tour­ism off Iran’s south­ern and north­ern coasts

USA: Peters­burg, Alaska has a new plan for man­aging more tour­ists and cruise ships. A “work­ing group of res­id­ents, busi­ness own­ers, rep­res­ent­at­ives from loc­al gov­ern­ment and the Peters­burg Cham­ber of Com­merce” draf­ted the plan.

Back to news menu ^

Cultural heritage tourism

Egypt: The Com­mit­tee for the Pro­mo­tion of Cul­tur­al Tour­ism in Luxor has launched a cam­paign based on archae­olo­gists’ testi­mon­ies that will last until Octo­ber 2021.

Oman & Qatar: Qatar Museums, Oman’s Min­istry of Her­it­age & Tour­ism, and the Nation­al Museum of the Sul­tan­ate of Oman have agreed to col­lab­or­ate. They will organ­ise activ­it­ies and exhib­i­tions togeth­er, exchange col­lec­tions and exhib­its, and provide “train­ing, qual­i­fic­a­tions, and loan pro­grammes” for employees.

USA: Owens­boro, Ken­tucky is build­ing its repu­ta­tion as the world’s bluegrass music cap­it­al. This is helped along by Vis­it Owens­boro pro­du­cing its own con­tent; “a series of exclus­ive inter­views with guests ran­ging from high-pro­file bluegrass artists, to dir­ect­ors of major events com­ing to town, to loc­als who will provide heart­felt stories”.

Back to news menu ^

Odds & ends

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

China: State news media expects “red tour­ism” to boom this year as young people travel to “pay respects to the found­ing fath­ers of New China, as part of the cel­eb­ra­tions to mark the cen­ten­ary of the found­ing of the Com­mun­ist Party of China”.

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

It's not 'no'. It's 'know.' A "Good Tourism" travel tip; travel advice for good tourists & responsible travellers.
It’s not ‘no’. It’s ‘know.’ A “Good Tour­ism” travel tip; travel advice for good tour­ists & respons­ible travellers. 

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): Calmness calls out the clouds. Sun­set reflec­ted on Nor­na­lup Inlet from The Knoll, Wal­pole, West­ern Aus­tralia. By Dav­id Gill­banks (CC BY 4.0).

Back to news menu ^

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 for “GT” bring­ing it to your atten­tion for you to set the record straight, you’re wel­come! 🙂

Related posts

Follow comments on this post
Please notify me of

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.