Good news in tourism April 2021
“Good news in tourism” wraps up a month of “Good Tourism” Partner news, “GT” Travel posts, “GT” Insights, and your comments.
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“GT” Partner news
“Some may struggle with the costs of sustainable practices, but former Luang Prabang View Hotel General Manager John Williams sees going green as a way of life.” “A green way of life: Luang Prabang View, Laos” is the third Sustainable Tourism Laos Showcase by Bernie Rosenbloom of “GT” Destination Partner WeAreLao.
The first-off-the-line “Earth Swatch” went up for auction on Earth Day, April 22. (Launch webinar video.) The auction will run until World Environment Day, June 5. Designed by climate activist and sustainable development pioneer Maurice Strong for the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, the watch was given to Mr Strong’s widow Hanne Strong by the wife of Swatch founder Nicolas Hayek. Ms Strong is donating it to raise funds for tourism’s recovery via an unprecedented auction. The watch’s image will be digitised and reside on a distributed ledger as a non-fungible token. Full story: “Time to be ‘Strong’ ”
Willem Niemeijer of YAANA Ventures, the parent company of three “GT” Partners (Anurak, Cardamom, and Khiri) spoke at SUNx’s virtual event, the Strong Earth Youth Summit (SEYS), April 29 – 30. There were three summit streams, each with times and speakers that reflected the regions in which they were based: Asia’s Greater Mekong Sub-region (Thailand), Europe (Malta), and North America (BC, Canada). [If you are reading this on April 30, 2021, you may still be able to join the Summit.]
Ecotourism is in high demand right now in places where physically-distanced outdoor activity is possible. And when the world finally breaks its COVID shackles, those who have been locked down for months in urban environments will likely be desperate for a taste of nature. To help prepare stakeholders for that surge, The Centre for Responsible Tourism Singapore (CRTS) will explore the what, why, and how of ecotourism operations in an online workshop to take place Wednesday, May 19. Read the full story.
Hollis Burbank-Hammarlund of “GT” Insight Partner Work for Wild Life International reported that “the first of many deliveries of life-supporting, enriched pellets were made to elephant camps located throughout the Mae Wang region of Thailand”. It’s part of the Hunger Hurts Elephants campaign.
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.
“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 the “GT” newsletter.
“GT” Travel
As evidenced by this very post, “Good news in tourism” is now a monthly wrap up of all things “GT”. The new direction frees up your correspondent’s time to work on a new and exciting “GT” publication, The “GT” Travel Blog.
Delivering tips for travellers from tourism insiders, “GT” Travel will quietly launch in the first week of May(be).
In future “Good news in tourism” monthly wraps, find a month’s worth of “GT” Travel posts in this segment.
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.
“GT” Insights
Slow and steady … not too much change and never too quickly … order and moderation … respect for long-standing sources of sustenance and shelter … pride in culture, heritage, and tradition … Conservative values are often compatible with sustainability in rural settings. Marco Ramazzotti discovers that the buzz phrase ‘slow tourism’ describes what Monti Sibillini locals have always welcomed. It’s a “GT” Insight: “Deeper than buzz: ‘Slow tourism’ in the Monti Sibillini”
Everyone wants to be happy, or at least content. Travel & tourism has long proven to deliver that to its customers. But what about about the residents of places they travel to and through? In this “GT” Insight, university professor Larry Dwyer identifies a promising holistic framework for benchmarking broader societal well-being: “Tourism & hosts’ well-being: Moving beyond GDP towards a better life”
Abandoned buildings can be an eyesore, a blight on a land- or cityscape, and even an embarrassment to many locals. Yet they are all a part of a place’s history and heritage. While very few would argue that all are worth saving, many heritage buildings do indeed deserve a new lease of life and may even help breathe new life into a place. In his second “GT” Insight, sustainable tourism consultant Angelo Sciacca applies his passion for circular economics and participative planning to the problem. “How can a circular tourism economy help repurpose heritage buildings?”
From a facilitator of potentially damaging masses to a mere tinkerer at the economic margins of a place, travel & tourism can be anything a destination chooses it to be. In his first “GT” Insight, Peter Smith suggests that mass tourism may offer more to the world’s poorest stakeholders than many commentators acknowledge. “For the sake of the world’s poor, might the risk of overtourism be worth it?”
Sustainable tourism educator Ivana Damnjanović is passionate about travel, stories, and education. She thinks that they could be the source of, framework for, and means to happiness. It’s a “GT” Insight: “Travel, stories, education: The keys to happiness?”
Much has been made about how travel & tourism exploits host communities. But can our industry proactively improve locals’ health and well-being? Ani Thompson thinks so. In this “GT” Insight, the hotelier shares how she has leveraged the resources available to her to help tackle the scourge of noncommunicable diseases in her native Cook Islands: “Living the good life: Can tourism help save a host community from itself?”
Independent researcher Bronwyn Hutchison takes a look at New Zealand’s destination care pledge, the Tiaki Promise, and its potential for advancing regenerative travel & tourism. “The Tiaki Promise is aspirational,” Ms Hutchison writes. “It is an example of how one might facilitate regenerative tourism at the community level. But systemic regeneration must take place at all levels. And it is clear there is a long way to go.” It’s a “GT” Insight: “How New Zealand’s Tiaki Promise advances regenerative travel & tourism”
While some places adopt Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness, the Kingdom’s tourism officials would be happy for the world to emulate its ‘high value, low volume’ tourism policy too. Tourism Council of Bhutan boss Dorji Dhradhul discusses it in his “GT” Insight: “High value, low volume tourism: Is Bhutan’s old normal the world’s new normal?”
Kristin Dunne’s “eyes were opened” to possibilities for travel & tourism that she could not ignore; possibilities based on purpose, place, and passionate people. In this “GT” Insight, the destination manager shares Tourism Bay of Plenty’s Te Hā Tāpoi | The Love of Tourism: “Planning tourism with purpose & love in New Zealand’s Bay of Plenty”
Some observers of the ‘culture wars’ in the west will be suspicious of the word ‘critical’ in academic contexts due to controversial ‘critical theory’ and its influence. In this “GT” Insight, Meghan L Muldoon explains what ‘critical tourism studies’ means to her: “Taming the beautiful monster: What ‘critical tourism studies’ means to me”
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Your comments
“It’s well-written and well-argued but arguably starts from the wrong place,” Geoffrey Lipman wrote, commenting on Peter Smith’s “GT” Insight “For the sake of the world’s poor …”. The SUNx co-founder put three challenges to Dr Smith, including the assertion that mass tourism is not climate-friendly.
In a long comment on the same “GT” Insight, Peter Richards wrote: “I would respectfully suggest that we need to avoid the reoccurring dichotomy – misrepresented as a choice which needs to be made (which it isn’t) – between ‘supporting sustainability in mass tourism’ or ‘supporting sustainability in alternative tourism’”.
“Excellent post,” wrote Nirmal Shah, CEO of Nature Seychelles, about Larry Dwyer’s “GT” Insight “Tourism & hosts’ well-being: Moving beyond GDP towards a better life”. “The UNDP Human Development Index has for several years used ‘beyond GDP’ metrics, but the only way the tyranny of GDP will be over is when the IMF, World Bank and OECD decide to measure well-being as a country’s true progress.”
Commenting on Meghan Muldoon’s “GT” Insight “Taming the beautiful monster: What ‘critical tourism studies’ means to me”, Dr Shah wrote that he would like tourism academics to focus less on problems and more on solutions; “economic or livelihood options that are better [and] do not depend on some pie-in-the-sky restructuring of the economy or capitalist system”. Read the full comment.
Alison Stancliffe also weighed in with a short comment for Dr Muldoon and a brief response to Dr Shah’s comments.
Commenting on Dorji Dhradhul’s “GT” Insight, “High value, low volume tourism: Is Bhutan’s old normal the world’s new normal?”, Ms Stancliffe asked: Do we really want wealth to determine access to the world’s beautiful places? Fair question.
#OpenThailandSafely should have been a “unified industry negotiation, not an international signature campaign”, according to Julian Spindler who commented on Ken Scott’s March 11 “GT” Insight, “The PR challenge of opening Thailand safely to inbound travel & tourism”. In his reply, Mr Scott wrote that Thai inbound tourism never had a united front; only “a vacuum of leadership”.
‘Conscious travel’ proponent Anna Pollock commented on Kristin Dunne’s “GT” Insight, “Planning tourism with purpose & love in New Zealand’s Bay of Plenty”, commending Ms Dunne on her timing. New Zealand’s Tourism Futures Taskforce, of which Ms Pollock is a member, released its We Are Aotearoa interim report about the same time.
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.
Stay healthy, smile, have a good week … And when you can travel again, remember:
It’s not ‘no’. It’s ‘know’.
Featured image (top of post): Twilight. By Leio McLaren (CC0) via Unsplash.
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