Good news in tourism May 2021: “GT” Travel has arrived

“Good news in tour­ism” wraps up a month of “Good Tour­ism” news and content.

It’s “GT”. And go!
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• “GT” Travel has arrived
• “GT” Insights
• Busi­ness & pleasure

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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, 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 85 x 85 “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 has arrived

Back in July 2020, a sug­ges­tion by Thomas Bauer helped plant the seed of an idea for “GT” Travel. Dr Bauer sug­ges­ted that “GT” ask travel & tour­ism pro­fes­sion­als to write about how they were redis­cov­er­ing their home places dur­ing COVID lock­down. That was a great idea for a travel/lifestyle blog, but “GT” (this site) was always an industry pub­lic­a­tion writ­ten by and for industry pros. In your correspondent’s mind it did­n’t really “fit”.

Thomas’ sug­ges­tion nev­er­the­less per­col­ated for months. And it blen­ded with an idea that had been play­ing at the back of my mind since “GT’s” ori­gins in 2017; the pos­sib­il­ity of a trav­el­ler-ori­ented ver­sion of “GT” in which tour­ism insiders would set aside their pro­fes­sion­al hats, pick up their well-worn (or neg­lected) travel fan­at­icism, and share anec­dotes, tips, and sug­ges­tions with dis­cern­ing lay travellers.

That’s what The “GT” Travel Blog is all about. Please enjoy the first instal­ments of informed inspir­a­tion and tips for trav­el­lers from tour­ism insiders …

Voyages to Antarctica: Unique, life-changing, memorable

Sev­er­al weeks ago I thought I’d ask Thomas, in hon­our of his con­tri­bu­tion to the idea, wheth­er he would like to be the first to write for the new “GT” Travel. Of course, he agreed … “Of all my travel exper­i­ences in 75 coun­tries, none have been more unique, life-chan­ging, and mem­or­able than my voy­ages to Ant­arc­tica.” _ Dr Bauer in “Voy­ages to Ant­arc­tica: Unique, life-chan­ging, mem­or­able”.

My choice for a sustainable Singapore stopover

Sus­tain­able tour­ism pro­fess­or Susanne Beck­en was the first to agree to write a “GT” Insight back in 2017, so she was the second per­son I invited to share a “GT” Travel tip … Anoth­er yes. 🙂 “Liv­ing in Australia/New Zea­l­and and hav­ing fam­ily in Ger­many means that I travel reg­u­larly to Europe. And that often takes me via Singa­pore.” _ Dr Beck­en in “My choice for a sus­tain­able Singa­pore stop­over”.

Lapping Luang Namtha

“GT” Des­tin­a­tion Part­ner­ship may in future become an import­ant part of the eco­nom­ic sus­tain­ab­il­ity of “GT”. Since August 2020, I have very much enjoyed the oppor­tun­ity to col­lab­or­ate with the fine people at We Are Lao to determ­ine what “GT” Des­tin­a­tion Part­ner­ship might look like. So nat­ur­ally my third invit­a­tion to con­trib­ute to “GT” Travel went to them …”[Som­savath] is forever dig­ging deep­er into the moun­tains of Laos’ north­west­ern-most province, and his itin­er­ar­ies make ‘off the beaten track’ look like Main Street” _ We Are Lao co-founder Bernie Rosen­bloom in “Lap­ping Luang Namtha”.

In love with a Himalayan homestay

With those first three encour­aging yeses in the bank, I sent out invites to all “GT” Part­ners and “GT” Insight con­trib­ut­ors. The first to get back to me with a draft — and with ideas for many more! — was Vandana Vijay, founder and boss of Off­beat Tracks … “Tucked away across the gurg­ling Beas, away from the chaot­ic touristy caco­phony of Man­ali, lies the quaint vil­lage of Jag­at­sukh […] the per­fect get­away for the slow trav­el­ler.” _ Ms Vijay’s “In love with a Him­alay­an homestay”.

There were more to come, of course … 

People make Glasgow

“Polit­ics, industry, archi­tec­ture, cre­ativ­ity, sec­tari­an­ism, poverty, alco­hol, immig­ra­tion, music, and foot­ball define Glas­gow to this day. Des­pite the bruises and grit — or because of it — it’s the friend­li­est, most ver­nacu­lar city in the UK.” _ Tour­ism PR & com­mu­nic­a­tions spe­cial­ist Ken Scott (of “GT” Part­ner World­wide Travel Alli­ance) takes us on a walk­ing tour of his home town in “People make Glas­gow”.

Off-peak Tanzania: Go for wildlife, go again for people

“It helped that we vis­ited in Novem­ber, the off sea­son. The people had more time for us and our vis­it helped main­tain their incomes. Off-sea­son travel con­trib­utes to a more sus­tain­able tour­ism, which should bene­fit the people and wild­life of Tan­zania in per­petu­ity.” _ Lind­say Booth of off-peak travel & tour spe­cial­ists (and “GT” Part­ner) Off Sea­son Adven­tures in “Off-peak Tan­zania: Go for wild­life, go again for people”.

Sierra Leone changed my life

“This Sierra Leone trip changed my life in that it led me for the first time to ques­tion the role that tour­ism plays in improv­ing people’s lives and live­li­hoods. […] With our small travel budgets we put more money dir­ectly into more people’s hands than I had ever seen flow through ‘offi­cial’ tour­ism chan­nels.” _ Meghan Mul­doon, assist­ant pro­fess­or at Ari­zona State Uni­ver­sity in “Sierra Leone changed my life”.

Old stories, new memories in Valjevo, Serbia

“If there was one thing we had in com­mon, it was that we cher­ished our city of Valjevo, a green gem in the west of Ser­bia [where] count­less stor­ies, recor­ded or for­got­ten, rep­res­ent our shared and treas­ured his­tory.” _ Ivana Dam­njan­ović, vice-dean for inter­na­tion­al cooper­a­tion at the Fac­ulty of Health and Busi­ness Stud­ies, Singidunum Uni­ver­sity, in “Old stor­ies, new memor­ies in Valjevo, Ser­bia”.

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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: Informed perspectives on the industry

Through “GT” Insights, The “Good Tour­ism” Blog con­tin­ues to pub­lish informed opin­ions on the issues facing our industry; because tour­ism is every­one’s busi­ness just as travel is every­one’s pleas­ure. “GT” Insights are a col­lec­tion of diverse per­spect­ives writ­ten by, for, and about the industry since 2017. Here are the latest:

How virtual tourism can make travel & tourism more sustainable

Many people think that vir­tu­al tour­ism is a tem­por­ary hype; an activ­ity that will quickly fade away as phys­ic­al travel resumes post-pan­dem­ic. But, accord­ing to tour­ism expert and edu­cat­or Hay­ley Stain­ton, vir­tu­al tour­ism is here to stay and it can help to cre­ate a more sus­tain­able industry. It’s a “GT” Insight: “How vir­tu­al tour­ism can make the travel & tour­ism industry more sus­tain­able”.

From the ashes: The role of solidarity in Binna Burra’s tourism recovery

After a dev­ast­at­ing fire fol­lowed by glob­al pan­dem­ic, the ongo­ing recov­ery of Binna Burra Lodge in Queens­land, Aus­tralia wasn’t pos­sible without the sup­port of people who feel a con­nec­tion to the place. The story illus­trates the value of good­will that mani­fes­ted at Binna Burra as ‘solid­ar­ity tour­ism’. It’s a “GT” Insight by Steve Noakes: “From the ashes: The role of solid­ar­ity in Binna Burra’s tour­ism recov­ery”.

Tourism & ‘climate emergency’: It’s the metrics, stupid

“The dis­par­ate Tour­ism Declares [Cli­mate Emer­gency] or sim­il­ar ambi­tions need to be aligned with glob­al norms … I spoke at length to one per­son who is very well respec­ted on TRINET and was told that it’s just too hard” _ Former IATA, UNWTO, and WTTC seni­or offi­cial, and SUNx co-founder, Geof­frey Lip­man in “Tour­ism & ‘cli­mate emer­gency’: It’s the met­rics, stu­pid”.

Is ‘regenerative tourism’ just a rebranding of ‘sustainable tourism’?

“Dom­in­ant sus­tain­able devel­op­ment approaches ori­gin­ate from a mech­an­ist­ic world­view; the indus­tri­al mod­el and the ‘con­tinu­al growth’ agenda. They sup­port extract­ive eco­nom­ies that no longer serve our interests. The implic­a­tion here is that sus­tain­able tour­ism has failed.” _ Lor­etta Bel­lato, PhD can­did­ate in “Is ‘regen­er­at­ive tour­ism’ just a rebrand­ing of ‘sus­tain­able tour­ism’?”.

On the fringes: When Sedona’s tourism policy failed the urban outskirts

“With world-class attrac­tions like the Grand Canyon plus increas­ing inter­state and intrastate tour­ism demand, Sedona and its High­way 89A have become high-traffic areas. This has caused ten­sions between tour­ists and res­id­ents.” _ Tan­ner C Knorr, tour­ism schol­ar and entre­pren­eur, in “On the fringes: When the City of Sedona’s tour­ism policy failed the urb­an out­skirts”.

REDUX: Not so happy: Bhutan’s dysfunctional tourism strategy

The real­ity of Bhutan tour­ism is more gross dys­func­tion than gross hap­pi­ness, accord­ing to Rieki Crins in this July 2017 “GT” Insight, “Not so happy: Bhutan’s dys­func­tion­al tour­ism strategy”. Dr Crins’ opin­ion con­trasts with the April 2021 “GT” Insight by Dorji Dhradhul: “High value, low volume tour­ism: Is Bhutan’s old nor­mal the world’s new nor­mal?”. “GT” wel­comes diversity of opin­ion and perspective.

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Through “GT” Insights, The “Good Tour­ism” Blog has been mak­ing diverse per­spect­ives access­ible to a grow­ing travel & tour­ism industry audi­ence since 2017. There is no pay­wall, which means “GT” con­tent is avail­able to ALL stake­hold­ers. And not only do guest authors not pay for the priv­ilege (nor are they paid), they receive pro­fes­sion­al copy edit­ing sup­port from the pub­lish­er for whom “GT” is a full-time con­cern. That’s why your ongo­ing sup­port as a “GT” Part­ner or pat­ron is greatly appreciated.

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Tourism is everyone’s business. Travel is everyone’s pleasure. 

Free­dom of move­ment is a basic human right. And the 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” and “GT” Travel 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 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): Shall we sit awhile? Hill­top Lookout, Wal­pole, West­ern Aus­tralia. Photo by Dav­id Gill­banks (CC by 4.0).

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