Good news in travel & tourism December 2021

December 23, 2021

“Good news in travel & tourism” wraps up a month of “Good Tourism” & “GT” Travel news, insights, tips, and advice. Share it as you would a stollen. By kakuko (CC0) via Pixabay. httpspixabay.comphotoschrist-stollen-christmas-stollen-1084954
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“GT” Insights: Informed perspectives on the industry

The “Good Tour­ism” Blog pub­lishes informed opin­ions on the issues facing our industry, everyone’s busi­ness. “GT” Insights are diverse per­spect­ives writ­ten by, for, and about the travel & tour­ism sec­tor. Here are the latest from the month that was:

Winning from within: How can travel & tourism stem the brain drain?

Travel & tour­ism is everyone’s busi­ness. It’s all about people. How do we keep people allied and inspired in organ­isa­tions, des­tin­a­tions, and host com­munit­ies? K Michael Hay­wood tackles this prob­lem in his third “Good Tour­ism” Insight: “Win­ning from with­in: How can travel & tour­ism stem the brain drain?”

dec wrap post
K Michael Hay­wood (left), Nguyễn Thị Thu Thảo, Võ Thị Quế Chi, Soph­ie Hart­man, and Bron­wen Mah­er (right) shared “Good Tour­ism” Insights in Decem­ber 2021.

Stronger together: Tourism training partnerships help prevent child exploitation

The sexu­al exploit­a­tion of chil­dren by those who use the ser­vices of the travel & tour­ism industry is a dif­fi­cult sub­ject to acknow­ledge let alone dis­cuss. This is why train­ers and edu­cat­ors should pre­pare future front­line work­ers to look out for and report signs of the crime, accord­ing to Bron­wen Mah­er, Soph­ie Hart­man, Nguyễn Thị Thu Thảo, and Võ Thị Quế Chi. They com­bine to write: “Stronger togeth­er: Tour­ism train­ing part­ner­ships help pre­vent child exploit­a­tion”.

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Support “GT”

Through “GT” InsightsThe “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.

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

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

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Good news from friends

Good news in travel & tour­ism from the won­der­ful organ­isa­tions that make “GT” pos­sible. Here is some of what happened this month in the “Good Tour­ism” network:

Wildlife returns to Cambodian conservation area

“GT” Part­ner Car­damom Ten­ted Camp in Cam­bod­ia has seen the return of a small herd of ele­phants to its con­ser­va­tion area. A large group of smooth-coated otters are back too. Read the full story.

If not for Car­damo­m’s eco­tour­ism busi­ness mod­el, the 18,000-hectare for­es­ted con­ces­sion would likely be clear-felled by log­gers and then used for agri­cul­ture and oth­er devel­op­ments. In neigh­bour­ing areas there are rub­ber plant­a­tions and the con­struc­tion of a deep-sea port, hotel, and airport. 

Car­damom Ten­ted Camp is a three-way ini­ti­at­ive between Minor Group, YAANA Ven­tures, and Wild­life Alli­ance “to ensure the land and its biod­iversity does not fall into the hands of log­gers, poach­ers, and sand dredging operations”.

Read the full story. And leave your thoughts in the comments.

Cardamom Tented Camp ecolodge in Cambodia reports success in nature conservation with otters and elephants coming back to its conservation area.
The Car­damom Ten­ted Camp eco­lodge in Cam­bod­ia reports suc­cess in nature con­ser­va­tion, with otters and ele­phants com­ing back to its con­ser­va­tion area. (Otter photo by Car­oline Baldwin.)

Free hos­pit­al­ity ‘Eco-Guide’ is now in mul­tiple lan­guages
ASSET‑H&C’s Eco-Guide for Hos­pit­al­ity Busi­nesses and Schools, which is the sub­ject of a recent “GT” Insight, is avail­able in the Burmese, Khmer, Thai, and Viet­namese lan­guages. Back­ground and links.

Free CABI chapter on IP, access­ib­il­ity, sports, and leis­ure 
Ask CABI to email you a “revised and expan­ded chapter dis­cuss­ing the intel­lec­tu­al prop­erty rights and case stud­ies of: TV sport spec­tat­or­ship; Dis­ab­il­ity and access to cul­ture; Gender equity in access to sport; and Meas­ur­ing the right to leis­ure time inter­na­tion­ally.” Request that from here.

Bay­on stays on mis­sion through a crisis
Dur­ing COVID-19 lock­downs, ASSET‑H&C mem­ber the Bay­on Pastry School Cof­fee Shop in Siem Reap, Cam­bod­ia sponsored smart­phones, tab­lets, com­puters, and inter­net for its teach­ers and stu­dents to ensure that learn­ing could con­tin­ue. Face­book post.

Strong Earth Awards 2021 
SUNx Malta and part­ner have announced the win­ners of the inaug­ur­al Strong Earth Awards; the best sev­en 500-word think pieces by stu­dents on the top­ic: “Why the Earth Charter is even more import­ant now than when it was intro­duced by Maurice Strong and Michael Gorbachev in 2000”. SUNx news art­icle.

Khiri Travel launches pod­cast
The first epis­ode of Khiri Pulse, Khiri Travel’s pod­cast, is about single-use plastics. It fea­tures the GM of Khiri in Laos and Cam­bod­ia, John Black, and his guests Chris­ti­an de Boer and Sam­bath Meas.

What’s new at CABI Tour­ism Cases
New tour­ism-related case stud­ies in Decem­ber 2021 from the inter-gov­ern­ment­al organ­isa­tion CABI (sub­scrip­tion required to access): 

SUNx’ ‘eXist’ Decem­ber bul­let­in
SUNx’ eXist monthly news­let­ter for Decem­ber 2021 fea­tures the “GT” Part­ner­’s sev­en-point CODE RED Action Plan for cli­mate-friendly travel & tour­ism, the Strong Cli­mate Cham­pi­ons Pro­gram, and an inter­view with a SDG17 Part­ner in India. Read it here.

ASSET‑H&C launches ‘Eco-Mondays’
Every Monday until end of March 2022, ASSET‑H&C will broad­cast a video “learn­ing nug­get” based on the con­tent of its Eco-Guide. The first one is about “Mon­it­or­ing and aware­ness” (Face­book video). 

ASSET‑H&C launches a train-the-train­er pro­gram
ASSET‑H&C has launched a “found­a­tion­al” train­ing pro­gram for 27 train­ers from its mem­ber net­work. The train­ing is designed to enhance train­ers’ abil­ity to trans­fer know­ledge and skills. Face­book post.

ASSET‑H&C acknow­ledges volun­teers on Inter­na­tion­al Volun­teer Day
On Inter­na­tion­al Volun­teer Day, Decem­ber 5, ASSET‑H&C thanked all the people “who self­lessly give their time and energy to sup­port our work”. Face­book post.

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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.

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Top five most visited “GT” posts of 2021 (& all time) 

Five! Image by yohoprashant (CC0) via Pixabay. https://pixabay.com/photos/colorful-five-fingers-kid-fingers-4043709/
Five! Image by yohop­rashant (CC0) via Pixabay.

If it is ‘hol­i­day sea­son’ where you are, and you are tak­ing time off, these top five lists should provide you with some excel­lent catch-up reading: 

“Top five most vis­ited “GT” Insights & “GT” Travel Exper­i­ences of 2021 (& all time)”

Thanks to all the won­der­ful Part­ners of “Good Tour­ism”. Thanks to all the bril­liant “GT” guest authors. And thank YOU!

Merry Christ­mas if you cel­eb­rate it. Be merry if you don’t. And have a bril­liant 2022!

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Dim prospects for COP26 declarations: Shepard

The pro­spects for COP26-related declar­a­tions are “dim”, accord­ing to Richard Shep­ard of Sus­tain­able Rur­al Devel­op­ment Inter­na­tion­al who com­men­ted on Geof­frey Lip­man’s “GT” Part­ner mes­sage: “CODE RED: SUNx’ 7‑point cli­mate action plan for tour­ism is more ambi­tious than the Glas­gow Declar­a­tion”. The “high-minded approaches [of large gath­er­ings] largely go unful­filled in whatever sec­tor they address”. 

SUNx’ sev­en-point plan, on the oth­er hand, is “the real­ist­ic approach”, Mr Shep­ard writes. He like points 3, 4, and 6 because they “involve real­it­ies on the ground and recog­nise that the mar­ket will react if prop­erly incentivised”. 

Read Richard’s full com­ment. And leave your own thoughts.

Mean­while, Geof­frey Lip­man of SUNx has doubled down on his belief in the effect­ive­ness of alarm­ist rhet­or­ic to ush­er in a response to cli­mate change con­cerns. While he was at it he chal­lenged me on my (admit­tedly loose) claim that “free­dom of move­ment is a basic human right”. Debate is wel­come at “GT”.

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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.

Friends indeed

“Friends indeed” are worthy travel & tour­ism industry fun­draisers and char­it­able causes that are asso­ci­ated with or sug­ges­ted by “GT” Part­ners and friends. Please help them if you can. Share the page with your net­works. And link to it from your website.

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Stay healthy, smile, have a good week … And when you travel, 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 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): “Good news in travel & tour­ism” wraps up a month of “Good Tour­ism” & “GT” Travel news, insights, tips, and advice. Share it as you would a stollen. By kak­uko (CC0) via Pixabay.

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Donations, diversity, disclosure

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 your ori­gin­al con­tent sup­ports an inde­pend­ent publisher.

Note: It is “GT’s” policy to fully dis­close partner/sponsor con­tent. If an item is not dis­closed as part­ner or spon­sor-related then it was either a case of for­get­ful­ness or the con­tent caught “GT’s” atten­tion by some oth­er more organ­ic means. Part­ner with “GT”. You know you want to. Here are some testi­mo­ni­als.

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