Richard A Shepard

Richard A Shepard

Richard Shepard

Richard Shep­ard is the founder, Trust­ee and advisor to Sus­tain­able Rur­al Devel­op­ment Inter­na­tion­al (SRDI), a UK not-for-profit social enter­prise offer­ing advice and devel­op­ment ser­vices on sus­tain­able tour­ism. SRDI is imple­ment­ing the Black Sea Sus­tain­able Rur­al Tour­ism Pro­gram in Ukraine, Geor­gia, and Turkey.

Richard has also writ­ten for The “GT” Travel Blog.

Sustainable rural tourism project in Georgia seeks crowdfunding support

May 21, 2019

A distant view. Kazbegi, Georgia. Photo credit Richard Shepard / SRDI.

With annu­al vis­it­or arrivals to Geor­gia expec­ted to more than double the pop­u­la­tion of the former Soviet repub­lic, “Good Tour­ism” Insights con­trib­ut­or Richard Shep­ard is work­ing to mit­ig­ate the neg­at­ive effects of over­tour­ism in rur­al com­munit­ies. Tour­ism in Geor­gia is approach­ing 8 mil­lion vis­it­ors annu­ally and is pro­jec­ted to reach 11 mil­lion in a few […]

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Overtourism overturned: How Calviá, Majorca turned its tourism fortunes around

February 8, 2019
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Overtourism no more? The beach at Magalluf, a major holiday resort in the municipality of Calviá Wikimedia. By Rafael Ortega Díaz (CC BY-SA 3.0) via Wikimedia. Cropped and enhanced by "GT". https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1899528

Richard Shep­ard reck­ons “over­tour­ism” is an old prob­lem and that there are plenty of proven solu­tions. As he dis­cusses in this “GT” Insight, all that’s required is the “polit­ic­al and social will” to imple­ment them.  “Tour­ists go home” That’s not a rarely heard sen­ti­ment lately. You might think that over­tour­ism, based on the head­lines this past year, […]

Read More Overtourism overturned: How Calviá, Majorca turned its tourism fortunes around