Climate change & air travel: Why we have a responsibility to tourism-dependent countries

August 7, 2019

Passenger jet taking off at dusk with a silhouetted man watching it leave

Writ­ing for The Con­ver­sa­tion, Tom Baum of the Uni­ver­sity of Strath­clyde dis­cusses the respons­ib­il­ity borne by rich-world nations — and indi­vidu­al trav­el­lers — for poor coun­tries’ “neo-colo­n­i­al depend­ence” on tour­ism and air travel. Few would deny the threat to our plan­et posed by cli­mate change, or the role that humans have played in the degrad­a­tion of the nat­ur­al environment. […]

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Rethinking tourism so that locals can benefit from hosting visitors

May 25, 2019

Anti-tourism, pro-refugee graffiti in Coimbra, Portugal. By Tm (CC BY 2.0) via Wikimedia. GT cropped and enhanced it.

Writ­ing for The Con­ver­sa­tion, Freya Hig­­gins-Des­­bio­lles of the Uni­ver­sity of South Aus­tralia points to examples of how host com­munit­ies have regained some con­trol of their tour­ism assets. Tour­ism today has a prob­lem and needs an entire rethink. Pun­dits are debat­ing over­tour­ism, peak tour­ism and tour­is­mpho­bia. Cit­ies such as Bar­celona, Venice and Dubrovnik are wit­ness­ing a […]

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Want to become a better person? Travelling more might be the answer

May 4, 2019

Travel makes people better. Image by ar130405 from Pixabay (CC0)

Writ­ing for The Con­ver­sa­tion, Hec­tor Gonza­­lez-Jime­nez of the Uni­ver­sity of York sug­gests how one might bet­ter one­self and the world through travel. Trav­el­ling offers new exper­i­ences and can open people’s minds. It allows you to get out of your daily groove – of work, com­mut­ing, house­work and cook­ing – to think about the things that […]

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Tourists behaving badly are a threat to tourism & industry is partly to blame

April 11, 2019

"Eat the Guiri" graffito in Palma, Mallorca, Spain. By DustyDingo (CC0) via Wikimedia. https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22121064 Guiri (pronounced ˈɡiɾi') is a colloquial Spanish slur used in Spain applied to foreign tourists, particularly from countries in northern Europe or the Anglosphere.

It is not only over­tour­ism, but also the bad beha­viour of even a few tour­ists, that will trig­ger a back­lash against the travel & tour­ism industry. This accord­ing to Freya Hig­­gins-Des­­bio­lles of the Uni­ver­sity of South Aus­tralia writ­ing for The Con­ver­sa­tion. How much is the industry to blame and what can stake­hold­ers do about it?  Japan’s […]

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Safari tourism may make elephants more aggressive but is still the best conservation tool

March 22, 2019

"Cranky elephant charges our car in Tarangirie National Park, Tanzania" by Ben & Gab (CC BY 2.0) via Flickr. https://www.flickr.com/photos/benandgab/29307883562/in/photostream/ "GT" cropped it.

While wild­life tour­ism products such as safar­is can help pro­tect anim­als and their wil­der­ness hab­it­ats by gen­er­at­ing income for con­ser­va­tion and work for loc­als, there are issues. This accord­ing to Isa­belle Szott and Nic­ola F Koy­ama of Liv­er­pool John Moores Uni­ver­sity writ­ing for The Con­ver­sa­tion. Going on safari in Africa offers tour­ists the oppor­tun­ity to […]

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How Renaissance Venice coped with its short-term letting problem

March 16, 2019

overvisitation in Renaissance Venice

The Venice of 500 years ago had its own over-vis­it­a­­tion chal­lenges, includ­ing a boom in short-term accom­mod­a­tion rent­als. How they dealt with it chal­lenges us to think about today’s prob­lems in a more nuanced way, accord­ing to Rosa Salzberg of the Uni­ver­sity of War­wick. Cit­ies around the world have had dif­fi­culties bal­an­cing the interests of […]

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