On Kangaroo Island and elsewhere, beware the lure of the luxury ecotourist

March 12, 2019

Admiral's Arch in Flinders Chase National Park on Kangaroo Island. Image by Michael Baragwanath via Pixabay

Cater­ing to lux­ury eco­tour­ism is at odds with the wild and undeveloped nature of nation­al parks that loc­als want, accord­ing to Freya Hig­­gins-Des­­bio­lles of the Uni­ver­sity of South Aus­tralia. Kangaroo Island, less than 130 kilo­metres from Adelaide, is one of Australia’s eco­lo­gic­al jew­els. Tour­ism Aus­tralia describes it as a “pristine wil­der­ness”, with cliffs, beaches, wetlands […]

Read More On Kangaroo Island and elsewhere, beware the lure of the luxury ecotourist
Posted in "GT" news & events, "GT" news from Oceania, "GT" news international
Tags:

Five insights that could move tourism closer to sustainability: Lecturer

February 21, 2019

insights sustainable toursm destination Rotorua Hotpool New Zealand Thermal Wonderland

Jason Paul Mika of Mas­sey Uni­ver­sity shares five insights on the role of tour­ism in sus­tain­able devel­op­ment: Tour­ism is New Zealand’s biggest export earner, con­trib­ut­ing 21% of for­eign exchange earn­ings. The latest data show tour­ists added NZ$39.1 bil­lion to the eco­nomy and the industry has seen a 44% increase over the past five years. But […]

Read More Five insights that could move tourism closer to sustainability: Lecturer
Posted in "GT" news & events, "GT" news from Oceania, "GT" news international
Tags: , , ,

Businesses think they’re on top of carbon risk, but tourism destinations have barely a clue: Professor

February 10, 2019

Tourism accounts for approximately 8% of emissions, much of it from planes ... A Qantas Boeing 747-400 flying at approximately 11,000 metres over Starbeyevo in Moscow, May 2010. By Sergey Kustov http://www.airliners.net/photo/Qantas/Boeing-747-438/1729381/L/ (CC BY-SA 3.0) via Wikimedia. https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16496086

Less energy- and car­­bon-intens­ive slow travel could be the future of tour­ism in far-flung des­tin­a­tions, accord­ing to Susanne Beck­en of Grif­fith Uni­ver­sity. The dir­ect­ors of most Aus­trali­an com­pan­ies are well aware of the impact of car­bon emis­sions, not only on the envir­on­ment but also on their own firms as emis­­sions-intens­ive indus­tries get lumbered with taxes […]

Read More Businesses think they’re on top of carbon risk, but tourism destinations have barely a clue: Professor
Posted in "GT" news & events, "GT" news from Oceania, "GT" news international
Tags: , ,

We’re in the era of overtourism but there is a more sustainable way forward: Professor

February 7, 2019

Overtourism leads to overcrowding. What to do? Bans? Entrance fees? (Image by pierrelaurentdurantin via Pixabay cropped and enhanced by "GT".) https://pixabay.com/en/beach-world-sun-crowd-654641/

Over­tour­ism can be fixed or mit­ig­ated by tak­ing more ser­i­ously the Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Goals, accord­ing to Regina Scheyvens of Mas­sey Uni­ver­sity. If you live in a tour­ist des­tin­a­tion, you might dread the hol­i­day inva­sion. Like­wise, dis­gruntled tour­ists com­plain about crowded and pol­luted beaches, nation­al parks or attrac­tions.  Over­tour­ism is now a ser­i­ous issue in many […]

Read More We’re in the era of overtourism but there is a more sustainable way forward: Professor
Posted in "GT" news & events, "GT" news international
Tags: , ,

Why we are banning tourists from climbing Uluru

November 8, 2017

climbing Uluru will be banned from 2019

The Uluru-Kata Tjuta Nation­al Park board of man­age­ment has announced that tour­ists will be banned from climb­ing Uluru from 2019. Uluru, formerly known in Eng­lish as Ayer­’s Rock, is an icon­ic sand­stone rock form­a­tion that rises dra­mat­ic­ally from the flat plains of Aus­trali­a’s red centre. Kata Tjuta (“many heads”), 25 km to the west as […]

Read More Why we are banning tourists from climbing Uluru
Posted in "GT" news & events, "GT" news from Oceania
Tags: ,

Galapagos tourism threatens native wildlife

November 2, 2017

Galapagos tourism threatens wildlife. Image by By Agencia de Noticias ANDES (CC BY-SA 2.0) via Flickr

While the Galapa­gos tour­ism industry relies on nat­ur­al and his­tor­ic­al and nat­ur­al his­tory attrac­tions, it is also one of the threats to that same her­it­age … By Veron­ica Tor­­al-Granda, PhD can­did­ate, and Steph­en Gar­nett, Pro­fess­or of Con­ser­va­tion and Sus­tain­able Live­li­hoods, Charles Dar­win Uni­ver­sity, writ­ing for The Con­ver­sa­tion. Nat­ive spe­cies are par­tic­u­larly vul­ner­able on islands, because […]

Read More Galapagos tourism threatens native wildlife
Posted in "GT" news & events, "GT" news from the Americas
Tags: , , ,