Responsible travel & tourism

Scroll down for posts that have been tagged with “respons­ible travel & tourism”.

Respons­ible travel is “con­duc­ted in such a man­ner as to not harm or degrade the cul­tur­al or nat­ur­al envir­on­ment of the places vis­ited”, accord­ing to Travel-Industry-Dictionary.comRespons­ible tour­ism is “mak­ing bet­ter places for people to live in and bet­ter places for people to vis­it”, sug­gests the Respons­ible Tour­ism Part­ner­ship.

Respons­ible tour­ism and respons­ible travel are approaches to tour­ism that pri­or­it­ise sus­tain­ab­il­ity, eth­ic­al prac­tices, and social respons­ib­il­ity. These types of tour­ism aim to min­im­ise neg­at­ive impacts on the envir­on­ment and loc­al com­munit­ies and max­im­ise pos­it­ive out­comes for all involved.

Respons­ible tour­ism and respons­ible travel can take many forms, includ­ing eco­tour­ism, cul­tur­al tour­ism, and volun­teer tour­ism. These types of tour­ism often involve close engage­ment with loc­al com­munit­ies, respect­ing loc­al cul­tures, and sup­port­ing loc­al busi­nesses and con­ser­va­tion efforts.

In recent years, respons­ible tour­ism and respons­ible travel have gained pop­ular­ity among trav­el­lers seek­ing mean­ing­ful exper­i­ences that have a pos­it­ive impact. How­ever, it is essen­tial for trav­el­lers to do their research to choose reli­ably respons­ible tour­ism options that align with their values.

“GT” tends to (though prob­ably incon­sist­ently) apply the respons­ible travel & tour­ism tag where the con­tent dis­cusses the respons­ib­il­ity of the trav­el­ler or tour­ist rather than the sup­ply-side stake­hold­er. There is of course plenty of con­tent (and tags) that address the respons­ib­il­ity of the travel & tour­ism industry to do no harm and make things bet­ter; tags such as “sus­tain­able tour­ism and regen­er­at­ive tour­ism” for example.

Tags are inform­al. The “Good Tour­ism” Blog tries not to get bogged down with ter­min­o­logy and defin­i­tions. If you dis­agree with tags applied (or not applied) to a post, feel free to com­ment on it or any post you think has been incor­rectly or insuf­fi­ciently tagged. “GT” encour­ages good-faith debate and discussion.

Meanwhile, a young couple promotes authentic experiences

July 19, 2017

overtourism Venice

UNESCO and the World Bank signed a new MoU about cit­ies last week to “advance sus­tain­able devel­op­ment by invest­ing in cul­ture, urb­an devel­op­ment, and resi­li­ence in an integ­rated man­ner”. As the con­sult­ants and spin doc­tors of the world lick their lips — and insti­tu­tion­al book­shelves and cloud serv­ers standby to sup­ply stor­age for their expens­ive out­put — in Venice […]

Read More Meanwhile, a young couple promotes authentic experiences

Reunification or not, Cyprus tourism has lessons to learn

July 7, 2017

Cyprus tourism has lessons to learn reunification or not

“Talks to reuni­fy the divided island of Cyprus col­lapsed amid anger and recrim­in­a­tions in the early hours of Fri­day, mark­ing the end of a pro­cess seen as the most prom­ising in gen­er­a­tions to heal dec­ades of con­flict.” Thus repor­ted Reu­ters earli­er today. The col­lapsed talks in Switzer­land between Greek Cyp­ri­ot Pres­id­ent Nicos Ana­stas­i­ades and Turk­ish Cypriot […]

Read More Reunification or not, Cyprus tourism has lessons to learn

Mission cells to power responsible tourism in Kerala

July 4, 2017

Kumarakom is a pioneer destination for responsible tourism in Kerala

Kerala’s Respons­ible Tour­ism Mis­sion will be up and run­ning by the end of this month (July 2017). Accord­ing to a news art­icle in The Times of India, the Indi­an state’s “ambi­tious” pro­gram aims to gen­er­ate more employ­ment and income in loc­al com­munit­ies without harm­ing the envir­on­ment. Under the Mis­sion, respons­ible tour­ism “cells” will be set up […]

Read More Mission cells to power responsible tourism in Kerala

More shades of grey in elephant tourism

June 30, 2017
One Comment

More shades of grey in elephant tourism

Soon after The “Good Tour­ism” Blog shared a link to a “GT” Insight about ele­phant tour­ism to an eco­tour­ism industry Face­book group, the motiv­a­tion of con­trib­ut­or John Roberts was ques­tioned by an angry com­ment­at­or: “The fact that someone employed in the ele­phant rid­ing industry is writ­ing crit­ic­ally about the neg­at­ive impacts of Respons­ible Tour­ism on […]

Read More More shades of grey in elephant tourism

Airport carbon dioxide emissions cut by 200,000 tonnes in 2015/16: ACI

June 26, 2017

ACI Director General Angela Gittens says airport carbon emissions were reduced by 200,000 tonnes in 2015/2016. Image source: 'Airport World'

Air­ports Coun­cil Inter­na­tion­al (ACI)‘s Air­port Car­bon Accred­it­a­tion pro­gramme reduced car­bon diox­ide emis­sions by more than 200,000 tonnes in the report­ing year end­ing June 2016, accord­ing to ACI Dir­ect­or Gen­er­al Angela Git­tens. The pro­gramme is now in its eighth year with 182 accred­ited air­ports in 54 coun­tries. Writ­ing for Air­port World, Ms Git­tens asser­ted that ACI’s […]

Read More Airport carbon dioxide emissions cut by 200,000 tonnes in 2015/16: ACI

Elephant tourism: The harms of received wisdom

June 26, 2017
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john roberts elephant tourism

The “received wis­dom” about ele­phant tour­ism that keeps con­scien­tious trav­el­lers away from ele­phant-based attrac­tions is doing more harm than good, accord­ing to ele­phant expert John Roberts in this “Good Tour­ism” Insight. UPDATE, May 2021: “GT” asked Mr Roberts wheth­er he would like to update this “GT” Insight from July 2017. In light of the circumstances […]

Read More Elephant tourism: The harms of received wisdom