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.

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 […]

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

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 […]

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

What’s Goa-ing on? The past, present and future of tourism in Goa

April 8, 2019
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Goa beach scene, March 2013. By Saad Faruque (CC BY-SA 2.0) via Wikimedia. GT" cropped and enhanced it. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1_Beach,_Goa_India,_March_2013.jpg

Justine Cal­ais of the Respons­ible Tour­ism Col­lect­ive of Goa shares her “GT” Insight into what’s really going on with tour­ism in Indi­a’s Sun­shine State. Goa is a unique place. It is fair to say that it has everything going for it that a tour­ism des­tin­a­tion could ever wish to have — but at the same time it has […]

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It’s time to address tourism’s invisible burden

March 21, 2019

To catch a glimpse of Mona Lisa at Musée du Louvre, Paris ... Max Fercondini (CC BY-SA 4.0) via Wikimedia. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_petit_crowd_to_see_the_dame.jpg "GT" cropped it.

A free report will be released next week — Des­tin­a­tions at Risk: The Invis­ible Bur­den of Tour­ism — by the Travel Found­a­tion, Cor­nell Uni­ver­sity, and Epler­Wood Inter­na­tion­al. Travel Found­a­tion Chair­man Noel Josephides explains why it was com­mis­sioned in this “Good Tour­ism” Insight. Thanks mainly to the phe­nomen­on known as over­tour­ism, the future of our industry has become […]

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Can pro-social tourism foster empathy & cross-cultural understanding?


Can pro-social tourism foster empathy & understanding? Pic by Lourdes Zamanillo Tamborrel

To build empathy and under­stand­ing between hosts and guests, “pro-social” tour oper­at­ors should facil­it­ate more con­ver­sa­tions — a “GT” Insight by Mon­ash Uni­ver­sity PhD can­did­ate Lourdes Zama­nillo Tam­bor­rel and Dr Joseph M Cheer. Accord­ing to the United Nations World Tour­ism Organ­isa­tion (UNWTO), tour­ism accounts for around 10 per cent of glob­al gross domest­ic product (GDP) and thirty percent […]

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Elephants are smart. What if tourism jobs were good for them?

March 14, 2019
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A mahout feeding an elephant at the Elephant Nature Park, near Chiang Mai, Thailand. By Adbar (CC BY-SA 3.0) via Wikimedia. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mahout_Elephant_Nature_Park.JPG

Work, includ­ing offer­ing tour­ists rides, is “not bad” for ele­phants — in mod­er­a­tion — so long as it takes into account the work­load, stress, and wel­fare of each indi­vidu­al ele­phant, accord­ing to Dr Pakka­nut Ban­siddhi, Research­er, Cen­ter of Excel­lence in Ele­phant Research and Edu­ca­tion, Chi­ang Mai Uni­ver­sity. Dr Pakka­nut revealed this at the Glob­al Sus­tain­able Tour­ism Coun­cil con­fer­ence in […]

Read More Elephants are smart. What if tourism jobs were good for them?