Most want to do the right thing for sustainable tourism. What is it?

In two sen­tences the CEO of the Glob­al Sus­tain­able Tour­ism Coun­cil (GSTC) per­fectly summed up the com­mu­nic­a­tions oppor­tun­ity and chal­lenge facing sus­tain­ab­il­ity advocates. 

“Most people want to do the right thing. They just need to know what the right thing is.”

Randy Durb­and said this dur­ing the theme-set­ting plen­ary ses­sion on the open­ing day of the 2019 GSTC Asia-Pacific Sus­tain­able Tour­ism Con­fer­ence, Feb­ru­ary 28. 

The prob­lem is that one per­son’s right­eous­ness can some­times be anoth­er per­son’s wicked­ness. More com­monly, how­ever, it is writ­ten off as “blah blah”. 

Every­one com­petes in a mar­ket­place of ideas around what’s right, what’s not, and whatever — where “whatever” is the com­plic­at­ing nuance that is all too often and all too eas­ily dis­missed by those who are com­mit­ted to a belief. ^

GST­C’s mis­sion is to encour­age tour­ism des­tin­a­tions and industry stake­hold­ers to do the right thing for sus­tain­ab­il­ity’s sake, before the industry is com­pelled to by high­er author­ity. This is why GSTC has developed stand­ards for des­tin­a­tions and industry stake­hold­ers that … 

… are the guid­ing prin­ciples and min­im­um require­ments that any tour­ism busi­ness or des­tin­a­tion should aspire to reach in order to pro­tect and sus­tain the world’s nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al resources, while ensur­ing tour­ism meets its poten­tial as a tool for con­ser­va­tion and poverty alleviation.

To GST­C’s great cred­it, the GSTC Cri­ter­ia are avail­able online for all to see for free. Are there any bet­ter sus­tain­able tour­ism stand­ards or cri­ter­ia? Ser­i­ous ques­tion. RSVP in the com­ments below.

At the end of the theme-set­ting ses­sion at #GSTC2019Asia, Mr Durb­and acknow­ledged that sus­tain­able tour­ism was a jour­ney, not a des­tin­a­tion nor a tan­gible thing. 

“No-one is truly sus­tain­able,” he said. “We can all improve.” 

The snack boxes dis­trib­uted to del­eg­ates on a post-con­fer­ence tour two days later were per­fect proof of Mr Durb­and’s point. Among a host of prob­lems with the boxes were indi­vidu­ally plastic-wrapped paper nap­kins. After a sus­tain­able tour­ism conference?

Mr Durb­and summed up the theme-set­ting ses­sion by sug­gest­ing that we should all cel­eb­rate the little vic­tor­ies along the jour­ney of — not “to” — sus­tain­able tourism. 

Join­ing the GSTC CEO on stage for the ses­sion were three pan­el­ists, each rep­res­ent­ing a #GSTC2019Asia theme or track:

• Nat­alie Kidd, Man­aging Dir­ect­or, PEAK DMC — Smart Des­tin­a­tion Man­age­ment. Des­tin­a­tion man­agers are increas­ingly apply­ing new tech­no­lo­gies to assist them. “Smart Des­tin­a­tions” refers to data-driv­en decision-mak­ing and management.
• Lee Poston, Com­mu­nic­a­tions Dir­ect­or, WWF Mekong — Tour­ism Pro­tect­ing Wild­life. The busi­ness of travel can either provide pro­tec­tion to wild­life by cre­at­ing eco­nom­ic incent­ives for res­id­ents and gov­ern­ments to enforce pro­tec­tion laws, or it can cause much harm to wild­life. Aware­ness-rais­ing is key. 
• Dr Chuwit Mitrchob, Deputy Dir­ect­or-Gen­er­al, DASTA — Qual­ity Tour­ism: Deliv­er­ing Sus­tain­able Qual­ity Exper­i­ences. How the pub­lic and private sec­tors can cooper­ate to offer vis­it­ors a more sus­tain­able and respons­ible product. 

What’s smart?

Ms Kidd reminded del­eg­ates that con­sumers were spend­ing more on exper­i­ences, includ­ing travel, and less on things. They were look­ing for “authen­ti­city”.

In devel­op­ing and mar­ket­ing authen­t­ic travel exper­i­ences, Ms Kidd believes in CSV (cre­at­ing shared value) for all stake­hold­ers, par­tic­u­larly those with­in the host community. 

How­ever, suc­cess begets growth and man­aging growth was the primary chal­lenge. Growth risks under­min­ing the authen­ti­city of a place, its exper­i­ences, the per­ceived value attached to those exper­i­ences, and there­fore the sus­tain­ab­il­ity of the tour­ism product. 

“Stay agile, keep adapt­ing, keep learn­ing,” Ms Kidd advised.

“Your clients trust you.” Can wildlife?

On tour­ism help­ing to pro­tect wild­life, Mr Poston was optim­ist­ic. While there is still sig­ni­fic­ant ignor­ance around the inter­na­tion­al trade in shark fins and tiger products and rhino products and ele­phant products, includ­ing ivory, and pan­golin products, and plastic’s per­ni­cious­ness et cet­era, aware­ness was increasing. 

Tour­ism is one of the most crit­ic­al ways WWF can reach people, he said. 

Mr Poston poin­ted to aware­ness-rais­ing by WWF with the sup­port of the tour­ism industry that had already shown encour­aging res­ults. Recent WWF cam­paigns lever­aging social media and celebrity had helped raise aware­ness of the illeg­al ivory trade in Thai­l­and. They had also improved atti­tudes among vis­it­ors from China.

“Your cli­ents trust you,” he said. “That’s why we believe in work­ing in part­ner­ship with the tour­ism industry.”

Communicate to elevate

Dr Chuwit said the qual­ity of a tour­ism product starts from the qual­ity of plan­ning, which in turn starts from qual­ity of communications.

He vowed that DASTA would edu­cate more and more stake­hold­ers intern­ally to ensure qual­ity communications.

Fea­tured image: Glob­al Sus­tain­able Tour­ism Coun­cil (GSTC) CEO Randy Durb­and. Image by World Travel & Tour­ism Coun­cil (CC BY 2.0) via Wiki­me­dia.

^ It is a mis­sion of this web­site to reflect the tour­ism industry’s mar­ket­place of ideas, includ­ing the “whatever” — to provide a plat­form upon which tour­ism industry people can share their pas­sions, exper­i­ences, know­ledge, and insights in-depth.

Think of “GT” as an always-on industry con­fer­ence whose theme is “Good Tour­ism” — whatever that means to you — a con­fer­ence in which every present­a­tion of an idea has unlim­ited scope for Q&A and fur­ther dis­cus­sion; where every present­a­tion of an idea has no time lim­it; and where there are no taboos nor cen­sor­ship (with­in reason).