Good news in tourism May 17 – 23, 2020

… because it’s every­one’s business! 

Pub­lished Sunday to be ready Monday, “Good news in tour­ism” is the per­fect pick-me-up for the start of a new week in travel & tour­ism. And go!

Import­ant “Good Tour­ism” (“GT”) stuff first: 

For a truly sus­tain­able tour­ism industry to have a chance, des­tin­a­tions and host com­munit­ies must use the coronavir­us crisis to take back con­trol. Dec­ades of sus­tain­able tour­ism talk at the highest levels has failed them accord­ing to vet­er­an sus­tain­able tour­ism advoc­ate Dr Thomas Bauer in a fresh and reflect­ive “GT” Insight pub­lished Tues­day. Dr Bauer reck­ons vis­it­a­tion should be by invit­a­tion … only.

Fri­day saw the pub­lic­a­tion of a “GT” Insight into the mind of the man who leads one of the world’s sig­ni­fic­ant travel & tour­ism industry organ­isa­tions: Dr Mario Hardy, chief of the Pacific Asia Travel Asso­ci­ation. What does he think about the crisis in which our industry finds itself? Find out in “Who dares wins: Who will hit the reset button?”

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How about reflect­ing on your achieve­ments, mis­takes, and les­sons learned; out­lining your vis­ion for the future of travel & tour­ism; telling the story of your “Good Tour­ism” jour­ney, whatever “good” means to you; shar­ing your “GT” Insights? ← Opportunity.

Can’t write? Non­sense! Of course you can. And your cor­res­pond­ent will help you by proof-read­ing and lightly edit­ing your “GT” Insight to ensure your hap­pi­ness before it goes live. It’s all part of the “GT” ser­vice for “GT” Friends. ← ↑ Opportunity!

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Even if you can write, a fresh pair of eyes is always help­ful. For example, a par­tic­u­larly ven­er­ated tour­ism “thought lead­er”, who also hap­pens to be a good writer, may have revealed a little too much about their mis­sion and motiv­a­tion with this line: 

“There’s no doubt that this invis­ible microbe has done what thou­sands of thought lead­ers, art­icles, power-point present­a­tions, even doc­u­ment­ar­ies had failed to do – stop busi­ness as usu­al in its tracks …” 

Your correspondent’s imme­di­ate reac­tion was: “Well, bully for you and your ideo­logy for find­ing an ally in the form of a con­ta­gious vir­us!” The more char­it­able inter­pret­a­tion, of course, is that this could be an unfor­tu­nate choice of words. 

Yet rather than trust an inde­pend­ent pub­lish­er who may have asked about intent before click­ing pub­lish, the author chose to paste their words dir­ectly into a social media-linked self-pub­lish­ing plat­form … because appar­ently big tech doesn’t have enough power and con­trol over us and our opinions!

A friend in need is a friend indeed

As lock­down lengthens, more tins rattle … Here are two fun­draisers well worth con­sid­er­ing due to the involve­ment of “GT” Friends:

“GT” Insight Part­ner Second Look World­wide is endors­ing a worthy fun­draiser organ­ised by “GT” Friend James Nadi­ope, founder of the Africa Sus­tain­able Tour­ism Care Found­a­tion and the Justice Tour­ism Found­a­tion. Mr Nadi­ope said: “Since Uganda went into quar­ant­ine with total lock­down fol­lowed by curfew many fam­il­ies where we work go empty stom­ach with no food to eat. I would like to appeal to all well-wish­ers for fin­an­cial dona­tions to help these vul­ner­able fam­il­ies.” [Call­back: In Janu­ary, Mr Nadi­ope wrote about “How bees, trees, & tour­ism reduce human-wild­life con­flict in Uganda”.]

The tem­por­ary clos­ure of Car­damom Ten­ted Camp due to the COVID-19 shut­down has meant that forest patrols by Wild­life Alli­ance rangers in Botum Sakor Nation­al Park in south­w­est Cam­bod­ia may have to be sus­pen­ded. The rangers’ equip­ment, food and wages are provided in entirety by the Golden Tri­angle Asi­an Ele­phant Found­a­tion (GTAEF) and Car­damom both of which depend on tour­ism. And there is no tour­ism. An emer­gency fun­drais­ing page to keep rangers employed and adequately sup­plied is live … and worthy. [“GT” Friends Willem Niemeijer and John Roberts are asso­ci­ated with the fun­draiser via Car­damom and GTAEF respectively.]

COVID ops

Accord­ing to the Croa­tian Nation­al Tour­ist Board (HTZ), in the week after Croa­tia lif­ted COVID-19 lock­down meas­ures, May 11 – 17, there were 8,700 tour­ist arrivals and 84,500 bed nights. Loc­al tour­ists accoun­ted for the major­ity of arrivals (74%), fol­lowed by trav­el­lers from neigh­bour­ing Slov­e­nia (15%).

More than 250,000 tour­ists vis­ited des­tin­a­tions across Cam­bod­ia, May 4 – 17, an increase of almost 50% com­pared the pre­vi­ous fort­night, accord­ing to the Min­istry of Tour­ism. Most chose eco­tour­ism sites.

Spain’s trans­port min­is­ter José Luis Ábalos said that inbound tour­ism will open up again at the end of June, all going well, and that air­lines will not be required to keep seats empty. 

Prime Min­is­ter of Greece Kyriakos Mit­so­ta­kis reportedly said Wed­nes­day that the tour­ist sea­son will begin on June 15 with the open­ing of hotels. Inter­na­tion­al flights will start to serve tour­ist des­tin­a­tions from July 1. Industry bod­ies wel­come the meas­ures.

Sim­il­arly, Natia Turnava, Min­is­ter of Eco­nomy & Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment for the Euras­i­an nation of Geor­gia, announced that loc­al tour­ism ser­vices will open from June 15 and inter­na­tion­al tour­ists will be wel­come from July 1.

Viet­nam’s car­ri­ers are increas­ing the fre­quency of domest­ic routes start­ing next month as nearly 86% of Viet­namese polled said they were mak­ing travel plans. The coun­try remains closed to for­eign tourists.

About 70% of Indians sur­veyed would like to travel by year’s end but only 48% said they would actu­ally make plans to do so if lock­down was lif­ted soon. The respond­ents’ main con­cern is the crowds they might encounter at their des­tin­a­tion or on the way.

Health and safety pro­to­cols will be key to the Phil­ip­pines reopen­ing tour­ism as required by the Depart­ment of Tourism’s Tour­ism Response & Recov­ery Plan. Tour­ism Sec­ret­ary Ber­na­dette Puyat: “It is import­ant that we embrace the new nor­mal and equip our industry stake­hold­ers with the appro­pri­ate tools and know­ledge to recov­er and suc­ceed in the post-lock­down era.” 

Vic­tori­an Tour­ism Industry Coun­cil chief Feli­cia Mari­ani reck­ons there is plenty of pent-up demand in Aus­tralia for domest­ic travel. “If they’ve dreamed of a domest­ic hol­i­day but nev­er got around to it, this will be the time they do that.” 

In Canada, Paula Amos of Indi­gen­ous Tour­ism BC reck­ons many mem­ber organ­isa­tions are try­ing new things to keep staff work­ing. “It’s excit­ing to see that they’re mak­ing this quick pivot so that they can sus­tain themselves.”

May 22 will see the end of the travel ban in the state of Ken­tucky, USA, and groups of up to 10 people may gath­er. Fur­ther­more, state parks, lodges and cab­ins will reopen from June 1. Guests will be required to fol­low phys­ic­al dis­tan­cing and pub­lic health guidelines.

His­tory, pre­ser­va­tion, and tour­ism organ­isa­tions in Mary­land, USA have formed the Mary­land Her­it­age Recov­ery Task Force to lobby for policy that “sup­ports the recov­ery of the state’s cul­tur­al and his­tor­ic­al assets” as tour­ism picks up post-lockdown.

The Region­al Office of Sus­tain­able Tour­ism (ROOST) in New York state, USA is devel­op­ing self-guided tour itin­er­ar­ies using digit­al plat­forms. Office pres­id­ent James McK­enna said: “The trav­el­ler is going to be dif­fer­ent [and] it is up to all of us to take respons­ib­il­ity for our busi­nesses.” ROOST has also cre­ated a series of cute “Politely Adiron­dack” posters fea­tur­ing a moose, rac­coon and birds fol­low­ing health guidelines. 

Last year the US Forest Ser­vice and city of Glen­wood Springs, Col­or­ado agreed to restrict the num­ber of vis­it­ors to Hanging Lake to no more than 615 vis­it­ors per day. Recently the Nation­al Nat­ur­al Land­mark has been closed due to COVID-19, of course, but will reopen June 1 to only 128 hikers per day.

The Big Bear Lake City Coun­cil in Cali­for­nia, USA has unan­im­ously determ­ined to stop enfor­cing the state Governor’s coronavir­us orders. The Coun­cil will allow busi­nesses to decide for them­selves when to reopen.

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Pandemic ponderings

UNDP Thailand’s Renaud Mey­er and Chu­lar­at Nir­at­isayak­ul, chief of the Biod­iversity-based Eco­nomy Devel­op­ment Organ­iz­a­tion, say their organ­isa­tions are “design­ing a new biod­iversity-based tour­ism mod­el in Thai­l­and [with] eco­lo­gic­al cop­ing capa­city used to determ­ine the appro­pri­ate num­ber of tour­ists in a giv­en area to avoid neg­at­ive impacts”. They reck­on post-pan­dem­ic tour­ism must be “green­er and more sus­tain­able, with bene­fits being shared among loc­al com­munit­ies, gov­ern­ment and small businesses”.

Aca­dem­ics Alis­on McIn­tosh and Dr Greg Will­son: “New Zea­l­and has an oppor­tun­ity to again be an exem­plar for the world through rebuild­ing its tour­ism and hos­pit­al­ity indus­tries with a hope­ful agenda of more respons­ible, sus­tain­able and inclus­ive engage­ment […] Empower­ment of loc­al com­munit­ies to man­age their own agen­das for tour­ism will allow for rich, unique and poten­tially untapped loc­al stor­ies to emerge.”

Coastal First Nations pres­id­ent Mar­ilyn Slett reck­ons Canada and its west­ern­most province Brit­ish Columbia (BC) should make it a post-pan­dem­ic pri­or­ity to work with First Nations to ensure that pre-pan­dem­ic pro­gress is not lost. “As mod­ern-day nations, we have worked hard over the past 20 years to part­ner with both gov­ern­ments to build a strong and sus­tain­able coastal eco­nomy [with] oppor­tun­it­ies in forestry, fish­ing, eco-tour­ism and cli­mate initiatives.” 

Jack Kit­tinger and Emelia von Saltza reck­on Hawaii, USA, hav­ing recently exper­i­enced “both over-tour­ism and under-tour­ism” should con­sider a “vis­it­or green fee”, which is a solu­tion that “Palau and the Galapa­gos have used to great advant­age”. “Rebuild­ing tour­ism around a cul­tur­ally groun­ded, envir­on­ment­ally respons­ible, and socially respect­ful mod­el could offer sub­stan­tial benefits …”

Jane da Mosto sees an oppor­tun­ity for res­id­ents of Venice, Italy to not only reclaim their city … but also mul­tiply!? “The prob­lem for Venice isn’t the lack of tour­ists, it’s the lack of per­man­ent res­id­ents.” She reck­ons that with more res­id­ents the Vene­tian cul­ture and life­style will flour­ish so that future vis­it­ors to Venice will enjoy it more.

An anonym­ous guest house pro­pri­et­or in the Chi­anti region of Tuscany, Italy reck­ons that her area relies so heav­ily on tour­ism that it is in a “state of calam­ity”. She writes: “Do we really want to con­tin­ue with the hordes of coach parties traipsing through our town every day in the sum­mer? The vast amount of resorts that are con­tinu­ing to appear with swim­ming pools and en suite bath­rooms that the Chi­anti area just does not have enough water resources to sat­is­fy? […] I would like to see a lower impact, slower tour­ism — min­im­um stays of five nights, more col­lab­or­a­tion […] fairer pri­cing, and many oth­er things.”

The Czech Repub­lic cap­it­al of Prague could be reima­gin­ing tour­ism “aimed at boost­ing its cul­tiv­a­tion and devel­op­ment, improv­ing the city’s com­mu­nic­a­tion with people and bal­an­cing out the use of his­tor­ic­al monu­ments by loc­als and tourists”.

Odds & ends

Good news bits ‘n pieces that don’t eas­ily fit into this week’s arbit­rary clusters:

Braid­wood is the only state her­it­age-lis­ted town in New South Wales, Aus­tralia. Des­pite some three mil­lion people passing through each (nor­mal) year, the town has yet to tap its her­it­age tour­ism poten­tial. That’s why Braid­wood & Dis­trict His­tor­ic­al Soci­ety has unveiled a multi-mil­lion dol­lar plan to change that.

Thai­l­and’s Tour­ism & Sports Min­istry is plan­ning to devel­op sand dunes in the Path­iu dis­trict of Chumphon province into a new tour­ism attrac­tion. Min­is­ter Phiphat Ratchakit­prakarn said it was part of a shift to more com­munity-based tour­ism.

Appar­ently inspired by US Pres­id­ent Dwight Eisenhower’s Inter­state High­way Sys­tem, which launched in 1956, Ukraine’s great road infra­struc­ture pro­ject is pro­gress­ing apace through the pandemic.

A study sug­gests that there are high times to be had by the tour­ism industry in jur­is­dic­tions that leg­al­ise recre­ation­al marijuana use; par­tic­u­larly if neigh­bour­ing jur­is­dic­tions aren’t so permissive.

Stay healthy, smile, and have a good week!

Fea­tured image (top of post): Viet­nam land­scape. Image (CC0) via pxfuel.

To help your cor­res­pond­ent keep his energy-effi­cient lights on, please con­sider a private one-off gift or ongo­ing dona­tion. THANK YOU to those who have! <3

You are a tour­ism stake­hold­er — yes, YOU! — so what’s your view? Do you dis­agree with any­thing you have read on “GT”? Join the con­ver­sa­tion. Com­ment below or share your “Good Tour­ism” Insights. Diversity of thought is wel­come on The “Good Tour­ism” Blog. 

Dis­claim­er 1: It is “GT’s” policy to fully dis­close partner/sponsor con­tent. If an item is not dis­closed as part­ner or spon­sor-related then it will have caught “GT’s” atten­tion by some oth­er more organ­ic means. Part­ner with “GT”. You know you want to.

Dis­claim­er 2: None of the stor­ies linked from this week’s post have been fact-checked by “GT”. All ter­min­o­logy used here is as the linked sources used it accord­ing to the know­ledge and assump­tions they have about it. Please com­ment below if you know there has been buzzword-wash­ing or blatant non­sense relayed here, but be nice about it as the linked sources might get offen­ded. (“GT” won’t.) And as for “GT” bring­ing it to your atten­tion so that you might be the one to set the record straight, you are welcome! 🙂