Good news in tourism Jun 28 to Jul 4, 2020

… because it’s every­one’s business! 

Pub­lished every Sunday, “Good news in tour­ism” is the per­fect pick-me-up for the start of a new week in travel & tourism. 

This week in “Good news …”:

• To sup­port tourism’s recovery …
• Wild­life & ecotourism
• Cul­tur­al heritage
• Towards car­bon-neut­ral travel
• Friends indeed
• Odds & ends

It’s “Good Tour­ism”. And go!

“GT” news first (scroll to next sub­head­ing to skip):

Skift has intro­duced a pay­wall for those who want to access more than a few art­icles a month. All power to them! While some com­ment­at­ors are crit­ic­al of the move, oth­ers prefer the sub­scrip­tion mod­el over advert­ising bloat and pub­lic rela­tions fluff. 

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Thank you for your support.

To support tourism’s recovery …

To sup­port tourism’s recov­ery, the Phil­ip­pines’ Tour­ism Infra­struc­ture & Enter­prise Zone Author­ity (TIEZA) has slashed per­mit fees to as low as PHP 1 (USD 0.02; yes, that’s two US cents). TIEZA is also offer­ing tax incent­ives to tour­ism organ­isa­tions under­tak­ing renov­a­tion. And imports of con­struc­tion mater­i­als, per­son­al pro­tect­ive equip­ment, and dis­in­fect­ing sup­plies will be tax- and duty-free.

To sup­port tourism’s recov­ery, Scot­land’s Coun­cil for Devel­op­ment & Industry’s (SCDI’s) “green” eco­nom­ic stim­u­lus and invest­ment plan needs to hap­pen “at pace and at scale”. Com­ment­ing on the plan, Rob­bie Ker­na­han of Scot­tish Nat­ur­al Her­it­age said nature-based solu­tions and “act­ive travel” will play a crit­ic­al role.

To sup­port tourism’s recov­ery, Kenya’s Nation­al Tour­ism Crisis Steer­ing Com­mit­tee recom­men­ded sev­er­al meas­ures includ­ing redu­cing charges for “key tour­ism products” and a phased domest­ic-first mar­ket­ing approach. 

To sup­port tourism’s recov­ery, registered homestay oper­at­ors in Sabah, Malay­sia each have MYR 20,000 (USD 4,660) avail­able to them if they need to upgrade. It’s part of the MYR 10 mil­lion (USD 2.33 mil­lion) state budget “for the upgrade of homestay facil­it­ies and com­munity-based tour­ism products under the Sabah New Deal”.

To sup­port tourism’s recov­ery, chief min­is­ter Mah­mood Khan of Pakistan’s Khy­ber Pakh­tunkh­wa province wants to exped­ite the form­a­tion of the new Cul­ture & Tour­ism Author­ity with assets and staff moved over from the old Tour­ism Corporation.

To sup­port tourism’s recov­ery on Kangaroo Island, South Aus­tralia state min­is­ter for envir­on­ment & water Dav­id Speirs wants loc­als’ involve­ment in a ‘Reima­gin­ing Kangaroo Island’ engage­ment strategy to sup­port the recov­ery of tour­ism and the envir­on­ment. Kangaroo Island was severely affected by the sum­mer bushfires.

To sup­port tourism’s recov­ery, the North Pen­nines AONB Part­ner­ship in Eng­land has launched an online tour­ism toolkit of mar­ket­ing com­mu­nic­a­tion resources includ­ing rights-free images and sample copy. (AONB = Area of Out­stand­ing Nat­ur­al Beauty.)

The importance of good partnerships

Many com­ment­at­ors would like to see pre­vi­ously over­crowded des­tin­a­tions recov­er from the COVID-19 depres­sion with a focus on qual­ity rather than quant­ity. That would be nice, of course. How­ever, some or many extant tour­ism stake­hold­ers will likely go out of busi­ness should this hap­pen. Don’t let one of those be you. Stay as pos­it­ive as you can be. 

Seek out good part­ner­ships with those who make you their pri­or­ity. 

“GT” is a good part­ner. Ask about part­ner­ship oppor­tun­it­ies.

Wildlife & ecotourism

Launched Thursday by prime min­is­ter Imran Khan, Pakistan’s new Pro­tec­ted Areas Ini­ti­at­ive will pro­tect 15 nation­al parks. World Wild­life Fund for Nature Pakistan boss Hammad Naqi Khan wel­comed the news and, acknow­ledging the PM’s interest in eco­tour­ism, sug­ges­ted: “In order to pro­mote eco­tour­ism, all types of haphaz­ard con­struc­tions should be stopped and sus­tain­able devel­op­ment ini­ti­at­ives should be introduced.”

Experts at the Uni­ver­sity of Hel­sinki, Fin­land have pro­posed ways to improve the con­ser­va­tion mes­saging of wild­life tour­ism: pro­mote pos­it­ive mes­saging; provide action­able inform­a­tion; engage tour­ists in research and prac­tice; link exper­i­ence with con­sump­tion choices; and foster long-term interactions. 

Gov­ernor Ron DeS­antis of Flor­ida, USA signed a bill cre­at­ing the state’s first new aquat­ic pre­serve in 32 years; the 800-mile (1,287-km) Nature Coast Aquat­ic Pre­serve. Home to the largest seagrass bed in the Gulf of Mex­ico, it’s an area where fish­ing, scal­lop­ing, and wild­life tour­ism are key to the loc­al economy.

Cam­bod­ia’s tour­ism min­is­ter Thong Khon pitched eco­tour­ism as hav­ing the best invest­ment poten­tial to mem­bers of the US-ASEAN Busi­ness Council.

An opportunity for good partnership

“GT” is pack­aging a Good Part­ner but­ton (125 x 125 pixels) for a whole year PLUS two free sponsored posts to be used any time dur­ing that peri­od. How much? USD 365. ONLY! Sponsored posts can be about your news, event, place or product without the edit­or­i­al con­straints of a “GT” Insight. And as a “GT” Part­ner you get all the “Good news in tour­ism” advant­ages of “GT” Part­ner­ship, includ­ing a link to your favour­ite tour­ism-related char­it­able cause under the “Friends indeed” subheading.

More inform­a­tion about “GT” Part­ner­ship | Buy the “Good Part­ner” but­ton now.

Cultural heritage

Indi­gen­ous groups that offer cul­tur­al exper­i­ences and the busi­nesses that col­lab­or­ate with them could be among those who bene­fit most from domest­ic tour­ism recov­ery as Aus­tralians explore their big back­yard rather than travel overseas.

Five attrac­tions were added to the nation­al her­it­age list of Iran: Baba Yade­gar in Ker­man­shah province; Vizh­dar­van Val­ley and Talis­man cave in Ilam province; Khor­anj stones in West Azerbaijan province; and “old Juni­per trees” in Arde­bil province.

Street artist Guido van Hel­ten will be the lead artist to paint the Wel­ling­ton Dam wall in Col­lie, West­ern Aus­tralia; part of a AUD 4.4 mil­lion (USD 3 mil­lion) state gov­ern­ment invest­ment in tour­ism in the coal town. The Queenslander­’s photoreal­ist­ic mur­als have turned ordin­ary struc­tures such as grain silos into eye-catch­ing icons all over the world.

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Towards carbon-neutral travel

UK-based think tank Energy Trans­itions Com­mis­sion reck­ons there are path­ways to full decar­bon­isa­tion by 2050 of “hard-to-abate sec­tors”, which include avi­ation. “In ship­ping and avi­ation, liquid fuels are likely to remain the pre­ferred option for long dis­tances but can be made zero car­bon by using bio or syn­thet­ic fuels.”

The UK gov­ern­ment will invest GBP 73.5 mil­lion (USD 90.2 mil­lion) in 10 green auto­mot­ive tech­no­logy pro­jects. The Depart­ment for Trans­port reck­ons the money will “drive the auto­mot­ive industry fur­ther away from its reli­ance on fossil fuel tech­no­lo­gies” and safe­guard more than 14,000 research and man­u­fac­tur­ing jobs.

In Nor­way, a mari­time con­sor­ti­um includ­ing the Sus­tain­able Energy Cata­pult Centre will be the first to under­take long-term, full-scale test­ing of an ammo­nia-fuelled four-stroke engine. A fuel cell will be tested on an off­shore sup­ply ves­sel. The pro­ject will start early in 2021 thanks to USD 2.05 mil­lion from the Nor­we­gi­an Research Council. 

ZeroAvia last week con­duc­ted the UK’s first elec­tric-powered test flight of a com­mer­cial-sized air­craft. From its base at Cran­field Air­port, ZeroAvia tri­alled its updated hydro­gen-elec­tric power­train on a Piper M‑class six-seat­er aircraft.

UK-based BAE Sys­tems’ move into the air­craft elec­tri­fic­a­tion mar­ket will now include energy man­age­ment and engine con­trol sys­tems for hybrid and fully-elec­tric air­craft. Strategy lead Yesh­w­anth Premku­mar said BAE would com­bine flight and engine con­trols know-how with power man­age­ment exper­i­ence from hybrid buses.

Friends indeed

As inter­na­tion­al travel bans lengthen, belts tight­en fur­ther in places pre­vi­ously reli­ant on for­eign tour­ism … Here are fun­draisers worth con­sid­er­ing because “GT” Friends & Part­ners are involved. (This con­tent has appeared in “Good news in tour­ism” before, so enjoy it again or scroll down to the next sub­head­ing to skip.)

Khiri Reach, the char­it­able arm of “GT” Part­ner Khiri Travel, has set up a fund to sup­port freel­ance tour guides. Khiri Reach boss Nia Klatte said: “We want to sup­port a group of people who are among the very hard­est hit by the cur­rent crisis: our freel­ance guides. Unfor­tu­nately, in South­east Asia, the gov­ern­ment safety nets are extremely min­im­al if they exist at all for freel­an­cers. And while some domest­ic tour­ism is com­ing back, it will take months or years for tour­ism activ­it­ies to return to ‘nor­mal’.”

Tan­ner C Knorr of “GT” Insight Part­ner Second Look World­wide is endors­ing a fun­draiser organ­ised by “GT” Friend James Nadi­ope, who 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”.]

Many Asi­an ele­phants and their mahouts in Thai­l­and and else­where are in deep trouble. That’s why Hol­lis Burb­ank-Ham­marlund, founder & dir­ect­or of “GT” Insight Part­ner Work for Wild Life Inter­na­tion­al, would ask that you con­trib­ute to the Ele­phant Health­care Emer­gency Life­line Fund, which helps keep veter­in­ari­ans on the job deliv­er­ing essen­tial emer­gency veter­in­ary care to ele­phants that need it most … when they need it most.

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 Ten­ted Camp both of which depend on tour­ism. And there is no tour­ism. An emer­gency fun­drais­ing page is live. [“GT” Friends Willem Niemeijer and John Roberts are asso­ci­ated with the fun­draiser via Car­damom and GTAEF respectively.]

Not a fun­draiser as such, but a great idea for accom­mod­a­tion pro­viders: “GT” Friend Rachel Sher­wood is organ­ising well-deserved hol­i­days for health­care work­ers at the front lines of the COVID-19 fight. Oper­a­tion Recu­per­a­tion is col­lect­ing pledges from accom­mod­a­tion pro­viders and second home own­ers from all over the world.

Odds & ends

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

Thai­l­and wants to con­sol­id­ate its status as a med­ic­al and well­ness des­tin­a­tion. Tour­ism Author­ity of Thai­l­and deputy gov­ernor for Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and the Amer­icas, i.e. most of the world, Srisuda Wanap­inyo­sak laid out a five-pronged plan, which includes tar­get­ing the Thai diaspora.

In the Carib­bean, “it has been widely repor­ted that access to work­ing cap­it­al fin­an­cing is still a major con­straint that MSMEs face”. A new fund will facil­it­ate work­ing cap­it­al and medi­um-term fin­an­cing for MSMEs (micro‑, small‑, and medi­um-sized enter­prises) in Jamaica, includ­ing those in the com­munity-based tour­ism sector. 

Tour­ism-reli­ant com­munit­ies in Brit­ish Columbia, Canada are relieved that travel with­in the province is allowed again. Des­tin­a­tion BC says there has been a steep increase in book­ings from loc­als keen to get oot ‘n aboot. 

The Harry formerly known as a Prince, and the Meghan who mar­ried him, have dis­solved their “Sus­sex Roy­al char­ity” to focus on his “eco-tour­ism scheme”. Your cor­res­pond­ent is unclear wheth­er Travalyst is a for-profit “com­pany” or not. It has big cor­por­ate back­ing from the likes of a pay­ments giant and massive online trip book­ing agents. Cer­tainly the life­style costs of the former roy­als won’t be cheap to cov­er if that is what Harry and Meghan expect of Travalyst. Do you know? Please com­ment below.

Stay healthy, smile, and have a good week!

Fea­tured image (top of post): Map, car key, com­pass, and cam­era … And go! Image (CC0) via libreshot.

Donations, diversity, disclaimers

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

Thank you very much to those who have donated. 😍

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. And you will be sup­port­ing an inde­pend­ent pub­lish­er with your ori­gin­al content.

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! 🙂