Good news in tourism October 4 – 10, 2020

Because it’s light and nutritious …

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

Your cor­res­pond­ent hit the road to attend fam­ily func­tions in Perth this week, so his usu­al track­ing of good news from the wide world of travel & tour­ism was dis­rup­ted. Of course “GT” Part­ners and “GT” Friends are always mak­ing good things hap­pen, so please enjoy this light and nutri­tious snack of “Good Tour­ism” news.

“Good Tourism” news

Sus­tain­able tour­ism con­sult­ant Tim O’Donoghue leads the col­lab­or­at­ive efforts of Teton County, Wyom­ing, USA to become a sus­tain­able des­tin­a­tion. In a fresh “GT” Insight pub­lished Tues­day, Mr O’Donoghue iden­ti­fied two chal­lenges to demo­crat­ising tour­ism plan­ning and des­tin­a­tion man­age­ment.

“GT” Part­ner SUN^x — Strong Uni­ver­sal Net­work’s first Cli­mate Friendly Travel Dip­loma course is under­way, with “36 young act­iv­ists from 29 small island and devel­op­ing states on schol­ar­ships from the Min­is­ter of Tour­ism of Malta Julia Far­ru­gia Por­telli and an inaug­ur­al glob­al Susanne Beck­en scholarship”. 

The Thompson Okanagan Tour­ism Asso­ci­ation (TOTA) from Brit­ish Columbia, Canada is SUN^x’s first regis­trant on the new Cli­mate Friendly Travel Registry. SUN^x will work with TOTA to help devel­op a “2050 Cli­mate Neut­ral and Sus­tain­ab­il­ity plan” and to sign up TOTA’s 4,000 stakeholders. 

SUN^x co-founder Geof­frey Lip­man said that they will also reach out to glob­al industry and gov­ern­ment organ­isa­tions, includ­ing WTTC, UNWTO, and IATA, “for SDG 17 Part­ner­ships [and] to bring their mem­bers on board”.

“GT” Des­tin­a­tion Part­ner WeAreLao.com’s newly-expan­ded “Help­ful Links” page lists the web-based resources of 13 provinces of Laos. WeAre­Lao seni­or part­ner Bernie Rosen­bloom sees his web­site’s role as an “inform­at­ive inter­me­di­ary in the pur­chas­ing pro­cess before the final step”. In addi­tion to help­ful links to allied web­sites, WeAreLao.com offers 400-plus pages of inform­a­tion about the “simply beau­ti­ful” des­tin­a­tion of Laos.

Friends indeed

“Friends indeed” are worthy travel & tour­ism industry fun­draisers and char­it­able causes. Please help if you can. Share the page with your social net­works. And link to it from your web­site or email signature.

The importance of good partnerships

Many com­ment­at­ors would like to see des­tin­a­tions recov­er from the COVID-19 depres­sion focused on qual­ity rather than quant­ity. That would be nice, of course, par­tic­u­larly if host com­munit­ies want that. How­ever, some or many extant tour­ism stake­hold­ers will likely go out of busi­ness. Don’t let one of those be you. 

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

“GT” is a good part­ner. Please veri­fy that with a “GT” Part­ner and then ask about part­ner­ship oppor­tun­it­ies. There’s a “GT” part­ner­ship oppor­tun­ity for every­one — big or small; pub­lic or private; com­mer­cial or not-for-profit — because travel & tour­ism is every­one’s busi­ness. All “GT” Part­ners not only get a “Good Part­ner” ban­ner and list­ing but also the out­stand­ing oppor­tun­ity every week to con­trib­ute pos­it­ive news & com­ments to these almost-fam­ous weekly “Good news in tour­ism” posts.

Stay healthy, smile, have a good week … And when you can travel again, remember:

It’s not ‘no’. It’s ‘know’.

Gotta go? Then go!
If you’ve time, go slow
If you don’t, try low
Do what you know is good
And know there is more to know

Fea­tured image (top of post): The Tetons from Mor­mon Row, Wyom­ing, USA. Image cour­tesy of Jack­son Hole Travel & Tour­ism Board.

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! 😍