55 ways tourism can be friendlier to the environment: An ‘Eco-Guide’

“Good Tour­ism” Insight Part­ner ASSET‑H&C has pub­lished the free Eco-Guide for Hos­pit­al­ity Busi­nesses and Schools, which lays out 55 tips for redu­cing tour­is­m’s neg­at­ive effects on the envir­on­ment. Soph­ie Hart­man, Nguyễn Thị Thu Thảo, and Võ Thị Quế Chi describe the why, the how, and a few of the what in this “GT” Insight. 

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In view of COVID-19 and its ongo­ing impacts, increas­ing sus­tain­ab­il­ity has become more rel­ev­ant and urgent than ever before for the tour­ism industry. 

By train­ing the respons­ible work­ers of tomor­row and imple­ment­ing green prac­tices in their own oper­a­tions, edu­ca­tion­al insti­tu­tions can accel­er­ate the sector’s trans­ition to a more envir­on­ment­ally-respons­ible busi­ness model.

Before COVID-19 there were obvi­ous signs through­out South­east Asia that tour­ism had a large and often neg­at­ive affect on the environment:

For example, in Thai­l­and, pol­lu­tion from lit­ter, boats, and sun­screen is estim­ated to have des­troyed more than 80% of the cor­al sur­round­ing the world-fam­ous Maya Bay in Krabi. The bay used to receive up to 200 boats and 5,000 tour­ists a day. How­ever, since 2018, the site has been closed to allow it to recov­er from the dam­age caused by tour­ists. It may reopen on Janu­ary 1, 2022, with a new pier and regulations.

In Cam­bod­ia, the icon­ic Angkor Wat temple is at risk of col­lapse due to envir­on­ment­al threats. Increas­ing water demand from vis­it­ors and res­id­ents of nearby Siem Reap have res­ul­ted in short­ages, for­cing the author­it­ies to tap into ground­wa­ter. As the water table of the area lowers, the ground becomes less stable.

The COVID-19 crisis has been con­sidered by many as a wake-up call for the industry. It has made tourism’s influ­ence on the eco­nomy, soci­ety, and envir­on­ment even more obvi­ous. It has also high­lighted the fra­gil­ity of the nat­ur­al envir­on­ment and the need for conservation. 

The time for deep social and envir­on­ment­al change has come. The down­time in glob­al tour­ism activ­it­ies has offered a golden oppor­tun­ity for such change to happen.

Also see John Mor­ris Wil­li­ams’ “GT” Insight
“How to make a hotel green & respons­ible: Get on with it!”

Intensifying demands, evolving practices

The Asso­ci­ation of South­east Asi­an Social Enter­prises for Train­ing in Hos­pit­al­ity & Cater­ing (ASSET‑H&C) is a region­al net­work of voca­tion­al schools that provide a path to employ­ment in the tour­ism and hos­pit­al­ity sec­tor for vul­ner­able youth. Besides offer­ing dis­ad­vant­aged pop­u­la­tions a means of social mobil­ity, its mem­bers also strive to shape a new gen­er­a­tion of respons­ible tour­ism workers.

In these schools, stu­dents learn both tech­nic­al skills and trans­vers­al com­pet­en­cies (‘soft skills’) to become not only highly skilled pro­fes­sion­als but also respons­ible and autonom­ous adults who can be agents of their own development. 

The schools also cham­pi­on green­er and more sus­tain­able tour­ism prac­tices and incor­por­ate them into their train­ing and oper­a­tions to inspire stu­dents to take actions.

Here are some examples of their good practices:

Water, energy, and plastic awareness at Sala Baï

The beha­viour of every mem­ber of a school com­munity sig­ni­fic­antly impacts energy and water con­sump­tion. At Sala Baï Hotel and Res­taur­ant School in Siem Reap par­tic­u­lar atten­tion is paid to involving all stake­hold­ers in more respons­ible practices. 

Also see Nguyễn Thị Thu Thảo’s “GT” Travel Exper­i­ence
“The lux­ury of simply feel­ing good in Siem Reap”

The aware­ness of all occu­pants of the school facil­it­ies — staff, stu­dents, and cus­tom­ers of the school’s social busi­ness — is raised through train­ing ses­sions and signs across the infra­struc­tures to explain the import­ance of sav­ing resources for both envir­on­ment­al and fin­an­cial purposes. 

In their rooms, cus­tom­ers can enjoy amen­it­ies — cof­fee, tea, soap — that are pro­duced loc­ally and offered in non-plastic con­tain­ers. Sup­pli­ers are provided with bags made out of old fab­ric for them to avoid using plastic bags for deliv­er­ies at the school.

HCTC bans plastic packaging, straws 

Vari­ous ASSET‑H&C mem­bers also imple­ment ini­ti­at­ives to reduce waste while sup­port­ing their community. 

As the most effect­ive way to min­im­ise waste is to refuse to use non-recyc­lable and single-use products, the Hos­pit­al­ity and Cater­ing Train­ing Cen­ter in Mae Sot, Thai­l­and has banned plastic pack­aging and straws. 

Instead, the school uses bam­boo straws pro­duced by refugee com­munit­ies in the bor­der town, includ­ing stu­dents’ families.

Also see Soph­ie Hart­man’s
“Five-star din­ing in sur­pris­ing Mae Sot”

EHT Paul Dubrule’s kitchen waste becomes compost, fuel, soap 

École d’Hôtellerie et de Tour­isme Paul Dubrule in Siem Reap sep­ar­ates food waste to make com­post that is later used in their green areas. 

The school also part­ners with the social enter­prise Naga Earth to recycle cook­ing oil into biod­ies­el. This ensures that used oils from the kit­chen are not dis­charged into the sur­round­ing envir­on­ment or re-used by oth­er food vendors, which would be unsafe. The biod­ies­el is sold at loc­al mar­ket prices as fuel for trans­port or generators. 

Naga Earth also uses the oil to pro­duce soap that is giv­en to chil­dren through the hygiene pro­grams of part­ner NGOs.

Also see Lauren Khar­ouni’s “GT” Insight
“Save money, sat­is­fy guests, & join the fight against food waste”

Natural wastewater treatments at Inle Heritage

In Inle Lake, Myan­mar the devel­op­ment of tour­ism has cre­ated a neces­sity to adapt san­it­a­tion prac­tices. Inle Her­it­age has developed a wet­land wastewa­ter solu­tion that is embed­ded in its facil­it­ies. Wastewa­ter moves from sec­tion to sec­tion by grav­ity and is cleaned by plants — some sourced from the lake itself — and the microor­gan­isms that live on these plants. This solu­tion presents a sus­tain­able mod­el for the lake’s busi­nesses and res­id­ents to prop­erly deal with wastewa­ter. The sys­tem is cheap to con­struct, uses no chem­ic­als, and requires low main­ten­ance and no electricity.

Only local organic vegetables at Bayon Bakery and Pastry School

Finally, the café of Bay­on Bakery and Pastry School in Siem Reap uses organ­ic veget­ables that are grown by female farm­ers trained in agro-eco­logy as part of anoth­er pro­gram of the NGO Bay­on Edu­ca­tion and Devel­op­ment. Not only do these fresh and healthy products appeal to many cus­tom­ers, but sourcing raw products loc­ally also lim­its the café’s envir­on­ment­al foot­print and con­trib­utes to the loc­al economy.

Also see Soph­ie Hart­man’s “GT” Travel Exper­i­ence
“If treats make you weak, beware these strong women in Siem Reap”

Knowledge exchange and capacity building

One of ASSET‑H&C’s mis­sions is to lever­age mem­bers’ com­mit­ment to sus­tain­able prac­tices and sup­port them through know­ledge exchange and capa­city building.

This cre­ates a favour­able envir­on­ment for teach­ing sus­tain­ab­il­ity prin­ciples and prac­tices across all mem­bers. Stu­dents can learn about cur­rent sus­tain­able devel­op­ment issues and receive train­ing in the best solu­tions of the time.

In 2017, at the request of mem­bers, the net­work launched the Eco­s­pit­al­ity ini­ti­at­ive to help them become pion­eers in envir­on­ment­ally respons­ible tour­ism. As an ini­tial step, 10 mem­ber schools under­took envir­on­ment­al audits in col­lab­or­a­tion with Artelia Engin­eer­ing Com­pany. The pro­cess assessed schools’ envir­on­ment­al foot­prints, iden­ti­fied good prac­tices, and provided guid­ance on tak­ing con­crete and easy-to-imple­ment actions to reduce elec­tri­city and water con­sump­tion and improve waste management. 

Good prac­tices drawn from the obser­va­tions and recom­mend­a­tions of Artelia were then com­piled into an Eco-Guide for Hos­pit­al­ity Busi­nesses and Schools. The guide assists hos­pit­al­ity and tour­ism stake­hold­ers on their jour­ney to becom­ing eco-friend­li­er and more sus­tain­able. It includes 55 tips and good prac­tices to reduce the impact of tour­ism on the envir­on­ment while mak­ing sig­ni­fic­ant fin­an­cial sav­ings with easy-to-imple­ment actions, access­ible to any­one regard­less of their tech­nic­al background.

The Eco-Guide was ori­gin­ally pub­lished in Eng­lish. To foster an inclus­ive approach to sus­tain­ab­il­ity and to make it access­ible to a wider audi­ence, it has now been trans­lated into Burmese, Khmer, Thai, and Viet­namese. The con­tri­bu­tion of Aus­trali­an Volun­teers Inter­na­tion­al, GoGreen Cam­bod­ia, Hos­pit­al­ity and Cater­ing Train­ing Centre, Myan­mar Respons­ible Tour­ism Insti­tute, Phuket Hotels Asso­ci­ation, Sach va Xanh, and Sala Baï Hotel and Res­taur­ant School made the trans­la­tions possible.

The grow­ing demand for envir­on­ment­ally-respons­ible tour­ism is more than just a trend; it rep­res­ents a shift in cus­tom­ers’ aware­ness about a glob­al emergency. 

Tour­ism pro­viders are adapt­ing. Goods and ser­vices that respond to this demand and con­trib­ute to mak­ing a pos­it­ive impact will become predominant. 

To accom­pany tour­ism pro­viders on this path­way toward great­er sus­tain­ab­il­ity, ASSET‑H&C mem­bers con­trib­ute by train­ing tour­ism pro­fes­sion­als on sustainability. 

And, through the Eco-Guide, ASSET‑H&C hopes to provide access­ible and easy guid­ance for tour­ism busi­nesses to start tak­ing action.

The trans­la­tions of the Eco-Guide are now avail­able for free down­load on ASSET‑H&C’s pub­lic­a­tions web page.

What do you think? Share a short anec­dote or com­ment below. Or write a deep­er “GT” Insight. The “Good Tour­ism” Blog wel­comes diversity of opin­ion and per­spect­ive about travel & tour­ism because travel & tour­ism is everyone’s business.

Fea­tured image (top of post): A pic­ture col­lage of stu­dents at ASSET‑H&C mem­ber insti­tu­tions provided by ASSET‑H&C.

Downloads

Down­load ASSET‑H&C’s Eco-Guide for Hos­pit­al­ity Busi­nesses and Schools:

• In Eng­lish (PDF hos­ted offsite)
• In Burmese (PDF hos­ted offsite)
• In Khmer (PDF hos­ted offsite)
• In Thai (PDF hos­ted offsite)
• In Viet­namese (PDF hos­ted offsite)

About the authors

Soph­ie Hart­man, Nguyễn Thị Thu Thảo, and Võ Thị Quế Chi com­prise the co-ordin­a­tion team of the Asso­ci­ation of South­east Asi­an Social Enter­prises for Train­ing in Hos­pit­al­ity & Cater­ing (ASSET‑H&C).

ASSET‑H&C is a region­al net­work of voca­tion­al train­ing centres that pro­mote the social and eco­nom­ic inclu­sion of vul­ner­able people in South­east Asia. ASSET‑H&C mem­bers work togeth­er on their com­mon mis­sion to make a pos­it­ive impact on the lives of dis­ad­vant­aged youths and adults.