Good news in travel & tourism October 2022

“Good news in travel & tour­ism” wraps up a month of “Good Tour­ism” & “GT” Travel news, insights, and experiences.

Share it as you would hot chips / fries.

It’s “GT”. And go! 

(Click/touch a menu item to go straight to it.)

• “Good Tour­ism” Insights
• “Good Tour­ism” Insight Bites
• “Good Tour­ism” Travel Experiences
• Good news from friends
  Glob­al | Africa | Asia
• Friends indeed

“Good Tourism” is where free thought travels

Did you ever want to write a thought­ful piece about the state of the tour­ism industry; how we got here; how we can make it bet­ter (or avoid the worst)?

Has a lack of con­fid­ence in your writ­ing held you back? Well, please don’t let it. 

Your cor­res­pond­ent is here to help you pub­lish your “GT” Insight, just as I’ve helped pro­fess­ors trans­late their Aca­demese into plain Eng­lish; just as I’ve helped those for whom Eng­lish is their second (or more) language. 

If you sub­mit a draft that com­plies with the simple “GT” Insight guidelines, I will per­son­ally copy edit your work and ensure that you are happy with it before I click ‘Pub­lish’.

It’s part of “GT’s” mis­sion to offer a plat­form for truly diverse perspectives.

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“GT” Insights: Informed perspectives on the industry

The “Good Tour­ism” Blog pub­lishes informed opin­ions on the issues facing the travel & tour­ism industry, everyone’s busi­ness. “GT” Insights are diverse per­spect­ives writ­ten by, for, and about our sec­tor. Here are the most recent:

Destination innovation is about more than technology

Tech­no­logy alone is unlikely to solve all our prob­lems, or help us achieve all that we wish. This is true for tour­ism des­tin­a­tions as they look to innov­ate out of crisis and into an uncer­tain future. 

Click here for a “GT” Insight about des­tin­a­tion innov­a­tion by K Michael Hay­wood.

How a human rights approach can help hotels improve their water management

Accom­mod­a­tion ser­vice pro­viders are expec­ted to hon­our the human right to water of all those around them. Hoteliers should view this respons­ib­il­ity not as a bur­den, but as an oppor­tun­ity to mean­ing­fully engage with des­tin­a­tion stake­hold­ers while devel­op­ing more sus­tain­able water and waste man­age­ment systems.

Click here for a “GT” Insight about the human right to water by Yesaya San­dang and Stroma Cole.

Gender mainstreaming in tourism & hospitality training. What? Why? How?

What is ‘gender main­stream­ing’? Why is it import­ant? And how can it be applied in tour­ism and hos­pit­al­ity train­ing centres? 

Click here for a “GT” Insight about gender main­stream­ing by the team at “GT” Insight Part­ner ASSET‑H&C.

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“GT” Insight Bites: Diverse perspectives on important topics

A “GT” Insight Bites post is a col­lec­tion of short writ­ten responses to an identic­al set of pro­pos­i­tions and/or ques­tions that The “Good Tour­ism” Blog puts to a diverse range of travel & tour­ism stake­hold­ers. Here is the most recent:

‘Tourism is built on the backbone of white supremacy’. What do you think?

Without offer­ing any des­tin­a­tion- or mar­ket-spe­cif­ic con­text, one com­ment­at­or recently asser­ted that tour­ism is “built on the back­bone of white supremacy”. 

What do you think?

It’s a “Good Tour­ism” Insight Bites question.

Your cor­res­pond­ent put the ques­tion to a range of travel & tour­ism stake­hold­ers — “GT” Insight authors, “GT” Part­ners, and their invit­ees — and invited emailed writ­ten responses of no more than 300 words. 

Thanks to the eight respond­ents for shar­ing their thoughts. Their answers appear in the order received. Click/touch a name to go to their answer:

• Greg Bak­un­zi — ‘Tour­ism brings people togeth­er’
• Saverio Francesco Ber­to­lu­cci — ‘Trav­el­ling is part of humankind’
• Rieki Crins — Yes, but no longer valid
• Steve Noakes — ‘… in the con­text of the Doc­trine of Discovery’
• Susan Eardly — Green will reign supreme
• K Michael Hay­wood — The Carib­bean context
• Jim Butcher — ‘A recipe for guilt and the re-racial­isa­tion of culture’
• Richard A Shep­ard — ‘A less-than-use­less observation’
• What do you think?

Pre­vi­ous “GT” Insight Bites:

• Really, what’s the dif­fer­ence? ‘Sus­tain­able tour­ism’ vs ‘regen­er­at­ive tourism’
• Want a career in tour­ism? Import­ant things you should know
• Diverse per­spect­ives on travel & tour­ism and a fairer world
• Diverse per­spect­ives on eco­nom­ic degrowth and tourism
• Diverse per­spect­ives on vis­it­or dispersion

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“GT” Travel Experiences: Informed inspiration for travellers

The “Good Tour­ism” Blog’s young sib­ling The “GT” Travel Blog pub­lishes informed inspir­a­tion and top tips for trav­el­lers from tour­ism insiders. Here is the most recent “GT” Travel Experience:

Experience the ‘far side’ of Chitwan National Park, Nepal

“I had always enjoyed my many trips to the Chit­wan side [of the Nation­al Park]; stay­ing in hotels has its perks. How­ever, trav­el­ling to less­er developed des­tin­a­tions where your vis­it con­trib­utes dir­ectly to the loc­al eco­nomy is a won­der­ful feel­ing. And I can not stress enough how liv­ing with loc­als can be a ful­filling exper­i­ence.” _ Aay­usha Pra­sain shares a “GT” Travel Exper­i­ence about Chit­wan Nation­al Park.

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Good news from friends

Good news in travel & tour­ism from the won­der­ful organ­isa­tions that make “GT” pos­sible. Here is some of what happened this month in the “Good Tour­ism” network:

Global news from friends

SUNx to help inter­cept plastic in 1,000 rivers
SUNx Malta has announced a goal to help tackle the 1,000 most plastic-pol­luted rivers in the world by 2025. How? By deploy­ing The Ocean Cleanup’s Inter­cept­ors, “the first scal­able solu­tion to pre­vent plastic from enter­ing the world’s oceans from rivers”. SUNx Malta on Face­book.

SUNx CFT Registry signs 100th
Pug­dun­dee Safar­is in India is the 100th list­ing on SUNx Malta’s Cli­mate Friendly Travel Registry. Face­book post.

ASSET‑H&C ‘gender main­stream­ing’ report avail­able for free
ASSET‑H&C has just pub­lished Pro­mot­ing Gender Main­stream­ing: Recom­mend­a­tions for voca­tion­al train­ing cen­ters in ASSET‑H&C net­work. With “action­able recom­mend­a­tions”, the report is “use­ful” for any­one inter­ested in “improv­ing gender inclus­ive­ness in tour­ism, hos­pit­al­ity & events”.  Free down­load.

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News from friends in Africa

Red Rocks Ini­ti­at­ive puts envir­on­ment­al stew­ard­ship first
Red Rocks Ini­ti­at­ive is enthu­si­ast­ic about “good man­age­ment of the envir­on­ment for sus­tain­able devel­op­ment” in Rwanda. “[W]e put the mis­sion of envir­on­ment­al stew­ard­ship first, in the Vir­unga Mas­sif and the ripari­an area, through open col­lab­or­a­tion with our loc­al people.” Red Rocks Ini­ti­at­ive on Face­book.

Join Red Rocks’ edu­ca­tion pro­grams
Red Rocks Ini­ti­at­ive for Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment invites any­one wish­ing to help con­trib­ute to those in need to join their edu­ca­tion pro­grams. The pro­grams make a dif­fer­ence in and around Musan­ze, Rwanda “through infra­struc­ture improve­ments, envir­on­ment­al con­ser­va­tion, and com­munity development”.

Rwanda’s first wild­life film­mak­ing course helps rangers and guides
Red Rocks Ini­ti­at­ive teamed up with Ravens­wood Media to con­duct the first wild­life film­mak­ing train­ing course in Rwanda. The course was designed to give rangers, track­ers, and guides a new tool to be more effect­ive in their jobs. The US’ Nation­al Parks Ser­vice was involved. Face­book page.

The women of Red Rocks share weav­ing tech­niques with guests
Woven bas­kets are a pop­u­lar choice of souven­ir for vis­it­ors to Red Rocks Cul­tur­al Cen­ter. The loc­al womens co-oper­at­ive now wants to share their craft with guests. Dur­ing a two-hour work­shop, vis­it­ors can now learn how to weave. And they can take a fin­ished item home with them.

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News from friends in Asia

Cardamom Tented Camp wins HICAP Sustainable Hotel Award for Climate Action

“Car­damom Ten­ted Camp in Cam­bod­ia has won the 2022 Hotel Invest­ment Con­fer­ence Asia Pacific (HICAP) Sus­tain­able Hotel Award for Cli­mate Action. […] 

“Sev­en judges, mostly from insti­tu­tion­al sus­tain­ab­il­ity back­grounds, assessed the sub­mis­sions. [They] based the cli­mate action decision on Car­damom Ten­ted Camp’s abil­ity to work with part­ners to pre­serve 180 sq km of low­land rain­forest in the Botum Sakor nation­al park in south­w­est Cambodia.”

Click here for a “GT” Part­ner mes­sage about Car­damom Ten­ted Camp.

250+ Thai tourism businesses train on sustainability, access European markets

“More than 250 Thai tour­ism pro­fes­sion­als joined the dynam­ic “Tourlink Thai Tour­ism Sup­pli­ers Train­ing: Tools towards a Suc­cess­ful and Sus­tain­able Future” in September.

“The train­ing brought togeth­er Thai tour­ism sup­pli­ers and com­munity enter­prises, across sec­tors, to raise their social and envir­on­ment­al per­form­ance while devel­op­ing their capa­city to reach more high-value European tourists […]

“A team of inter­na­tion­al and Thai organ­isa­tions — spe­cial­ists in sus­tain­able tour­ism — pooled their skills and exper­i­ence through the EU SWITCH-ASIA fun­ded Tourlink Pro­ject to deliv­er training …”

Click here for a “GT” sponsored post about the Tourlink Pro­ject.

Khiri Travel Thai­l­and read­ies for high sea­son
Khiri Travel Thai­l­and held its Khiri Academy in Octo­ber. It was two days of “recon­nect­ing, train­ing, team­build­ing and, of course, eat­ing and fun!” The Khiri Thai­l­and team are “ready to cre­ate great exper­i­ences for your cli­ents this high sea­son”. Face­book post.

ASSET‑H&C train­ers catch up in Viet­nam
Train­ers from across ASSET’s South­east Asi­an net­work gathered in Viet­nam for a DNA Work­shop co-organ­ised by ASSET‑H&C and IECD’s PROF pro­ject. The event aimed to assess the ped­ago­gic­al skills that train­ers had acquired over the past six months of DNA Train­ing. ASSET‑H&C on Face­book.

Train­ing day in Bangkok for Khiri Thai­l­and guides
Octo­ber 21 was tour guide train­ing day in Bangkok for Khiri Thai­l­and: “Keep­ing our guides up to speed with what’s new and also our latest sus­tain­ab­il­ity guidelines. A great fun morn­ing with lots of explor­ing, street food and cof­fee!” Khiri Travel on Linked­In.

Khiri Travel’s ‘Khiri Insider’ Septem­ber wrap
“All our des­tin­a­tions are now fully reopen for tour­ism and our region­al teams are ready to provide unique and mem­or­able exper­i­ences for your cli­ents, so please read and share our pas­sion for dis­cov­ery!” 

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The importance of good partnerships

To help you nav­ig­ate dire straits, take the tem­per­at­ure in an uncer­tain cli­mate, and keep your head when all about you are los­ing theirs, it’s wise to seek out part­ners who make you their pri­or­ity.

“GT” is a good part­ner. Veri­fy that with a “GT” Part­ner and then look at part­ner­ship oppor­tun­it­ies. There’s a pack­age for every­one — big or small; pub­lic or private; com­mer­cial or not-for-profit — because travel & tour­ism is everyone’s business. 

All “GT” Part­ners enjoy out­stand­ing value, includ­ing the oppor­tun­ity every week to con­trib­ute news to the “GT” news­let­ter and these monthly wraps.

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Friends indeed

“Friends indeed” are worthy travel & tour­ism industry fun­draisers and char­it­able causes that are asso­ci­ated with or sug­ges­ted by “GT” Part­ners and friends. Please help them if you can. Share the page with your net­works. And link to it from your website.

Stay healthy, smile, have a good month ahead … And when you travel, 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): Share good news in travel & tour­ism from Octo­ber 2022 as you would hot chips and sauce. Fries and ketch­up image by Pixzolo Pho­to­graphy (CC0) via Unsplash.

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Donations, diversity, disclosure

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! 

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 your ori­gin­al con­tent sup­ports an inde­pend­ent publisher.

Part­ner with “GT”. You know you want to. Here are some testi­mo­ni­als.

Note: It is “GT’s” policy to fully dis­close Part­ner or sponsored con­tent. If an item asso­ci­ated with a “GT” Part­ner is not dis­closed as such, then it either met the “GT” Insight guidelines (includ­ing “not a sales pitch”) or it was a simple oversight.