“Good Tourism” Insights

Dancers, singers, and drummers from a local women’s cooperative welcome visitors to the Red Rocks Cultural Center in Nyakinama village, Rwanda. Pic by David Gillbanks.

Dan­cers, sing­ers, and drum­mers from a loc­al women’s cooper­at­ive wel­come vis­it­ors to the Red Rocks Cul­tur­al Cen­ter in Nyak­i­n­ama vil­lage, Rwanda. Pic by Dav­id Gillbanks.

“Good Tour­ism” Insights are ori­gin­al posts by aca­dem­ics, experts, and prac­ti­tion­ers who are keen to share their sus­tain­able tour­ism and respons­ible tour­ism insights, expert­ise, and exper­i­ences, in plain Eng­lish, for the bene­fit of all travel & tour­ism stakeholders.

Each “GT” Insight rep­res­ents the opin­ion of its author, NOT neces­sar­ily the opin­ion of The “Good Tour­ism” Blog, its Part­ners, or its pub­lish­er. The “Good Tour­ism” Blog neither pays nor is paid for any “GT” Insight. 

Any­one with an informed and sin­cerely-held opin­ion about travel & tour­ism is wel­come to sub­mit a “GT” Insight for pub­lic­a­tion. The “GT” Insight guidelines are very simple.

Where is the line between cultural explorer and voyeur? The ‘Batwa Experience’

April 25, 2023

Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, Uganda, where the Batwa once lived. Image courtesy Nomadic Skies

Where is the line between cul­tur­al explor­a­tion and exploit­at­ive voyeur­ism while trav­el­ling among indi­gen­ous peoples?  In this “Good Tour­ism” Insight, Gav­in Ander­son explores the danger and prom­ise of travel & tour­is­m’s involve­ment with indi­gen­ous people through the lens of his recent work with the Bat­wa of south­w­est Uganda. I first met the Bat­wa, the indigenous […]

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Posted in Insights & Best Practices, "Good Tourism" in Africa, "Good Tourism" in Uganda, "GT" Destinations & Places
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Why travel & tourism content marketing? Efficient and effective if target-oriented

and April 19, 2023

Tourism content marketing hit or miss? Image by 15299 (CC0) via Pixabay. https://pixabay.com/photos/dart-board-game-dartboard-aim-102880/

Travel & tour­ism con­tent mar­ket­ing may be an under­val­ued and poorly used ele­ment in the stra­tegic mar­ket­ing mix; par­tic­u­larly among des­tin­a­tions that want to increase the ‘qual­ity’ and ‘yield’ of their vis­it­ors, and private-sec­t­or stake­hold­ers who claim they don’t have the time or resources for it. In this “Good Tour­ism” Insight, Zohreh Khos­ravi and Dav­id Gillbanks […]

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Posted in Insights & Best Practices
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Mass tourism in Venice: Are city officials overreacting?

April 11, 2023

Mass tourism in Venice. Overtourism overreaction? Image by Alex B (CC0) via Pixabay. https://pixabay.com/users/mcsmandalas-1918387/

Tour­ists should be wel­comed and cel­eb­rated but in Venice they are facing rejec­tion and even crim­in­al­isa­tion, accord­ing to long-time Ven­eto res­id­ent Domin­ic Standish. Are city offi­cials over­re­act­ing to legit­im­ate con­cerns about mass tour­ism in Venice? And how might they man­age tour­ism bet­ter? It’s a “Good Tour­ism” Insight ini­ti­ated by Tourism’s Hori­zon, a “GT” Insight Part­ner. [You […]

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Posted in Insights & Best Practices, "Good Tourism" in Europe, "Good Tourism" in Italy, "GT" Destinations & Places
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Language skills in tourism: Why the Anglosphere needs to appreciate them

and April 5, 2023

Language skills in tourism Why the Anglosphere needs to value them higher Image by Towfiqu barbhuiya (CC0) via Unsplash. https://unsplash.com/@towfiqu999999

The import­ance of lan­guages is uni­ver­sal.  How­ever, in nat­ive Eng­l­ish-speak­­ing coun­tries such as the United King­dom, lan­guage edu­ca­tion has been neg­lected.  This has implic­a­tions for the inbound travel, tour­ism, and hos­pit­al­ity indus­tries and their work­ers, accord­ing to Kar­en Thomas and Jim Butcher. Dr Thomas was the lead research­er for a study on the top­ic. Drs Thomas […]

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Posted in "GT" Destinations & Places, 'Tourism's Horizon: Travel for the Millions' book, "Good Tourism" in Europe, "Good Tourism" in the United Kingdom, Insights & Best Practices
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What ‘good tourism’ needs: Listening, learning, leading

March 28, 2023

What's 'good tourism'? Image by FLY:D (CC0) via Unsplash. https://unsplash.com/@flyd2069

K Michael Hay­wood won­ders what the sub­ject­ive notion of ‘good tour­ism’ is, or could be, and how it might be achieved.  The ‘good’ in ‘good tour­ism’ rep­res­ents the search for that which is desir­able and deserving of esteem and respect. It sug­gests that tour­ism activ­it­ies be appro­pri­ate with­in future-ready soci­et­al, loc­a­tion­al, cul­tur­al, and oper­a­tion­al contexts. […]

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Tourist vs traveller: What’s the difference?

March 22, 2023

Tourist vs traveller: What's the difference? Image (CC0) by Jan Vašek via Pixabay. https://pixabay.com/users/jeshoots-com-264599/

What is the dif­fer­ence between a tour­ist and a trav­el­ler?  How do the beha­viours and atti­tudes of tour­ists dif­fer from those of trav­el­lers when inter­act­ing with people and places? Your cor­res­pond­ent put these tour­ist vs trav­el­ler ques­tions to “GT’s” diverse net­work of travel & tour­ism stake­hold­ers — “GT” Insight authors, “GT” Part­ners, and their invit­ees — and invited emailed […]

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Posted in Insights & Best Practices, Insight Bites
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