“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.

Travel & tourism’s social impact and how to build back better for animals

December 17, 2020
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Toucan. By ractapopulous (CC0) via Pixabay. https://pixabay.com/illustrations/toucan-bird-animal-art-nature-2411792/

As the “build back bet­ter” buzz con­tin­ues, social impact and com­mu­nic­a­tions spe­cial­ist Helen Ush­er wants travel & tour­ism stake­hold­ers to factor anim­al wel­fare into their plans. In this “Good Tour­ism” Insight Ms Ush­er sug­gests how we might do just that. This is a time of unpre­ced­en­ted glob­al crisis for the tour­ism sec­tor; a time we switch […]

Read More Travel & tourism’s social impact and how to build back better for animals

Why are travel & tourism workers growing mushrooms in rural Sri Lanka?

December 10, 2020
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Oyster mushroom abstraction. Image (CC0) via Pikrepo.

Susan Eardly and Dinesh Pathir­ana are empower­ing rur­al Sri Lankan fam­il­ies pre­vi­ously reli­ant on tour­ism income to devel­op sus­tain­able busi­nesses. In this “Good Tour­ism” Insight, Ms Eardly dis­cusses funguses and answers the ques­tion: “Why fungi?”  (Thanks to “GT” Friend Richard Shep­ard for the intro­duc­tion.) Sri Lanka, the trop­ic­al island set like a pearl in the Indian […]

Read More Why are travel & tourism workers growing mushrooms in rural Sri Lanka?

Overtourism to no tourism and back again: What is Lake Tahoe’s ‘new normal’?

December 8, 2020
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Sunset over Lake Tahoe. Image by Rachid Dahnoun / Lake Tahoe Visitors Authority

Lake Tahoe, USA lived through the sud­den over­­­tour­ism-to-no-tour­ism with­draw­al exper­i­enced by many pop­u­lar des­tin­a­tions in 2020. The area also had to endure a wrench­ing return to over­tour­ism as city-slick­­ers rushed to get their nature fix after COVID lock­down. In this “Good Tour­ism” Insight, Lake Tahoe Vis­it­ors Author­ity boss Car­ol Chap­lin out­lines the crazy jour­ney before […]

Read More Overtourism to no tourism and back again: What is Lake Tahoe’s ‘new normal’?

With sustainable aviation fuel, is a new era of green air travel possible by 2025?

November 24, 2020

Image by 12659751 (CC0) via Pixabay https://pixabay.com/photos/plane-city-architecture-airplane-4245416/

Neville Har­greaves is work­ing at tech­no­logy firm Velo­cys on turn­ing every­day waste into jet fuel at a com­mer­cial scale. In this “Good Tour­ism” Insight, Dr Har­greaves explains why he thinks sus­tain­able avi­ation fuel is the only real­ist­ic near-term solu­tion to air travel’s cli­mate quandary. The ongo­ing impact of COVID-19 has been debil­it­at­ing, but it has […]

Read More With sustainable aviation fuel, is a new era of green air travel possible by 2025?

How will rural tourism in India survive the COVID crisis?

November 17, 2020
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India tea plantation. By 12019 (CC0) via Pixabay. https://pixabay.com/photos/tea-plantation-landscape-scenic-2220475/

Social entre­pren­eur Kumar Anubhav writes about the exist­en­tial prob­lems facing rur­al tour­ism stake­hold­ers in India, and the sur­viv­al and sus­tain­ab­il­ity solu­tion he and his friends are rolling out as Pro­ject TraViv­al; the sub­ject of this “Good Tour­ism” Insight. COVID-19 has not only changed the way we work, live, and think, but it has also changed […]

Read More How will rural tourism in India survive the COVID crisis?

A community-based tourism dilemma: COVID’s ‘new normal’ vs ‘back to normal’

November 10, 2020

Community-based tourism Myanmar. "CBT. Visit Myanmar. Visit Dawei."

Skål recently recog­nised the Inter­na­tion­al Trade Centre’s Myan­mar Inclus­ive Tour­ism Pro­ject with a sus­tain­able tour­ism award. In this “Good Tour­ism” Insight, Pro­ject con­sult­ant Peter Richards describes the pre-pan­­dem­ic prom­ise of new com­munity-based tour­ism products, their chal­lenges now, and how com­munit­ies are hand­ling COVID safety con­cerns as they con­sider reopen­ing.  At the start of 2020, the […]

Read More A community-based tourism dilemma: COVID’s ‘new normal’ vs ‘back to normal’