“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.

As we build back better, is sustainable tourism enough to regenerate nature?

September 8, 2020

Elephants and the community (c. Mahouts Elephant Foundation)

Sus­tain­able tour­ism is a com­plex puzzle with lots of mov­ing parts. Toss in regen­er­at­ive prin­ciples and it becomes even more con­found­ing. For­tu­nately there are those who think deeply about import­ant parts of the puzzle, such as anim­al wel­fare con­sult­ant Daniel Turn­er of ANIMONDIAL. In this “Good Tour­ism” Insight, Mr Turn­er shares how our industry might […]

Read More As we build back better, is sustainable tourism enough to regenerate nature?

Footprints: What does it mean for travel & tourism to be carbon neutral?

September 1, 2020

Kids leave footprints in the sand as they walk along the beach. https://www.pxfuel.com/en/free-photo-oecjf

Car­bon neut­ral travel & tour­ism. Net-zero travel. Zero-car­­bon tour­ism. Car­bon footprint(s). Foot­print size. Foot­print depth.  Be care­ful where you step for the whole land­scape is a poten­tial mine­field … loc­ally, nation­ally, and glob­ally … as we nav­ig­ate cli­mate and cli­mate change. Kev­in Phun of “GT” Part­ner the Centre for Respons­ible Tour­ism Singa­pore care­fully touches on all […]

Read More Footprints: What does it mean for travel & tourism to be carbon neutral?

Don’t panic: Opportunity, ingenuity will give us climate-friendly travel, tourism

August 29, 2020
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Don’t panic: Opportunity & ingenuity will give us climate-friendly travel & tourism

“Tour­ism is itself one of the won­ders of the world,” United Nations’ big boss António Guterres said as he extolled the vir­tues of our industry. That’s the good news.  How­ever, as the UN World Tour­ism Organ­iz­a­tion (UNWTO) warned that between 100 mil­lion and 120 mil­lion dir­ect tour­ism jobs are at risk right now, the UN secretary-general […]

Read More Don’t panic: Opportunity, ingenuity will give us climate-friendly travel, tourism

How tourism averts disaster: By thinking, acting globally

August 11, 2020
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"Danger cliff edge" sign on a windswept grassy landscape. How does tourism avert disaster?

Tan­ner C Knorr is wor­ried. He’s wor­ried for travel & tour­ism-reli­ant parts of the world he thinks may be headed for a cliff’s edge, includ­ing places he knows very well. In this “GT” Insight, the founder of two “GT” part­ners sug­gests how the whole world might pull togeth­er to avert dis­aster. When COVID-19 hit I […]

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Regenerative tourism vs sustainable tourism: What’s the difference?

and August 4, 2020
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An unfurling silver fern frond, New Zealand. By Jon Radoff (CC BY 2.5) via Wikimedia. https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1380624 The koru (Māori for '"loop or coil"') symbolises "new life, growth, strength and peace"; "conveys the idea of perpetual movement" while the inner coil "suggests returning to the point of origin".

For this “GT” Insight, Susanne Beck­en and Dav­id Gill­banks cor­res­pond to explore some of the sim­il­ar­it­ies and dif­fer­ences between the new buzz phrase “regen­er­at­ive tour­ism” and the old buzz term “sus­tain­able tour­ism”. DG: In a recent piece for News­room you wrote: “The very basic under­pin­ning of regen­er­at­ive tour­ism is that it is under­stood to occur […]

Read More Regenerative tourism vs sustainable tourism: What’s the difference?

Why tourism degrowth just won’t do after COVID-19

July 14, 2020
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"The Only Sustainable Growth is Degrowth", according to this stencil graffito. Paul Sableman (CC BY 2.0) via Flickr. "GT" ran a filter. https://www.flickr.com/photos/pasa/14486751845

Among tour­ism aca­dem­ics and thinkers today — the out­spoken ones at least — Jim Butcher is one of the few who would chal­lenge the notion that post-pan­­dem­ic tour­ism must — for the sake of the plan­et — be much dimin­ished from what it was. He does just that in this “Good Tour­ism” Insight.  In light of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, much has been said […]

Read More Why tourism degrowth just won’t do after COVID-19