“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.

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 […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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Pivots to make a difference: What ITA is doing to educate, inspire, satiate

July 10, 2020

As we navigate our way through a tunnel of trouble, how can we pivot and position ourselves with grace and with style to make a difference at the other end? Image (c) Kelley Louise.

A travel entre­pren­eur pas­sion­ate about storytelling and social good, Kel­ley Louise is the exec­ut­ive dir­ect­or and founder of Impact Travel Alli­ance, a com­munity for eco- and socially-con­­s­cious trav­el­lers. In this “Good Tour­ism” Insight, Kel­ley tells us how the not-for-profit is mak­ing the best of chal­len­ging times to edu­cate trav­el­lers. Thanks to “GT” Insight Part­ner Second […]

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