“Good Tourism” news & events

Enjoy “GT’s” monthly “Good news in tour­ism” posts, which sum­mar­ise a month’s worth of “GT” Insights, “GT” Travel, “GT” Part­ner news, and your comments.

Also find here Partner/Sponsor mes­sages from The “Good Tour­ism” Blo­g’s Part­ners and friends plus cov­er­age of travel & tour­ism industry events to which “GT” is invited or oth­er­wise involved. Ad hoc sponsored news posts are also very welcome.

“GT” retired its weekly “Good news in tour­ism” posts in April 2021. The weekly posts fea­tured brief sum­mar­ies of and links to pos­it­ive industry news from off-piste sources. Before Decem­ber 2019, “GT” would sum­mar­ise under-repor­ted news stor­ies or thought-pro­vok­ing fea­ture art­icles by non-industry media. The sources were well-attrib­uted and linked. Any con­tent “GT” repub­lished in full was avail­able for that pur­pose from the likes of The Con­ver­sa­tion and Thom­son Reu­ters Found­a­tion.

Minister raises racism at South Africa Tourism Month launch

July 31, 2017

South Africa tourism minister raised racism at tourism month launch. Meanwhile, the many races of South Africa are represented in the Nelson Mandela University Choir. Source: GovernmentZA https://www.flickr.com/photos/governmentza/35872724332/

An hol­ist­ic focus on the socioeco­nom­ic bene­fits of tour­ism to com­munit­ies is at the heart of South Africa Tour­ism Month, Septem­ber 2017, which was launched last week. “This is why it is so vital to encour­age South Afric­ans to travel around their own coun­try,” South Africa Min­is­ter of Tour­ism Tokoz­ile Xasa said. “Not only will they […]

Read More Minister raises racism at South Africa Tourism Month launch

Caribbean tourism, fishing, farming bears brunt of climate change: CCCCC


Caribbean tourism climate change. Hurricane Felix

Small Carib­bean islands risk los­ing their entire way of life unless they urgently strengthen defences against a raft of future dis­asters, accord­ing to Ulric Trotz, deputy dir­ect­or at the Carib­bean Com­munity Cli­mate Change Centre (CCCCC). Fish­ing and farm­ing com­munit­ies liv­ing in coastal areas as well the tour­ism industry, which is vital for Carib­bean eco­nom­ies, often […]

Read More Caribbean tourism, fishing, farming bears brunt of climate change: CCCCC

Collective action, data are main challenges to fighting child sex tourism

July 29, 2017

global child sex tourism study

Fail­ure of col­lect­ive action and a chron­ic lack of robust data con­sti­tute the main chal­lenges to elim­in­ate child sex tour­ism accord­ing to Offend­ers on the Move: Glob­al Study on Sexu­al Exploit­a­tion of Chil­dren in Travel & Tour­ism 2016. Two weeks ago, the United Nations World Tour­ism Organ­iz­a­tion (UNWTO) HQ in Mad­rid hos­ted a “trans­ition meeting […]

Read More Collective action, data are main challenges to fighting child sex tourism

Hotels train staff to read signs of modern slavery


modern slavery hotels. Old-school room keys.

Adult guests who check in with a child, repeat cash book­ings, or late check-ins without lug­gage could all be signs of mod­ern slavery under guid­ance newly issued to staff at a Brit­ish hotel chain. The 400 staff at Shiva hotels — from recep­tion­ists to human resources staff to clean­ers — will be trained as part of a com­pany-wide cam­paign to […]

Read More Hotels train staff to read signs of modern slavery

Is orphanage tourism a form of modern slavery?

July 21, 2017

Orphanage tourism and slavery. Tonle Sap, Siem Reap, Cambodia: A little girl making money for her family by posing with a snake in a water village of Tonle Sap Lake. Source: CEphoto, Uwe Aranas https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Cccefalon via Wikimedia https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tonle_Sap_Siem_Reap_Cambodia_Girl-begging-for-money-with-snake-01.jpg

Many travel & tour­ism pro­fes­sion­als are com­ing to believe that orphan­age tour­ism is at best a prob­lem­at­ic means to gen­er­ate income to sup­port chil­dren; at worst a form of mod­ern slavery. Slavery!? Mod­ern slavery is widely prac­ticed in the tour­ism sup­ply chain of devel­op­ing coun­tries, accord­ing to Aus­trali­an aca­dem­ics Joseph M. Cheer, Kent Goldsworthy, Leigh […]

Read More Is orphanage tourism a form of modern slavery?

Cambodia vows to expand & improve community-based ecotourism services

July 20, 2017

Cambodia community-based ecotourism. Cambodia hard work in the rice paddies. Kevin Evans/AusAID, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ACambodia_-_Working_in_the_rice_paddies_(10678730813).jpg

An inter-min­is­­ter­i­al work­ing group has vowed to expand and improve Cambodia’s com­munity-based eco­tour­ism ser­vices, reports Khmer Times. Tour­ism Min­is­ter Thong Khon said there are about 2,000 fish­ing and forest com­munit­ies nation­wide, but only a few are serving the tour­ism sec­tor. “Some areas are try­ing but are not run­ning prop­er tour­ism ser­vices, while we think there […]

Read More Cambodia vows to expand & improve community-based ecotourism services