10th annual Rwandan cultural festival to coincide with gorilla naming ceremony


Rwandan mountain gorilla

The 10th Red Rocks Cul­tur­al Fest­iv­al comes to Musan­ze dis­trict, Rwanda, August 26-Septem­ber 2, 2022, coin­cid­ing with the Kwita Izina gor­illa nam­ing cere­mony on the slopes of Vir­unga Moun­tain. Red Rocks Cul­tur­al Cen­ter will host the event at its premises in Nyak­i­n­ama vil­lage, Musan­ze dis­trict, Rwanda with addi­tion­al cel­eb­ra­tions in nearby Mukung­wa town and Kinigi, […]

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Open letter to UNWTO, UNEP, UNFCCC, and Glasgow tourism climate action signatories


Glasgow Declaration: Climate Action in Tourism

First pub­lished on “Good Tour­ism” Part­ner SUNx Malta’s web­site, this is an open let­ter from SUNx to the heads of UNWTO, UNEP, UNFCCC, and the sig­nat­or­ies of the Glas­gow Declar­a­tion: Cli­mate Action in Tour­ism: With sup­port from the Gov­ern­ment of Malta, we have set up a glob­al Cli­mate Friendly Travel (CFT) frame­work to sup­port climate […]

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“GT” Insight Bites: Diverse perspectives on travel & tourism and a fairer world

August 9, 2022

Fair fun for some. There are diverse perspectives on how travel & tourism can contribute to a fairer world. Photo by sebastien cordat via Unsplash https://unsplash.com/photos/ZGOlXxJz1dM

How can travel & tour­ism con­trib­ute to a fairer world? For this “GT” Insight Bites, your cor­res­pond­ent put the ques­tion above to a range of travel & tour­ism stake­hold­ers, and invited writ­ten responses of up to 300 words.  My thanks to all 15 respond­ents.  Their answers appear in the order in which I received them … […]

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Buddhist travel & tourism trails offer post-pandemic potential in Mekong

August 2, 2022

Almsgiving in Luang Prabang, Laos. By Daniel Marchal (CC0) via Unsplash. https://unsplash.com/photos/f2d6hc6gVco

Not­ing that themed travel & tour­ism niches have been a grow­ing trend for at least two dec­ades, vet­er­an pub­lish­er Jaf­fee Yee has iden­ti­fied the poten­tial for the Mekong-region nations of South­east Asia to tap their rich Buddhist her­it­age to attract and dis­perse a large region­al and glob­al mar­ket.  Twenty years ago, to explain why he […]

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Travel & tourism degrowth to what end? Relationships that matter

July 26, 2022

Degrowth is about relationships that matter. Image by Sasin Tipchai (CC0) via Pixabay. https://pixabay.com/photos/grandmother-kids-laptop-myanmar-1822560/

‘Tour­ism degrowth’ is viewed sus­pi­ciously by some as a con­spir­acy to tear down cap­it­al­ism and vastly reduce travel.  Accord­ing to Tazim Jamal, how­ever, tour­ism degrowth is much more about fos­ter­ing heal­ing and nur­tur­ing rela­tion­ships with people and our plan­et. And she thinks that we should tran­scend labels and divi­sions. Between 2009 and 2019, real growth […]

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Award-winning Anurak ecotourism experience reopens in southern Thailand


Bamboo rafting is an activity available at Anurak Community Lodge in southern Thailand

Anurak Com­munity Lodge, an award-win­n­ing eco­tour­ism exper­i­ence in south­ern Thai­l­and, has fully reopened fol­low­ing two years of COV­­ID-related uncer­tainty.  The 19-unit nature retreat, which won the PATA Grand Award for Sus­tain­ab­il­ity in 2020, and is Trav­elife Gold cer­ti­fied, offi­cially reopens 1 August with room enhance­ments, a refreshed food and bever­age menu – includ­ing south­ern ‘jungle’ […]

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