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 […]

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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 […]

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Khiri Travel to go carbon-neutral from January 2021


Little Home at Phu Langka National Park in Phayao Province, Thailand. Image supplied by Khiri Travel.

Khiri Travel is intro­du­cing com­pre­hens­ive off­set­ting pro­gram with Cli­mate­Care.  The DMC is also offer­ing new low emis­sions ‘slow travel’ hol­i­day options. Asi­an DMC Khiri Travel is on its way to becom­ing fully car­bon neut­ral.  As part of its approach to take respons­ib­il­ity for its impact on the envir­on­ment, Khiri Travel has partnered with cli­mate and […]

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Regenerative ecotourism: Asking questions is the best place to start

December 3, 2020
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Overland track, Tasmania Wilderness. Image by pen_ash (CC0) via Pixabay. https://pixabay.com/photos/overland-track-tasmania-wilderness-4111331/

“Ask­ing ques­tions is the best place to start,” Anna Pol­lock said dur­ing the after­noon of the third and final day of the 2020 Glob­al Eco Asia-Pacific Tour­ism Con­fer­ence. And she’s right, of course, yet no-one got the oppor­tun­ity to ask her any! Ms Pol­lock may be right about the bene­fit of ques­tions, but she’s obvi­ously not […]

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Re: Ecotourism

December 2, 2020

Valley of the Giants Tree Top Walk, Walpole, Western Australia. Image by Komkick (CC0) via pixabay. https://pixabay.com/photos/tree-top-walk-west-australia-forest-3847669/

Sev­er­al speak­ers con­sidered what eco­tour­ism might look like post-COV­­ID and explored “revolu­tion­ary” ideas dur­ing the second day of the 2020 Glob­al Eco Asia-Pacific Tour­ism Con­fer­ence. And, pre­dict­ably, there were lots of oth­er “re-” words ban­died about — Reset. Rethink. Redesign. Reflect. Reboot. Regen­er­ate. … — words bet­ter applied to the travel industry at large rather than the “eco-” niche; […]

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‘Not good enough. Move your … !’ Grit, honesty, hope, and how to survive a crisis

December 1, 2020
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Sandpaper in different grits (40, 80, 150, 240, 600) By Simon Eugster (CC BY-SA 3.0) via Wikimedia. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Schleifpapier_verschiedene_Sorten.jpg

Politi­cians and pub­lic ser­vants spruiked their respect­ive places and tax-pay­er-fun­­ded ini­ti­at­ives, and industry giants and glob­al con­sult­ants had their say, but it was the small entre­pren­eurs who were the most inspir­ing speak­ers on the first day of the 2020 Glob­al Eco Asia-Pacific Tour­ism Con­fer­ence. What mat­ters? Indeed Sonia Beck­with, co-own­er of Live Nin­ga­loo, had a […]

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