Responsible travel & tourism

Scroll down for posts that have been tagged with “respons­ible travel & tourism”.

Respons­ible travel is “con­duc­ted in such a man­ner as to not harm or degrade the cul­tur­al or nat­ur­al envir­on­ment of the places vis­ited”, accord­ing to Travel-Industry-Dictionary.comRespons­ible tour­ism is “mak­ing bet­ter places for people to live in and bet­ter places for people to vis­it”, sug­gests the Respons­ible Tour­ism Part­ner­ship.

Respons­ible tour­ism and respons­ible travel are approaches to tour­ism that pri­or­it­ise sus­tain­ab­il­ity, eth­ic­al prac­tices, and social respons­ib­il­ity. These types of tour­ism aim to min­im­ise neg­at­ive impacts on the envir­on­ment and loc­al com­munit­ies and max­im­ise pos­it­ive out­comes for all involved.

Respons­ible tour­ism and respons­ible travel can take many forms, includ­ing eco­tour­ism, cul­tur­al tour­ism, and volun­teer tour­ism. These types of tour­ism often involve close engage­ment with loc­al com­munit­ies, respect­ing loc­al cul­tures, and sup­port­ing loc­al busi­nesses and con­ser­va­tion efforts.

In recent years, respons­ible tour­ism and respons­ible travel have gained pop­ular­ity among trav­el­lers seek­ing mean­ing­ful exper­i­ences that have a pos­it­ive impact. How­ever, it is essen­tial for trav­el­lers to do their research to choose reli­ably respons­ible tour­ism options that align with their values.

“GT” tends to (though prob­ably incon­sist­ently) apply the respons­ible travel & tour­ism tag where the con­tent dis­cusses the respons­ib­il­ity of the trav­el­ler or tour­ist rather than the sup­ply-side stake­hold­er. There is of course plenty of con­tent (and tags) that address the respons­ib­il­ity of the travel & tour­ism industry to do no harm and make things bet­ter; tags such as “sus­tain­able tour­ism and regen­er­at­ive tour­ism” for example.

Tags are inform­al. The “Good Tour­ism” Blog tries not to get bogged down with ter­min­o­logy and defin­i­tions. If you dis­agree with tags applied (or not applied) to a post, feel free to com­ment on it or any post you think has been incor­rectly or insuf­fi­ciently tagged. “GT” encour­ages good-faith debate and discussion.

Khiri Reach commits to One Million Trees reforestation project in Cambodia


Khiri Reach, the 16-year old charitable arm of Khiri Travel, has joined Wildlife Alliance’s ambitious long-term One Million Trees initiative to reforest illegally cleared land in Cambodia’s Cardamom Mountains.

Khiri Reach, the 16-year old char­it­able arm of Khiri Travel, has joined Wild­life Alliance’s ambi­tious long-term One Mil­lion Trees ini­ti­at­ive to refor­est illeg­ally cleared land in Cambodia’s Car­damom Moun­tains. Khiri Reach has donated US$15,000 to the One Mil­lion Trees refor­est­a­tion pro­ject in the Koh Kong and Sihan­ouk­ville provinces of Cam­bod­ia. The char­ity has pledged to […]

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Purposeful travel by design: Can tourism lead the way to a sustainable future?

August 30, 2023

Promoting travel with purpose: How the tourism industry can shape a sustainable future. A welcome at Barauli Community Homestay.

Aay­usha Pra­sain lays out her vis­ion for pur­pose­ful travel and why the tour­ism industry should lead by example. It’s a “Good Tour­ism” Insight. (You too can write a “GT” Insight.) Pur­pose­ful travel involves more than just the joy of explor­a­tion.  It encom­passes a mind­ful approach that pre­serves the envir­on­ment, empowers loc­al com­munit­ies, pro­motes eth­ic­al practices, […]

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Tourist vs traveller: What’s the difference?

March 22, 2023

Tourist vs traveller: What's the difference? Image (CC0) by Jan Vašek via Pixabay. https://pixabay.com/users/jeshoots-com-264599/

What is the dif­fer­ence between a tour­ist and a trav­el­ler?  How do the beha­viours and atti­tudes of tour­ists dif­fer from those of trav­el­lers when inter­act­ing with people and places? Your cor­res­pond­ent put these tour­ist vs trav­el­ler ques­tions to “GT’s” diverse net­work of travel & tour­ism stake­hold­ers — “GT” Insight authors, “GT” Part­ners, and their invit­ees — and invited emailed […]

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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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How to do tourism responsibly in the Faroe Islands


Faroe Islands sheep by Rav_ (CC0) via Pixabay. https://pixabay.com/photos/foroyar-faroe-islands-sheep-1402519/

Any­one seek­ing new ter­rit­ory to explore, send guests to, or expand into should heed the com­munity’s atti­tudes to vis­it­ors and its expect­a­tions of inbound travel & tour­ism.  As part of his post­gradu­ate stud­ies, Saverio Francesco Ber­to­lu­cci under­took research in the remote Faroe Islands to find out what loc­als think about tour­ists and our industry.  It’s […]

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55 ways tourism can be friendlier to the environment: An ‘Eco-Guide’


Picture collage of students at ASSET-H&C member institutions

“Good Tour­ism” Insight Part­ner ASSET‑H&C has pub­lished the free Eco-Guide for Hos­pit­al­ity Busi­nesses and Schools, which lays out 55 tips for redu­cing tour­is­m’s neg­at­ive effects on the envir­on­ment. Soph­ie Hart­man, Nguyễn Thị Thu Thảo, and Võ Thị Quế Chi describe the why, the how, and a few of the what in this “GT” Insight.  [Scroll […]

Read More 55 ways tourism can be friendlier to the environment: An ‘Eco-Guide’