Darren

There are other ways companies like Virgin, GAP, explore etc all put things back in to the local community, just look or ask. Also do not forget the travel foundation (and other charity) donations when you book your holiday, it may on be a pound or two but that goes a long way. Another example is travel agents and Virgin recently helped to build a school in Kenya.

Everybody can do there bit without to much hassle.

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Airlines need to be more responsible as well. All this stuff about being responsible and saving the planet is fine, but then…… we read of Aer Lingus going head to head with Easyjet at Gatport Airwick. So, stuff ecology, let’s have a price war. Let’s fly half empty, empty, even, planes with people paying 45p a pop (or whatever) and see who can last the longest. We know that any given route will only support one low cost carrier, so what is going on here?
It is totally and utterly pointless my saving and your saving 20kilos of CO2 if these egits are going to blast out 100′s of times that amount trying to prove a point. It is no good Virgin planting squirrels in Albania or opening schools in Kenya and “putting something back”, if the amount taken out is so astronomic. Virgin would be better off, simply , to stop flying empty aeroplanes about the place and for (all) airlines consolidate their loads and sort something out along those lines.
The Galpagos are very good at controlling things. Visitor numbers are strictly limited (have been for quite some time) you can only go to certain places at certain times and they manage to do a very good job without a load of people telling them how. That said, the Galapagos suffer from our generally screwing up the place. Look at Club Med, for another example, most of their clubs import most of their staff, save for the menial workers and make sure that their guest stay as much as possible within the facility – at least when they are spending their money. Why are people going from here, wasting CO2, to build schools in Sri Lanka? Sri Lankan people are capable and have a civilisation which, I believe, is older than ours. Why not just let them have the funds and let them build their own schools? Is this a “guilt” thing? Sri Lankans are not backward.
We can be responsible by taking our holidays here in the UK. Why not? This directly help the local economy (and the national ecnomy) does not involve much air travel and if one takes the train is ecologically sound, save for electricity generation. Overseas holidays could be made to reflect the true cost of the holiday and carry a large levy, which could be given to local communities for them to help themselves….
As long as this sort of fantasy world that we and many outfits live in remains and as long as the maxim “money talks, merit walks” holds, frankly you and I may as well keep driving around the place in our (proverbial) Hummers.

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Darren – all good points. The “support local” idea is so widely broadcast in books, websites, blogs etc that it still confuses me why most don’t seem to get that message. In places with great food, people will pay MORE to eat at McDonalds which they could do any day of the week back home.

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I totally agree with all your points except the last, which I think is unrealistic. Hotels want to make money and if tourists look down their nose at local food and culture, they will find ways to cater to these small-minded tourist interests. I have been in situations where I’ve had to beg to hear reggae and not American Top 40 in Jamaica and had to demand a sampling of Costa Rican cuisine in a Costa Rican hotel. This is because many tourists are afraid to step out of their comfort zones and hotels aren’t going to force them. I think the key is for locals to realize the value of their culture more. There will always be people who only want to eat at KFC or Mc’Donald’s but for the people who don’t, local businesses should strive to provide some sort of authentic cultural representation, whether it be food, music or art. They don’t have to stop serving English breakfasts( I have been in Antigua when a horde of English tourists were livid when the hotel ran out of kippers and it was not pretty) but they can also serve native foods on certain days as well. That way, different types of tourists get catered to and the chance that the fast food fan might sample something different is greater than if they feel forced to.

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Darren, there’s not one thing here I don’t agree with. It’s all very well said, too. Bravo.

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I’m so glad you’re blogging on this topic! Like Fly Girl, I think the last one is kind of unrealistic, as these are folks just trying to respond to what the consumers want in order to make a living, and if they don’t offer it, someone else will. But everything else is solid. We have to be better stewards of the places we visit. I’m a huge fan of “voluntourism” and another great website for volunteer trips is voluntourism.org. Thanks for bringing this discussion up!

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I was watching a program on the Discover Channel this weekend and it touched upon how the tourism is impacting the Galapagos and it made me question whether or not I should second guess wanting to visit there because it would mean that I was contributing.

These tips are reassuring that there are ways to travel responsibly, anywhere. They are also something to think about when you are not traveling and in your hometown.

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Darren,
many many years ago my father was involved with Vic Fatah when he launched Sunmed Holidays who were one of the pioneers using Dan Air to get the more discerning British holiday maker out to the Greek Islands.

I can remember sitting in a rustic taverna alongside a truly deserted sand beach in Laganas, Zakynthos listening to my Dad and Vic debate whether a couple of flights a week could ever spoil the islands. Looking around us we couldn’t conceive of how other than a few more villas and hotels being built here and there, how anything could really change. How wrong could we be?

However carefully it is managed, tourism will destroy local culture. There is no such thing as responsible tourism – you can try and control impact on the environment, but you can only try and minimise the damage for damage there most surely will be. The Greeks have been trying to protect the Turtles that once covered Laganas beach during the nesting season – despite best efforts there are but a handful remaining.

Damage from tourism is inevitable and it is just pie in the sky thinking that local culture and landscapes will remain unaffected. The world changes and no amount of responsible tourism guidelines can change that truth – as a species we always want more for less, which is why McDonalds prosper even in places where we are suppossed to know better.

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Hi Darren,

Great post – and fantastic sentiments. NGT wholeheartedly supports all of those ideals and more, and there are a few reference points for others who want to be more thoughtful travelers.

National Geographic’s Center for Sustainable Destinations has been working with the international community to create a Geotourism Charter to promote best practices for the tourism industry – and for travelers as well. You can learn more about it here and look through their site for some other great resources on sustainable travel. http://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/sustainable/about_geotourism.html

And Traveler mag put out a list of 50 ways to travel sustainably – some of which you’ve already mentioned, but a lot of other great ideas as well:

http://traveler.nationalgeographic.com/sustainable-travel-tips

It’s important to do our utmost to make the travel experience beneficial to all involved!

Janelle

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Joining this debate rather late, but I’m sure people are still reading! Great points and I would like to add a couple:

1: Having worked at first hand in Sri Lanka for a year following the tsunami I’m afraid that I am very dubious as to the merits of ‘voluntourism’. I worked for a charity set up in the wake of the tsunami and we handled a massive donation from the travel industry which financed the re-building of a nursery which is running strong to this day. Excellent work from the travel industry which got little publicity. It was financed entirely out of customers booking holidays. Volunteering is a great idea but in principle it often involves pretty much ‘fake’ work – with huge margins for the company involved. By ‘fake’ work I mean work that has been repeated over again (unfortunately very common at least in Sri Lanka), or labour type work that could be done far more cheaply and effectively by a local. Consider this: a days labour costs around £2.50 in Sri Lanka. A labourer would be glad of the work and it would put the money into the local economy. A tourist might feel good about doing the work, but would they really be contributing more than a £2.50 donation? I doubt it. The work can often be counter productive as it can build resentment among locals too – when they find out what people have paid to do these ‘tours’. I could go on – but some other time…. My point is that you need to add skills that can genuinely make a difference.
Also if you ask locals they tend to appreciate tourists coming and spending money in the normal way, but are deeply sceptical of volunteers (certainly true in Sri Lanka anyway). It sounds counter-intuitive, but I really think this is true.

One way to contribute though is by teaching English (a skill most if us can impart) or bringing your profession skills to bear. Look very very carefully at the company/charity you use. I know of stependous (in travel industry terms) mark-ups being made. Two excellent companies to look at are: http://www.vesl.org and http://www.skillsventure.com.. You will notice that these projects are medium to longer term. In my experience it has to be a longer term project on the whole – unless you have a very specific skill set.

My second point concerns cheap holidays. Some of the bigger companies are able to use their strength to leverage incredibly cheap package prices from their local partners. To be my certain knowledge (again in Sri Lanka) the local companies make most, if not all, of their profit by concentrating on commission revenue from tourist purchases. This has the affect of disenfranchising locals from the tourist model – as they see the money come in into the area – but see little or none of it, as the tourists are herded towards certain approved shops, the hotel takes their cut and the larger profits are made by the international tour operators. Very little money ‘trickles down’ to the local community – which is disproportionately affected by the social problems tourism can bring.

Book with smaller operators that work equitably with local companies and if you do use a large package operator – really try and get out and about – move around the country and spend money in local shops and restaurants as much as possible. Go independently, move around and explore both you and the host country will gain much more from your visit.

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