Posts by: Jeremy Smith

Jeremy Smith

Jeremy Smith is a writer, speaker and sustainable tourism consultant. He is co-founder of Tourism Declares a Climate Emergency, an initiative that supports tourism organisations in declaring a climate emergency and working together to reduce their carbon emissions in line with the Science Based Targets. He is the author of Transforming Travel - realising the potential of sustainable tourism (2018), and co-founder of Travindy.com, the travel industry sustainable tourism website news site. He consults widely on sustainable tourism strategy and communication, with recent clients including Bruges Ommeland, GSTC, English National Parks, Tripadvisor, the Travel Foundation, and the European Travel Commission. He is a member of Travalyst’s Independent Advisory Board and was a member of Rotterdam’s International Advisory Board in 2019, helping develop a new vision for the city’s tourism.

February 11, 2021February 9, 2021

Can tourism help us rethink nature’s value?

Blog, Resilience and Recovery

Our relationship with nature is so broken that we need to write laws to protect our ‘peaceful enjoyment’. We are so unable to appreciate the real value of birdsong that ... Read more

January 20, 2021January 20, 2021

What if Tourism…?

Blog, Travel Industry

“What if Tourism becomes a platform for deep connection and understanding between humans and nature?”

What if we did that?

December 22, 2020December 18, 2020

11 lessons I learned during 2020

Blog, Responsible Tourism

We can’t keep reinventing the wheel, operating in silos, or treating efforts to act more sustainably as a marketing differentiator. We’re all in this together, and we either all succeed, ... Read more

December 11, 2020December 11, 2020

Three reasons why European tourism should return by train

Blog, Responsible Tourism

As we move towards 2021, and begin to imagine what comes next, isn’t it time we prepared for an increasingly inevitable future, rather than build backwards to a past that ... Read more

November 25, 2020November 24, 2020

Reflecting on WTM Virtual: How should tourism talk about biodiversity?

Blog, Responsible Tourism

One of the recurring themes during the sessions for WTM Virtual and London Travel Week was the need for tourism to pay far greater attention to the biodiversity crisis.

November 13, 2020November 12, 2020

Making connections at WTM Virtual

Blog, Resilience and Recovery

For the last eight years I have been to every single session of the responsible tourism programme at World Travel Market.

October 27, 2020October 26, 2020

What is regenerative tourism? And how should we deliver it?

Blog, Responsible Tourism

If regenerative tourism is just another new buzzword repackaging the same old thing, it will also be devalued and then replaced in time. Yes it is about making things better. ... Read more

October 12, 2020October 9, 2020

How can we ensure a lasting recovery for tourism?

Blog, Responsible Tourism

Tourism’ future won’t be saved by cleaner aviation fuels or speedier quarantine processes. These just improve the current model. They get us back to getting bigger again.

September 25, 2020September 28, 2020

How to deal with the crisis, part 2: Reasons to be cheerful…

Blog, Responsible Tourism

So, at the end of Climate Week, on Friday’s for Future Global Day of Climate action, and with World Tourism Day at the weekend, here are my latest reasons to ... Read more

September 15, 2020September 14, 2020

How do we really deal with the crisis facing us all?

Blog, Responsible Tourism

Last week I learned that 2020 is the second hottest year on record, after 2016. (For the record, that makes it the second hottest year in the last 100,000 years)

September 1, 2020September 7, 2020

Which trends should guide tourism’s recovery?

Blog, Resilience and Recovery, Responsible Tourism

As we imagine our new place in the world, how might such trends change the world? How should they influence our planning? Are we trying to build back to levels ... Read more

August 18, 2020August 18, 2020

Cancelled. Where must tourism travel next?

Blog, Responsible Tourism

All this is – too late, and too slowly – coming to a head. How fragile and unjust is the system we have designed. How it relies on not seeing ... Read more

August 4, 2020August 26, 2020

Will 2020 define the future of tourism?

Blog, Resilience and Recovery, Responsible Tourism

Cut emissions in half by 2030. This is what defines the future of tourism. Not what tourism looks like in 2020, but what it needs to look like in ten ... Read more

July 13, 2020August 17, 2020

We should reinvent hotels to be living labs for the future

Blog, Hospitality, Responsible Tourism

Can hotels help us live more sustainably? Can they help us prepare and adapt for a life that will increasingly be defined by an ever-worsening climate emergency?

July 3, 2020August 17, 2020

What should post-pandemic adventure travel offer?

Adventure, Blog

There has been a lot of talk lately about adventure travel being one of the sectors that does better in whatever tourism comes next.

June 16, 2020August 14, 2020

How can destinations support domestic tourism?

Blog, Responsible Tourism

Now as our industry enters a different phase, where we are tentatively reopening again, it is good to see examples appearing of governments and private sector initiatives introducing vouchers and ... Read more

June 3, 2020September 30, 2020

Does the COVID-19 emergency mean over-tourism is over?

Blog, Responsible Tourism

For our industry, where much of the conversation of the last few years in tourism has focussed on the issue of over-tourism, this question is especially pertinent. What comes next?

May 11, 2020September 30, 2020

How do we redesign tourism for a sustainable future?

Blog, Resilience and Recovery, Responsible Tourism

As we look at ways to achieve a sustainable future for tourism, we should ask what tourism can do to support a sustainable future. How can we redesign our industry ... Read more

April 27, 2020August 13, 2020

How can we ensure tourism’s recovery benefits those that most need it?

Blog, Resilience and Recovery, Responsible Tourism

Recent tourism initiatives and campaigns give me hope that the industry’s recovery can be marked by the same generosity and resilience that has been shown through the early stages of ... Read more

March 31, 2020August 11, 2020

A future template for resilience? How we can repurpose tourism and support local communities

Blog, Responsible Tourism

We have been forced to stop travelling, to repatriate our guests, do what we can for those that depend on us, and only then try to find the time, the ... Read more

March 13, 2020August 10, 2020

Does Coronavirus have any lessons for sustainable tourism?

Blog, Responsible Tourism

Coronavirus dominates the news, but one doesn’t have to look very far to see people making connections between the current emergency and sustainable tourism.

February 24, 2020February 24, 2020

What if our trains had a bit more jazz? Disco? Or foot baths?

Responsible Tourism

Early this July, the Jazz Night Express will take a trainload of passengers from Rotterdam to Berlin. Along the way passengers will be able to enjoy live jazz acts, spoken ... Read more

January 30, 2020

How the hospitality sector could get vegetarian food right (by a meat eater)

Responsible Tourism

My vegetarian wife says that when I met her 15 years ago I pretended to be a vegetarian to impress her. She says I was pretending, because within months of ... Read more

January 17, 2020January 20, 2020

Time for something different…

Responsible Tourism

This New Years Eve, a group of friends and I were having dinner. At someone’s prompting, we all shared our five favourite moments of 2019. Two things stood out. First, ... Read more

December 17, 2019December 17, 2019

What were the key headlines for tourism’s sustainability in 2019? Here’s 55 of them…

Responsible Tourism

I reckon the sustainability of tourism has been in the headlines more in 2019 than ever before. So for my final blog of the year, I have gathered 55 of ... Read more

December 4, 2019December 4, 2019

Tourism, Climate Change (and why I feel like a fraud)

Responsible Tourism

Most people I know suffer from imposter syndrome. Most of us believe that any second now, we’ll be found out as frauds, hypocrites, or simply as completely out of our ... Read more

November 25, 2019

What should Extinction Tourism look like?

Responsible Tourism

“The Bramble Cay melomys was a little brown rat,” said the director for the Wilderness Society, Tim Beshara. “But it was our little brown rat and it was our responsibility ... Read more

October 23, 2019October 23, 2019

Should Tourism Declare a Climate Emergency?

Responsible Tourism

On 5 December 2016, the Australian city of Darebin, a municipality in the suburbs of northern Melbourne, was the first place in the world to declare a climate emergency. Since ... Read more

October 7, 2019November 18, 2020

Turn Flightshame to your advantage – Promote train travel

Responsible Tourism, Responsible Tourism, Social Media

A friend of mine called last week for holiday advice. It’s not the first time someone has done this, but it is the first time that a friend has done ... Read more

August 28, 2019November 18, 2020

Shambala Festival: What tourism should do next

Responsible Tourism, Responsible Tourism, Social Media

To imagine what tourism should do next in my ongoing quest for ‘tourism’s new stories’, I found that the Shambala Festival is one of the best examples around

August 5, 2019October 8, 2019

Tourism needs new stories

Carbon & Water, Social Economy

Across Europe, the beginning of August signifies the beginning of the long summer holiday. Children are all off school for several weeks. Parliaments shut for a while. Stuck for anything ... Read more

July 2, 2019July 2, 2019

Tourism is not working. And that’s a good thing.

Responsible Tourism, Social Economy

Most of our time is defined by work. It is how we afford the things we need and want. But more than that – it’s assumed as a measure of ... Read more

June 19, 2019June 19, 2019

Why every tourism company should join the new Climate Perks holiday scheme

Responsible Tourism

Climate Perks is a new pilot scheme that has just been launched by 10:10, the UK-based climate solutions NGO. As its new website explains, “Climate Perks employers offer paid ‘journey ... Read more

June 4, 2019June 4, 2019

What can tourism learn from other industries?

Responsible Tourism

Not a lot apparently. Next week is the annual Responsible Business Summit Europe. Organised by Ethical Corporation, it brings together senior executives from some of the biggest companies in the ... Read more

May 21, 2019May 23, 2019

My four least favourite phrases that tourism should stop using

Responsible Tourism, RT Marketing

Last Friday, the Guardian newspaper announced that it was updating its style guide “to introduce terms that more accurately describe the environmental crises facing the world.” The paper’s editor Katherine ... Read more

May 7, 2019May 16, 2019

The week when everything changed

Carbon & Water

I wanted to write about May Day. I wanted to write about working less and remaking our connection to the earth. I really didn’t want to write about climate change. ... Read more

April 22, 2019May 16, 2019

How should tourism mark Earth Day 2019?

Responsible Tourism

This Monday – April 22, is Earth Day. It’s the 49th anniversary of the event, first celebrated in 1970. And this year, the theme is “Protect our Species”. What should ... Read more

April 10, 2019May 16, 2019

Netflix’s new David Attenborough series Our Planet shows us what tourism’s future might be

Responsible Tourism

“Hamstrung by the idea that any mention of eco-problems would make audiences switch off, and the broadcasters’ preferred strategy of hoping that sharing incredible sights around the world would inspire ... Read more

March 27, 2019May 16, 2019

Success of Rent a Finn and Palau Pledge campaigns show how sustainable tourism stories can work

Responsible Tourism

Some good news for a change. Two high profile marketing campaigns, for two very different destinations, show the time is increasingly right for stories about sustainability to inspire. For a ... Read more

March 12, 2019May 16, 2019

Why tourism should support the Children’s Climate Strike this Friday

Responsible Tourism

A wave of climate protest is sweeping the planet, and those of us working in tourism would do well to reflect quickly on how it will impact our industry, and ... Read more

February 27, 2019May 16, 2019

Four questions for tourism businesses about climate change risk

Responsible Tourism

This blog takes a different approach to normal, because when it is 20 degrees on a February morning in London, apparently the hottest February day ever in the UK, things ... Read more

February 12, 2019

Using tourism to give people the benefits of time in nature

Responsible Tourism

At the beginning of this month, the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) published a series of detailed maps revealing that 36% of England’s population live too far away from ... Read more

January 29, 2019February 1, 2019

How tourism can remove single waste plastic from its supply chain

Responsible Tourism

“Gradually, then suddenly”. It’s how a character in Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, describes how he went bankrupt. I was unaware of the phrase until last week. Yet when ... Read more

January 15, 2019January 15, 2019

Will 2019 be the year tourism engages with flying and climate change?

Responsible Tourism

While it is always risky to make public predictions, I think this year we will see a lot more discussion about aviation and climate change. The reason I say this ... Read more

December 18, 2018

The year in review – key moments in tourism and sustainability from 2018

Responsible Tourism

In a year where the accelerating breakdown of the world’s climate got yet more headlines (if not yet enough action), the travel industry also discovered that it was responsible for ... Read more

December 3, 2018

What can tourism learn from David Attenborough and the People’s Seat Initiative today?

Responsible Tourism

Today at the UN Climate Conference in Katowice Poland, David Attenborough’s People’s Seat initiative will see the 92yr old naturalist use his position to share the voices of the many ... Read more

November 20, 2018November 21, 2018

Could Black Friday offer a teachable moment for tourism?

Responsible Tourism

Few people see Black Friday as a day for reflection. Along with its online sibling – Cyber Monday – It’s the apotheosis of consumption – a no-holds-barred scramble to ‘get ... Read more

November 3, 2018

Venice floods show that overtourism is a climate change issue

Overtourism

Few people can have missed this week’s pictures of a flooded Venice, and the video of the pizza restaurant that channeled the Titanic’s violinists and kept serving pizzas with the ... Read more

October 23, 2018October 23, 2018

The destination with solutions to overtourism, climate change and wellbeing

Development, Overtourism, Social Economy

Last week Bhutan held only its third general election. And for the third time in a row, the Bhutanese people voted in a different party. And though this election got ... Read more

October 9, 2018

How will the Everything as a Service (XaaS) business model transform tourism?

Development

Every single person reading this line is currently benefiting from the Everything as a Service (XaaS) business model, whether we realise it or not. No one is reading this article ... Read more

September 25, 2018

How can the digital revolution be used to better transform tourism?

Development

How can we better understand the growing economic, societal and environmental impacts of technology and innovation in tourism? That’s the question posed by the UNWTO on its website to promote ... Read more

August 28, 2018August 28, 2018

Can better storytelling help fix overtourism?

Overtourism

Tourism is about connections. Connecting to another place. Connecting with friends and family. Connecting to nature. It follows, therefore, that the better the connection, the more one connects, the richer ... Read more

August 14, 2018

Is helping people find a better work life balance part of responsible tourism?

RT Marketing

What difference does tourism make to our daily lives? We create memories and enable people to rest and unwind. These are important things, but of themselves, all they do is ... Read more

August 1, 2018August 10, 2018

Would you go on holiday in a minefield?

Carbon & Water, Responsible Tourism

So this is how it begins. I was three years old in the UK’s last long hot summer. Too young to remember it directly, instead the parched earth photographs define ... Read more

July 4, 2018July 5, 2018

In the future, tourism should look more like this Climate Positive Swedish burger

Carbon & Water, Food Tourism, Responsible Tourism

A couple of weeks ago the Swedish burger chain MAX Burgers announced that all its burgers are now climate positive. From June 14, 2018, any meal eaten at any one ... Read more

June 19, 2018June 19, 2018

Help your favourite hotel or tour company win a World Responsible Tourism Award

Blog, Responsible Tourism, RT Marketing

Have you been on holiday recently and been amazed at what your hotel was doing for the local community, or perhaps taken a tour that really impressed you for the ... Read more

June 5, 2018June 6, 2018

How Hotels, Tours Companies, Events and Destinations are eliminating plastic

Blog, Development

Today is World Environment Day, and the theme is Beat Plastic Pollution. We’ve looked at this issue before, but so rapidly are the responses emerging, that it is worth revisiting ... Read more

May 22, 2018

With funding for app secured, Refill my bottle now ready for international expansion

Carbon & Water

Like most of the best ideas, the Refill my Bottle initiative is incredibly simple. So simple that you’ve probably guessed most of what it is about from the title. Started ... Read more

May 8, 2018May 9, 2018

Banish Bucket Lists. Go back to the place you love most

Blog, Overtourism

I come here at this time every year. I have been coming here now, every year, at the same time, for 10 years. And I intend to come here at ... Read more

April 24, 2018April 30, 2018

How Tourism can rapidly eliminate single use plastics – Earth Day inspiration from around the world

Carbon & Water, Development, RT Marketing

For a somewhat obsessive follower of tourism industry news like me, the spike in press releases that mark the annual Earth Day celebrations provide a quick reference point to the ... Read more

April 10, 2018April 25, 2018

Is Day Zero becoming the new normal, and not just in Cape Town?

Carbon & Water, Destinations, Development

This month, Cape Town may or may not reach Day Zero, signifying the point at which the city runs out of water. According to an April 9th article on South ... Read more

March 27, 2018March 28, 2018

The future of hotels is circular… and two of them are opening soon

Hospitality, Responsible Tourism

A couple of exciting new stories about two upcoming hotels suggest the travel industry is beginning to wake up to the potential of the circular economy for tourism. In my ... Read more

March 13, 2018March 13, 2018

How to engage tourists in sustainable tourism (Part 2): redesign the loyalty scheme

Carbon & Water, Development, Hospitality, RT Marketing, Social Economy

Last week, I spent a night in a hotel in Brussels that has taken a circular economy approach to redesigning the way its loyalty scheme works. Following on from my ... Read more

February 27, 2018

How to engage tourists in sustainable tourism – make them feel proud to come

RT Marketing

What connects most of the recent high profile campaigns to make tourism more responsible? Stop riding elephants. Don’t swim with dolphins. Avoid handicrafts made from endangered species. No selfies with ... Read more

February 13, 2018

To deal with the climate costs of flying, we need to talk about growth and carbon offsetting

Carbon & Water

Last week Harold Goodwin’s blog laid out his reasons why the aviation industry’s approach to addressing its ongoing growth in emissions is inadequate. This week, I want to look at ... Read more

January 31, 2018

£22 for a sunlounger? Is no part of our holiday sacred?

Responsible Tourism

Thomas Cook is making the news this week for a new programme it is trialing to enable guests to pre-book sunloungers before they come on holiday. From the end of ... Read more

January 16, 2018January 31, 2018

PATA’s excellent new hotel food waste resource shows need for collaborative solutions

Responsible Tourism

This week the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) has launched an impressively extensive resource targeting food waste in hotels. Titled with one of the better acronyms around – BUFFET (Building ... Read more

January 12, 2018February 5, 2018

Five predictions for responsible tourism in 2018… and one I hope won’t happen

Carbon & Water, Development, Human Rights, Overtourism

In my last blog of 2017, I looked back at some of my personal responsible tourism highlights of that year. I’ve been on holiday for most of the time since ... Read more

December 20, 2017

The year in review: My highlights of the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development

Responsible Tourism

With the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development drawing to a close, I’ve looked back through the year’s headlines to chart an extremely personal selection of highlights from 2017… ... Read more

December 5, 2017December 5, 2017

How to redesign tourism to end #pointlessplastics

Carbon & Water

A few days ago, a new hashtag started appearing on Twitter. Created by the Good Awards, #pointlessplastics is encouraging people to tweet images of the unnecessary use of plastics (one ... Read more

November 21, 2017November 21, 2017

How can tourism help Dominica be the world’s first Climate Resilient Nation?

Development

Just two months ago, on September 18th, Hurricane Maria hit the Caribbean island of Dominica. Minutes before, this was the Nature Island, a tropical paradise of 365 river and pristine ... Read more

October 24, 2017

Tourism’s Dirty Secret report reveals working conditions of hotel housekeepers

Human Rights

A report released last week into the working conditions of hundreds of thousands of women cleaning bedrooms and other hotel areas across the world. Published by Oxfam Canada, Tourism’s Dirty ... Read more

October 10, 2017October 10, 2017

Electrical Flight is not the panacea for sustainable tourism

Carbon & Water

Alongside the stories of Ryanair and Monarch’s woes in the last few weeks have been excited posts on the potential of electric flight, following Easyjet’s announcement that it hopes to ... Read more

September 26, 2017October 4, 2017

World Tourism Day 2017: opportunities and challenges for achieving sustainable tourism

Development

World Tourism Day occurs this week, with the theme for 2017 being “Sustainable Tourism – a tool for development”. According to the UNWTO’s official site for the event, “World Tourism ... Read more

September 13, 2017October 4, 2017

After Irma: lessons from nature for tourism and a resilient future

Carbon & Water, Responsible Tourism

The images from the impact of Hurricane Irma on Caribbean islands such as Barbuda are shocking. These are places whose beaches and coastlines epitomise what many of us imagine when ... Read more

August 30, 2017October 10, 2017

Using social media to do more than sell holidays

Overtourism, Responsible Tourism, Social Media

Among this summer’s slew of stories about overtourism, one took a slightly different angle. In an article titled 10 tourist destinations ruined by Instagram, the Independent reported how “the rise ... Read more

August 15, 2017October 4, 2017

Why tourism needs to support rewilding initiatives

Development, Responsible Tourism

Last week I spent an afternoon training my binoculars on a field of cows. I got very excited by the sight of some pigs walking down a lane. Then had ... Read more

August 1, 2017October 4, 2017

How can we truly measure tourism’s impact?

Carbon & Water, Development, Responsible Tourism, Social Economy

When people are looking to assert how important tourism is as an industry, they are likely to cite the proportion of global Gross Domestic Product that it is responsible for. ... Read more

July 19, 2017October 4, 2017

Could the world’s hotels run on renewable energy?

Carbon & Water, Development, Responsible Tourism

Last week a significant climate change milestone was passed. On July 10th, the Climate Group’s RE100 (the RE standing for renewable energy) announced that the 100th multinational had signed up ... Read more

July 4, 2017September 18, 2017

Why tourism finds it hard to talk about climate change

Carbon & Water, Responsible Tourism

Despite the rain pouring down outside my window right now and the fact I am wearing a jumper in late June, I can’t actually see climate change. I can go ... Read more

June 20, 2017September 18, 2017

How tourism is providing hospitality and support to refugees and asylum seekers

Human Rights, Responsible Tourism, Social Economy

A couple of years ago I wrote a blog for this site reporting on inspirational tourism industry initiatives responding to the refugee crisis. My aim was to show “how tourism ... Read more

June 6, 2017September 18, 2017

Pandora’s Paradox: social media, tourism and FOMO

Carbon & Water, Responsible Tourism, RT Marketing, Social Media

Last week, a village in Switzerland got loads of press coverage for banning tourists from taking photos of its scenery and sharing them on social media. According to the local ... Read more

May 22, 2017September 18, 2017

Bringing Biodiversity back home – lessons from the graveyard

Carbon & Water, Development, Responsible Tourism

Today is the UN’s International Day for Biodiversity. This year being the UN’s International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development, the theme is ‘Biodiversity and Sustainable Tourism’. Last Sunday, I ... Read more

May 9, 2017September 18, 2017

Embracing timeshare to tackle tourism issues

Development, Responsible Tourism, Social Economy

Timeshare is almost a dirty word in tourism today. But its structure offers much for those trying to make the industry more sustainable. It can deepen connections between guests and ... Read more

April 25, 2017September 18, 2017

New European student travel scheme offers a vision of tourism’s future

Carbon & Water, Responsible Tourism, Social Economy

If I was asked to sum up the challenge facing tourism in one sentence, I would say something like the following: Can the travel industry of the future be environmentally ... Read more

April 11, 2017September 18, 2017

If you’re looking after the environment, you’re looking after your guests. Tell them.

Carbon & Water, Development, Human Rights, Responsible Tourism

Written above a doorway at London’s Horniman Museum is an Einstein quote that reads: ‘The environment is everything except myself.’ When I saw it last week it reminded me of ... Read more

March 28, 2017September 18, 2017

Tourism will be the future’s most important industry. We aren’t ready.

Carbon & Water, Overtourism, Responsible Tourism, RT Marketing, Social Economy

Last weekend I paid for my shopping at a self-service till. I swiped my credit card across the automatic turnstile on the Underground. I streamed a movie from my Netflix ... Read more

March 15, 2017September 18, 2017

Why it matters what stories tourism tells to promote destinations

Human Rights, Responsible Tourism, RT Marketing, Social Economy

Museums and Heritage Advisor doesn’t sound like a particularly radical or controversy-seeking website. Described as “The ultimate news, product and opinion resource for museum, gallery, cultural and heritage visitor attraction professionals”, ... Read more

March 1, 2017September 18, 2017

How should men mark International Women’s Day 2017?

Responsible Tourism, Women in Travel

I should start by apologising to all women readers of this blog. You will learn nothing new from it. I doubt I have anything to say that you don’t already ... Read more

February 14, 2017September 18, 2017

Will Transformative Tourism be more than the latest travel trend?

Development, Responsible Tourism, RT Marketing, Trends

Industry leaders are discussing why ‘Transformative Travel’ will be the travel trend of 2017 after Vogue released this article in January. While 2016 was all about experiential travel, this year ... Read more

January 31, 2017September 18, 2017

How should the travel industry respond to Trump’s travel ban?

Human Rights, Responsible Tourism

The rules of engagement are being changed. According to established social media thinking, the lifespan of a tweet is 18 minutes. Yet one of the tweets currently getting the most ... Read more

January 19, 2017September 18, 2017

Will South Africa eradicate irresponsible captive animal practices in 2017?

Development, Responsible Tourism

‘‘JHB airport to remove cub-petting images from its international arrivals corridor’ read the headline in South Africa’s Citizen newspaper on January 13th. I’ve started 2017 – the UN’s International Year ... Read more

December 22, 2016September 18, 2017

Reality has to be on tourism’s bucket list for 2017

Development, Overtourism, Responsible Tourism

About six months ago my plans to write about a press trip to Jordan were disrupted by the Brexit vote, and I had to write about that instead. Today, my ... Read more

December 13, 2016September 18, 2017

How to ensure your hotel isn’t used by traffickers… just got easier

Human Rights, Responsible Tourism

It would be safe to assume that most people working in hotels do not want their businesses used for human trafficking. And it would be just as likely that most ... Read more

November 29, 2016September 18, 2017

Why partnership has to be the buzzword for sustainable tourism in 2017

Development, Responsible Tourism

2016 has not been a year that many people will look back on that fondly. But as we begin to look forward to 2017, I’d suggest there are some less ... Read more

November 15, 2016September 18, 2017

8 Challenges for sustainable tourism posed at WTM London 2016

Development, Overtourism, Responsible Tourism

I spent the whole of World Travel Market sat in the lecture halls, listening to the women and men most committed to developing sustainable tourism discuss the greatest challenges as ... Read more

November 8, 2016September 18, 2017

Ten years of promoting responsible tourism at WTM

Carbon & Water, Development, Responsible Tourism, RT Marketing

Today World Travel Market celebrates the 10th anniversary of World Responsible Tourism Day with a programme that assesses the past, present and future of efforts to make the industry more ... Read more

October 18, 2016September 18, 2017

Last Chance Travel: What if the only truly sustainable form of tourism is less of it?

Carbon & Water, Development, Overtourism, Responsible Tourism

Issues around Venice and the problems of what is fast becoming known as ‘overtourism‘ are being talked about a great deal these days. What I was unaware of until reading ... Read more

October 4, 2016September 18, 2017

Google Cardboard’s VR headset will change tourism forever. But will virtual reality make the industry more sustainable?

Carbon & Water, Disability, Responsible Tourism

In the last few days the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset has launched in the UK, bringing virtual reality to the headlines once again; although at £549, it still is ... Read more