whl.travel joins global partners in launching a series of responsible tourism webinars

On Thursday 4 June, four leading global advocates of responsible tourism spoke and listened at a free public webinar (Web-based seminar) about the present and future of their fast-expanding industry. It was the first in a series of regular online gatherings that will tackle the crosscutting issues and universal appeal of responsible tourism as it applies to a broad range of constituencies in all sectors. Beginning at the next session, local advocates and practitioners of travel and tourism who share a belief in a responsible way forward will be invited to share their thoughts and respond to listener questions.

Cosponsored by Your Safe Planet, Make Travel Fair and whl.travel, with the vital participation of Planeta, the webinar series was initiated to capture and add energy to the momentum from Responsible Tourism Week 2009 – an online discussion launched by Planeta and held the week of May 18-22 that focussed on responsible tourism around the world.

Featured Speakers

At this first webinar, Ron Mader, Founder of Planeta, dicussed how social media can engage the global community in responsible tourism, especially communications tools like Twitter.

Len Cordiner, CEO of whl.travel, looked at how we should to change our approach to responsible tourism. He voiced particular concern that responsible tourism is basically the industry talking to itself, that that main stakeholders – people like travellers and even accommodation/tour providers themselves – have been left out of the equation.

Valere Tjolle, Editor of VISON on Sustainable Tourism examined what else should change, in particular the need to have a political background to tourism and the sustainability agenda. “It’s not about telling travellers how good we are,” he said, “it’s about telling travellers what we can do for them and I think that’s where we’ve missed a trick sometimes in responsible tourism.”

Lessons Learned

All in all, as identified by Mader, “One of the common threads in the discussion was the disconnect between top-down and bottom-up strategies. … This type of silo thinking is a primary obstacle for engaging the travellers and locals. My question – are there ways to connect the dots, bring the ‘experts’ and the ‘clients’ together? … Most donors, academics, officials don’t want to participate in public events. Reflecting on this, it seems to be a matter of control. The experts don’t want to give it up! But if we manage to view responsible tourism in a more holistic manner, then giving up control generates strength. It’s a matter of looking at one another at team players, not as competitors.”

Stephen Chapman, Founder of Make Travel Fair, agreed: “The desire to retain control of a movement and knowledge is a real inhibitor to any sort of progress. This is why diverse groups coming together through these webinars, beginning to exchange ideas and thinking is so crucial.”

Next Session

Doing just what it should – using new media to reach out to new stakeholders and new markets – the webinar series next brings together speakers from Wanderlust magazine, Lonely Planet and Bradt Guides to discuss responsible tourism in publishing. Scheduled for 18 June at 1pm GMT, please register to join us at the next session.

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To listen to and share the proceedings of the completed webinar, a full recording, a chat transcript and written summary are all available online.

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After your listen, please share with us:

•    your thoughts (constructive and deconstructuve)

•    the topics/themes you would like us to address in coming sessions

•    the names and/or qualifications of guest presenters you would like us to invite to coming sessions.

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