Most mainstream newspapers and magazines today acknowledge that more and more travellers consider themselves ‘ecotourists,’ but don’t really give their readers enough to feed their ethical penchants. Hamstrung by shrinking budgets and market-deaf advertisers, they look like they’re being outpaced by the industry they’re supposed to support. So why aren’t you, the new generation of penmen and -women, stepping into an expanding vacuum?

In Vietnam, Bloom Microventures combines tourism with microfinance in an extremely innovative manner: Bloom’s unique model of cross-subsidising microfinance operations with income generated through tourism enables the organisation to have a far greater social impact. By meeting the borrowers on a tour, we see clearly just how very successful Bloom’s program has been in lifting some of the poorest women in Vietnam out of poverty.

Projects in Kenya, Peru, Sri Lanka and Brazil have been announced as the winners of the first travel2change idea challenge. Over 500 members joined the travel2change online community since its launch in late April 2011, and submitted around 60 innovative project proposals. The submitted ideas were evaluated based on creativity, effectiveness, impact, feasibility and sustainability.

No fewer than 1.6 billion people — nearly a quarter of the world’s population — depend on forests for their livelihoods. Forests are also critical to maintaining biodiversity, mitigating climate change and enabling key ecosystem functions that regulate the biosphere. And yet about 45 per cent of the world’s forests have already been cleared. Here are some hard numbers to ponder that tell us how and why we should stop.

In 2007, after I learned that the government of Jordan had declared a poverty pocket in the community known as Ghor Al Mazra’a (Jordan Valley), I founded something called the Zikra Initiative, an ‘exchange tourism’ program through which city-based people can immerse themselves in the uniqueness of a rural area through workshops led by locals. It seems like we have come so far since then, and yet there is still so much to be done.

The Responsible Safari Company (RSC), a local tour operator in Malawi, collaborates with community-based initiatives to promote tourism as a beneficial source of income. The ‘win-win-win’ benefits are evident: Local groups enjoy a new way of making ends meet and forging meaningful bonds with discerning travellers; visitors gain unique insight into local communities by learning about their lives; and the RSC expands operations in line with sustainable and responsible tourism practices.

In light of Responsible Travel Week 2011, we at Gunyah – specialists in short-duration experiential packages for independent travellers eager to connect with local people – have selected our favourite local travel experiences… in Argentina, Vietnam, Nepal, Australia, Zambia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. We want to inspire travellers to seek out more meaningful travel experiences, the kinds that can only come through real contact with locals and genuine enjoyment of local culture and tradition.