{"id":21569,"date":"2017-11-08T10:01:23","date_gmt":"2017-11-08T09:01:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/travindy.com\/?p=21569"},"modified":"2017-11-08T10:07:15","modified_gmt":"2017-11-08T09:07:15","slug":"responsible-tourism-wtm-2017-highlights-tuesdays-sessions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/travindy.com\/news\/2017\/11\/responsible-tourism-wtm-2017-highlights-tuesdays-sessions\/","title":{"rendered":"Responsible Tourism at WTM 2017 – highlights from Tuesday’s sessions"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Responsible<\/span><\/p>\n

T<\/span>uesday\u2019s Responsible Tourism programme started with a session exploring how travel can responsibly support some of the most excluded members of society – the homeless and those who live in slums. Andrew Derlien is Marketing and Fundraising Director of Reality Gives, the NGO partner to award winning Indian company Reality Tours, which runs tours to Dharavi in Mumbai. The tours are structured to be as respectful as possible, with no photography allowed. They also ensure that 80% of their profits are reinvested into the local community. Jayni Gudka is the Director of Unseen Tours, who employ homeless people as guides to the streets of London. She explained that their tours aim to show a \u201cdifferent perspective of London through the lens of homelessness\u2019\u201d with the guides weaving their own experiences of living on the streets into their narratives. However, she asserted that these tours do not treat homelessness as an object to be viewed, but rather are designed to empower people who have experienced homelessness to run the tours themselves and present their perspectives of living in the capital.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDealing with plastic waste in our oceans is not an optional extra,\u201d Ian Rowlands<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The next seminar looked at the problem of plastic waste accumulating in the world\u2019s oceans. \u201cDealing with plastic waste in our oceans is not an optional extra,\u201d explained Ian Rowlands, the director of Incredible Oceans, which seeks to use humanity\u2019s love of whales, dolphins and other marine animals to inspire people to grapple with the rapidly escalating crisis of plastic circulating in the world\u2019s marine environments. He said that society needs to stop using plastic, and should start with individuals making their own commitments and stopping using four every day plastic objects – plastic coffee cups and lids, single use water bottles, plastic bags, and plastic straws. Mike Webster, CEO WasteAid UK, said the tourism industry should support efforts to repurpose waste in destinations into practical materials, which had the twin benefits of both environmental impact and providing economic benefits. Dave Shanks introduced the innovative Water to Go bottle and filter, which his company has created using technology developed initially by Nasa. As a result they have created a bottle that will replace any non-salt water from anywhere in the world instantly drinkable, removing the need for plastic water bottles instantly, and can be used 400 times. Already some travel companies are using branded versions of these to replace the water bottles they give out to their clients. The session was finished by travel PR company\u2019s Brighter Group\u2019s director of Responsible Tourism, Trudi Pearce. She told the story of Belize, a country with the second largest reef in the world, and where 25% of the economy is reliant on tourism. Under the message that \u201cWhen the reef is better, we are all better\u201d, she explained how Brighter Group was moving beyond the standard PR relationships with a destination to help Belize address the problems that plastics are causing their environment and economy. <\/span><\/p>\n

In a session exploring what should be done about orphanage tourism, Sallie Grayson, Programme Director of responsible volunteer organisation peopleandplaces, said that \u201cGood intentions are not enough,\u201d because however hard one tried to supply volunteers to orphanages as responsibly as possible, the end result was simply to fuel demand. She explained that as a result her company only works with programmes that are designed to keep children in their families. \u201cWe have to spread the word about how bad orphanage tourism is, emphasised WTM Responsible Tourism Advisor Professor Harold Goodwin. \u201cWe have to stop it.\u201d For companies seeking to learn more about this rapidly developing issue and to avoid the risks that it poses, Emanuelle Werner from Friends International outlined a series of resources that her organisation has produced, some for travellers others for organisations, designed to raise awareness about the issue and provide guidelines as to how to avoid making the problems worse.<\/span><\/p>\n

“The elephant in the room remains the aviation sector” Libby Owen Edmunds<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In a session on Human RIghts: Trafficking and Modern Slavery, Alexandros Paraskevas from the University of West London said his research has shown that by a conservative estimate, there are 115,000 slaves working in the European hospitality industry. \u201cTrafficking is much more than just people brought over on overcrowded boats in the Mediterranean,\u201d he explained, \u201cIt\u2019s more than sexual abuse in rooms, or construction workers being exploited.\u201d He gave two examples to show \u00a0what he meant. The first was of a travel agency run by human traffickers, who had placed a trafficked woman in the hotel to work as a receptionist, who for six months would register every guest who arrived independently as having being sent from their travel agency, just so they would get the commission. \u00a0His other example was of a woman planted by traffickers into a hotel accountancy department so she could access people\u2019s bank details and private information, which the traffickers would then use for blackmail and other financial crimes. While the scale of the problem is only recently being acknowledged by the industry, solutions are being developed, with Nishma Jethwa from the Shiva Foundation telling the audience of the work her organisation is doing to develop an industry first set of resources for the hotel sector.<\/span><\/p>\n

“responsible tourism is a political issue,”\u00a0John Swarbrooke<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There were also two sessions reflecting on progress (or lack of) in responsible tourism and asking what more needed to be done. In the first, which looked back at how responsible tourism has developed over the past 15 years, John Swarbrooke, Professor of Tourism at the University of Plymouth said that it was important to realise that responsible tourism is a political issue. \u201cI keep hearing how we need good management, when what we really need is good political decisions, that then enable the management,\u201d he said, adding that it was important for people to understand that responsible tourism is not just about how we manage the impacts of tourism in developing countries. \u201cOvertourism happens mostly in European cities,\u201d he added, \u201cwhich shows that responsible tourism is an issue that affects us all.”<\/span><\/p>\n

In a session looking at what the priorities for Responsible Tourism should be for the next five years, the panel was each asked what were the top three issues needing addressing. Their answers were: Climate Change, Local Economic Benefits, Waste, Destination Management, Resource Efficiency, Tourism Safety and Inclusive Tourism. Director at Classic Collection Holidays, Martin Brackenbury, said that in a year where certain islands in the Caribbean – in particular Dominica – have been devastated by extreme weather events, the industry had to ensure it does whatever possible to support such countries rebuild and develop resilience in the years to come. Focussing on the acknowledge biggest issue, tourism\u2019s impact on climate change, sustainable tourism specialist Libby Owen Edmunds referenced a recent ITP report into hotel carbon emissions, which states that the accommodation sector needs reduce its absolute emissions by 90% by 2050. However, added Edmunds: \u201cThe elephant in the room remains the aviation sector,\u201d which she said is responsible for 80% of emissions related to tourism. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Human Trafficking, Plastic Waste, Climate Change, Slum Tourism and more were on the agenda at Tuesday’s Responsible Tourism sessions at World Travel Market 2017<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":21570,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[139,675,17,534],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nResponsible Tourism at WTM 2017 - highlights from Tuesday's sessions<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Human Trafficking, Plastic Waste, Climate Change, Slum Tourism and more were on the agenda at Tuesday's Responsible Tourism sessions at World Travel Market 2017\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/travindy.com\/news\/2017\/11\/responsible-tourism-wtm-2017-highlights-tuesdays-sessions\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Responsible Tourism at WTM 2017 - 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