TravelMole launches Responsible Tourism e-newsletter

Thursday, 26 Sep, 2002 0

TravelMole has launched a ‘Responsible Tourism’ newsletter, aimed at providing all its subscribers with details of how the latest developments in Responsible Tourism are affecting the travel and tourism industry.

The first issue contains an editorial from Harold Goodwin, from the International Centre for Responsible Tourism, University of Greenwich. He says:

“Dawid de Villiers, Deputy Secretary-General of the World Tourism Organization said at the Cape Town Conference on Responsible Tourism in Destinations last month that he understood Responsible Tourism “as the commitment to implement the principles of sustainability – guided by the [WTO’s] code of ethics – at the local or destination level.” Quite so.

Responsible Tourism is not a new form of tourism – all forms of tourism can be responsible. It is a commitment by individuals, enterprises, companies and governments (at all levels) to act and to do so in practical and measurable ways. It is about committing to do things across the triple bottom line of economic, social and environmental sustainability and then doing them. It is about making commitments and honouring them and reporting progress in a transparent way; it is about meeting the regulations and doing something more.

It is about making a difference, not about insisting that it is for some other group ‘the industry’, the UN, government or NGO’s to make tourism sustainable – Responsible Tourism is about taking responsibility. It is about making the changes necessary to make better experiences for holidaymakers and travellers and to make better places for local communities to live in.

This new e-newsletter will make a useful contribution to the Responsible Tourism Movement.”

If you are a TravelMole subscriber, you will receive a copy of the first issue of The Responsible Tourism Insider today (Thursday 26 September).

Non-subscribers can read a copy of it by clicking on this link.