I was privileged to be invited to speak at the 10th birthday party for Cornwall Sustainable Tourism – the internationally significant One Planet Tourism people. If you want to see the evidence for their national and international impact just take a look at their website, this is a virtual organisation which packs a big punch.
www.coastproject.co.uk
As usual the hall was packed with CoaSTies, all positive deviants, trying to make the world a better place and not shrinking from the big challenges: climate change, pollution, education, water.

CoaSTies recognise the importance of community and collective activity. They are a fantastic example of what active networks can achieve, even in hard times. CoaST now survives entirely on contracts, its only funding is for the consultancy contracts it delivers. Tough times but CoaSTies will fight on, doing everything they can to make the world a better place.

There is an important lesson for all of us in that:
As Manda Brooks reminded us quoting Josh Harnett

“Remember that absolutely nothing happens if everything is left to everyone else.”

We needs more Mandas, more CoaSTies and more people willing to take responsibility, it is free, you can take as much of it as you can handle

We have not heard much recently about the climate change debate. We have been pre-occupied with the economic and social problems of Europe and the UK.

In Australia, where the economy is doing much better, the big issue is the exceptional adverse weather they have been experiencing. Government scientists have produced a report on The Angry Summer.

The graphics convey the scientists’ message starkly

They argue that the climate has shifted

Of course the climate change deniers are apoplectic.

We should accept the evidence and take responsibility, the climate is changing and it is hostile change.

Human beings will not destroy the earth – but we are on track to make it a very uncomfortable place for us to live, the change is happening now. For our children? We are bequeathing them a world  fit only for far fewer people living a much more miserable life.

This report provides a summary of the extreme weather of the 2012/13 summer and the influence of climate change on such events.

Key facts:

1. The Australian summer over 2012 and 2013 has been defined by extreme weather events across much of the continent, including record-breaking heat, severe bushfires, extreme rainfall and damaging flooding. Extreme heatwaves and catastrophic bushfire conditions during the Angry Summer were made worse by climate change.
2. All weather, including extreme weather events is influenced by climate change. All extreme weather events are now occurring in a climate system that is warmer and moister than it was 50 years ago. This influences the nature, impact and intensity of extreme weather events.
3. Australia’s Angry Summer shows that climate change is already adversely affecting Australians. The significant impacts of extreme weather on people, property, communities and the environment highlight the serious consequences of failing to adequately address climate change.
4. It is highly likely that extreme hot weather will become even more frequent and severe in Australia and around the globe, over the coming decades. The decisions we make this decade will largely determine the severity of climate change and its influence on extreme events for our grandchildren.
5. It is critical that we are aware of the influence of climate change on many types of extreme weather so that communities, emergency services and governments prepare for the risk of increasingly severe and frequent extreme weather

The report and graphics are available at

http://climatecommission.gov.au/report/the-angry-summer/

Travel Weekly has taken up the issue of child abuse  and produced a two page special report by Melanie Hall   on how the trade can tackle the abuse of children. Well trained and vigilant staff at the London Jumeirah Carlton Hotel in 2010 played a key role in the apprehension and successful prosecution of a gang trafficking girls as young as 13. Richard Martin the Metropolitan Police detective chief superintendent in charge of the case said “It’s thanks to the diligence of hotel staff that this ruthless gang was caught.”

Travel Trade staff are well placed to spot possible child trafficking and to alert police, they need to be encouraged to do so, trained and supported by management. The problem is growing in the UK too. This is not just an overseas issue. Back in August 2012 two men were jailed for trafficking two Latvian women into the UK to be sexually exploited. It was suspicious staff at the Premier Inn in Ripley who alerted police who raided the hotel two days later and began making arrests. In September 2010 a gang of four men were caught on CCTV cameras at the Lancaster Hotel in Bayswater, west London, trafficking girls. The Leeds-based charity Coalition for the Removal of Pimping (CROP) reported back in 2009 they had helped more than 400 families which have been affected by sexual exploitation in the last five years.

ABTA has run an Every Child, Everywhere campaign with ECPAT UK. Nikki White of ABTA is reported in Travel Weekly as having said that the objective of the campaign is to ensure that all staff have enough guidance and support in place so that “they don’t turn a blind eye if they see anything that concerns them”. If they see a child with bruises, and bruising becomes more extensive, staff should have the confidence to intervene.

Travel industry staff are also well placed to tackle opportunist child sex abusers. The industry may unwittingly facilitate abuse, providing transport or accommodation for abusers. To avoid this danger, businesses need to provide training for their staff in what to look out for, what the signs are and what to do if they are suspicious. And the businesses need to provide support for staff faced with the challenge of not turning a blind eye, it is everyone’s responsibility not to turn a blind eye.

To do any less is culpably irresponsible.

The Centre for Social Justice published a policy report by the Slavery Working Group yesterday entitled It Happens Here

Support the the ‘Say Something if you See Something’ campaign

“The CSJ has heard disturbing reports of the use of hotels as venues by those trafficking
children for sexual exploitation. Of particular risk are the continental-style hotels which
have no reception staff, where check-in is automatic and there is very little monitoring
of guests and no accountability. In several cases reported to the CSJ, British children
trafficked in the UK have been abused in hotel rooms; in one case the police were able to
apprehend a perpetrator in a hotel room with a 14-year-old victim.91 It is therefore essential
that hotel staff are sensitised to issues of sexual exploitation and child trafficking, and are able
to spot the indicators that a child arriving in the hotel may be at risk. The National Working
Group for Sexually Exploited Children (NWG) has developed the ‘Say Something if you See
Something’ campaign in partnership with the Children’s Society and other organisations to
raise awareness of the issue amongst those working in the hospitality industry.

The CSJ recommends that prominent hotel chains in the UK take up the campaign, leading the way for smaller chains to follow suit.

http://www.centreforsocialjustice.org.uk/UserStorage/pdf/Pdf%20reports/CSJ_Slavery_Full_Report_WEB(5).pdf

Oliver Smith has just published a news story on Telegraph Travel announcing the Exodus has suspended all trips to the Omo Valley in Ethiopia over concerns about the exploitation of the tribal communities that live there. The diverse tribes of the Omo Valley have been heavily visited by tourists lured by their body art and in particular the lip plates.

As is so often the case the building of a new road, linking the towns of Konso and Jinka, has increased the numbers of tourists arriving. Oliver quotes an anonymous spokesperson
“Many more people have started visiting and tourism to the region is becoming negative – rather than going for a special experience, the Omo Valley has become a place for tourists to simply gawk at the tribes who live there, without respecting their lifestyle and traditions.”

The road will bring development, improved access for tourists means easier access to medicine and education and more opportunities for trade. The road may have been built to facilitate sugar farming.  The BBC carried a report back in June alleging that tens of thousands of local people were being displaced from their land in the Omo Valley  to make way for state-run sugar plantations. The sugar plantations are reported to be irrigated with water from the controversial Gibe III hydro-power project. more

Other operators will continue to organise tours to the Omo Valley, Marc Leaderman of Wild Frontiers told Oliver Smith whilst he understood Exodus’s decision, they would continue to visit the area, offering tours that provide an “ethical” and “authentic” experience.

There are 2000,000 people in eight different tribes in the Omo Valley, they do not all want the same things. They are also unlikely to want what the tourist wants.

Many of them see the tourists as a crop, a source of money. Particularly where the tourists wants a photograph, they quite understandably think that the tourist should pay for this. When tourists  are reluctant to pay, or try to avoid paying the local community will become more aggressive demanding payment. Paying for photographs makes tourists, well some of them, feel uncomfortable but it is the living culture of the tribes of the Omo Valley which attracts the  tourists. The lip plates and body art has value – captured by the tour operators, guides and transport and accommodation providers – one of the few ways that local people can benefit is by hawking crafts or demanding payment for photographs of their bodies and their culture. The juxtaposition of the extreme wealth of the tourists, in time and cash, with the economic poverty of the local people is stark and uncomfortable on both sides.

Susie Grant writes on the Exodus website that “OMO VALLEY is a wonderful experience but get in quick before it changes!”

The individual guide and the tour operator aspire to organise their group’s experience in a responsible way. As Susie writes “It is important that as travellers we visit sensitive regions like this in a responsible, open-minded way. We will continue to use tribe guides alongside experienced Ethiopian guides and we feel happy to continue to visit the Omo Valley.”

Clearly things have changed and Exodus has pulled out.  It is hard to stop tourism degrading local cultures once the tourists arrive in sigifnciant numbers, and tourism is rarely the only cause of cultural change, often it is not the main cause.

The people who live in the Omo Valley have been exploited by tourism for years, the situation now, for some, is intolerable. It is difficult to avoid begging, hawking and crowding, a degree of cultural conflict is perhaps inevitable. It is even more difficult to repair the damage although Adama Bah’s work with the local community in Juffureh demonstrates how with strong political leadership and stakeholder engagement the tourist experience can be improved for both hosts and guests. more

There is increasing interest in many source markets for tourism products with Responsible Tourism characteristics. There is growing demand for authentic and memorable experiences, travellers and holidaymakers are seeking to get closer to the people and their places in the destinations which they choose to visit, they want deeper and more memorable experiences. Those memories are created in the interaction between host and guest and their natural and cultural environments. In traditional sun, sand and sea destinations like The Gambia holiday makers are leaning to drum and cook local dishes, wear Gambian dress,  volunteering, visiting villages and learning about agriculture. As they get closer to the destination and local people travellers and holidaymakers make more informed choices and want to be better informed travellers maximising their positive, and minimising their negative, impacts.

At the Dutch Association of Travel Agents an Tour Operators conference held as part of the Dutch Travel Fair, Vakantiebeurs last month ANVR, representing 200 tour operators and 1,400 travel agencies, signed the Private Sector Commitment to the Global Code of Ethics for Tourism .  Travelife Certified certificates to three Dutch Tour Operators – TUI Nederland, SNP Natuurreizen and Kuoni Specialists.

ANVR has published a Vision for Tourism 2025 which seeks to balance people, planet and profit and lays out an agenda for change. IDH, a sustainable trade initiative based in Utrecht has a public private partnership, Accelerating Sustainable Tourism Initiative,  working to certify hundreds of accommodations in long haul destinations such as Turkey, Egypt, Brazil, Tanzania, Kenya and Thailand by 2013 as a means of addressing their sustainability.

The business case for engaging with Responsible Tourism was addressed as part of WTM World Responsible Tourism Day two years ago with presentations on Securing the Commercial Advantage from Responsible Tourism Through Marketing by TUI. Virgin Holidays and ResponsibleTravel.com

Mintel published its first report on Responsible Tourism  in 2007 and hear that another report on the market for Responsible Tourism  is due out shortly. Travel Market Report based out of Oyster Bay in New York State reported a week ago that demand for Responsible Tourism is gaining momentum among consumers and suppliers.

A study published by the Center for Responsible Tourism based at Stanford University reports that

• 93% of Conde Nast Traveler readers surveyed in 2011 said travel companies should be responsible for protecting the environment.

• 58% said their hotel choice is influenced by the support the hotel gives to its local community.

• 66% of consumers around the world say they prefer to buy products and services from companies that have implemented programs to give back to society, according to a 2012 Nielsen Wire survey.

• According to a 2012 survey, the ‘green’ travel trend is gaining momentum among TripAdvisor members, as 71% said they plan to make more eco-friendly choices in the next 12 months compared to 65% that did so in the past 12 months.

The 8 page summary of evidence that there is increasing recognition among both travel professionals and consumers of the importance of responsible travel: The case for Responsible Travel: Trends and Statistics.

Alushca Ritchie, CEO of the Cape Tourist Guides Association and Chairwoman of the Federation of South African Tourist Guide Associations (FSATGA) has expressed concern that under the provisions of the new Tourism Bill in South Africa, tourist guides and their employers could face hefty fines for operating without being registered.

Regulation can improve quality and ensure minimum standards, that is a good thing. However, regulation can also be used to protect the interests of those who are already established in the industry and enable them to protect their entrenched interests against those of new emerging entrepreneurs who can be disadvantaged or excluded by regulation. The challenge is in the detail. Too often around the world, regulation and certification is used to protect the interests of those established in the industry and exclude, or disadvantage, emerging small entrepreneurs.

The challenge for legislators and regulators is to ensure that an appropriate balance is struck between regulations designed to ensure minimum standards to protect the reputation of a country’s industry and enabling new entrepreneurs and enterprises to emerge. It is often those new small sole traders, and micro-businesses, which develop the experiential products which are of increasing importance in international and domestic tourism.

The popularity of the township tours offered in South Africa is evidence of how important innovation is in the sector and that tourists increasingly seek authentic experiences. There needs to be opportunity and space for new forms of tourism to emerge. The risk is that regulations are used by vested interests to protect established businesses, and their market share, to the disadvantage of new entrants and the nation, as the industry fails to innovate and to offer the new more authentic people-to- people experiences that significant sections of the market now seek. It is also often the efforts of the emerging entrepreneurs, initially not licensed, who spread the benefits of tourism beyond the established honeypots. It was not the established operators who developed township tourism now such an important part of the industry.

Consider the newly emerging organisations which won the global Virgin Holidays Responsible Tourism Award over the last two years: i 2012 Reality Tours and Travel won for their educational Dharavi Slum Tours, for demonstrating  that it’s possible for tourists to tour a slum in India in a responsible way and in 2011 Sock Mob Events/Unseen Tours  for their tours led by homeless people offering a very different perspective on London.

The Gambia Tourism Board Act of 2011 contained new licensing regulations for all those enterprises and individuals engaged in the business of tourism. The new Regulations issued under the Act recognised that there needed to be an opportunity for licensed guides to grow their businesses into Ground Tour Operations.

Under the old regulations a Ground Tour Operator needed to own at least nine vehicles. This is still the requirement for a Class A licence. The new regulations for the first time contain provisions for a Class B licence, which requires ownership of three vehicles of which at least one must be a mini-van with a minimum seating capacity of 14 and a Land rover.

This has removed a significant barrier to access in the industry, enabling small entrepreneurs to grow their businesses and to compete with the established Class A operators. Since the new regulations came into force several new ground operators have been licensed including:

Bushwacker Tours www.bushwhackertours.com  Founded by Alieu Bayo with 14 years’ experience as licensed tour guide – his company is highly recommended on Trip Advisor

Jagary-Jagary Jo B&B Safaris: a local man with a 4 wheel driven UMM and a Peugeot 306 offering trips to trips to Basse, Coconut Island and numerous other local safaris.

 Arch Tours www.arch-tours.com Abdul Ramon Conteh gained a ground tour operator  license after ten years’ experience as a licensed guide. Arch Tours is very highly recommended on Trip Advisor http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attraction_Review-g297575-d1648132-Reviews-Arch_tours-Kololi_Banjul_Division.html

Responsible Tourism is about the triple bottom line, economic, social and environment. At WTM in November we had panels on child protection, social inclusion looking at how we extend the opportunity to take a holiday to people with disabilities and low incomes; and maximising local economic development.

This week the issue of low pay in the tourism and hospitality industry has been raised in London, in three different ways. There was a Channel 4 programme on What Happens in Kavos which revealed what the holiday reps earn, and quite a lot about their working conditions.

Some will dismiss it as sensationalist, but the issue is being raised for tour operators as it was for the cruise industry in the Dispatches programme on labour conditions back in October. The “world’s biggest industry” needs to respond and to be able to demonstrate that there are lots of good jobs in travel and tourism. The issue is not going to go away.

In Westminster on Wednesday night there was a Parliamentary reception on “Preventing the Exploitation of Staff in UK Hotels” organised by Anti-Slavery International and the Institute for Human Rights and Business. Their Staff Wanted Initiative is gathering weight.

A cursory look on the web reveals that there are major issues around the terms and conditions of employment  in the travel and tourism industry in many developing and developed country destinations around the world.  Tourism Concern ran their Sun Sand Sea and Sweatshops  some time ago.

But the issue about low wages is not only being raised by trade unionists. Ferdinand Mount is an Old Etonian and he was head of the Downing Street Policy Unit under Margaret Thatcher. Writing in the Evening Standard last Monday, Mount argues that companies, not the state, must now top up low wages.

This is obviously not only an issue for hotels and the travel and tourism industry – but the issue is not going to go away. Mount quotes the Jospeh  Rowntree Foundation Research which reports that in the UK about 7 million working people are on some form of benefit, these are not scroungers on benefit about which we hear a great deal in the press. These are working people in low paid work. They are also employees being subsidised to work for employers who either cannot, or choose not, to pay a living wage. As Mount writes:

“Should the state top up the wages of low-paid workers? Almost overnight, this seems to have become a pressing question. There has even been a new word coined for it: “wob” or “workers on benefit”. The crude argument between “shirkers” and “strivers” is beginning to look secondary to the far costlier question: how much longer can the nation afford to spend so many billions on tax credits?”

However you choose to see the issue, it is an issue which is not going to go away. The industry needs to think about how it is going to respond. Where do you think its responsibility lies?

In yesterday’s Evening Standard Amol Rajan, one of the paper’s regular columnists was arguing that  “All our city’s workers deserve the London Living Wage”

“It was at the annual general meeting of HSBC in Canary Wharf on May 30, 2003 that Ferdinand Mount, author of the 1983 Tory manifesto, heard Abdul Durrant, a cleaner and father of three from Hackney, ask to be paid a living wage.

That set off the process of reflection and study that culminated in Mount eloquent and erudite defence of a living wage on these pages last week.

Mount may be supposed, together with Roger Scruton, successor to Maurice Cowling and Michael Oakeshott as the foremost English conservative intellectual of his generation. It is hard to overstate the significance of his latest intervention.

At last, the Right in Britain is waking up to taxpayer subsidy for the corporate sector. By suppressing wages, corporations could boast they create jobs aplenty. But they also require the state to pay vast amounts in welfare, principally through tax credits. This would be a scandal in a time of plenty, let alone austerity. A living wage not only recapitalises the very poor — to use a prematurely abandoned phrase — by raising their incomes; it also reduces the burden on the rest of us by helping to take them out of a benefits trap.

Boris Johnson, David Cameron, Nick Clegg, Ed Miliband and Iain Duncan Smith – Cameron in May 2010 declared that the Living Wage is “an idea whose time has come.”

The Living Wage is calculated to be £8.30 per hour in London and £7.20 outside of London.

Survival International reported yesterday that the Indian Supreme Court has banned tourists from travelling along the road which cuts through the  Jarawa’s tribal reserve in the Andaman Islands.

The Indian Supreme Court has recently acted to conserve the tiger - it is becoming an important way of tackling some of the negative social and conservation impacts of tourism

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