This blog was suspended briefly yesterday – the bandwidth limits had been exceeded. This resulted from increasing traffic to the site and has now been remedied by the purchase of significantly more bandwidth. It is good to know that people – people like you – are out there reading this in increasing numbers, .

I have just spent two nights in the New Forest working with Anthony Climpson to develop indicators to be used with the VICE destination responsibility model which he has developed in the New Forest over the last 20 years.

I realised while I was there that I last visited the New Forest about 20 years ago and there was hostility to tourists then – we did not feel welcomed. Anthony's work over the last 20 years has contributed to the change which is now very evident and initiatives like the New Forest Breakfast have improved the experience for the visitor, benefited the local economy and contributed to the change in attitudes.

I arrived by rail from Waterloo and stayed in a delightful cottage a short walk from the station and within walking distance of the Forest. The Cottage Lodge won the Gold Sustainable Tourism Award in the Enjoy England Awards for Excellence 2008 announced on St George's Day .

The Gold Award for Large Hotel of the Year was also won by a New Forest property the 
Chewton Glen Hotel

The New Forest won the Virgin Holidays Responsible Tourism Awards for Best Destination in 2007

I am working with Anthony Climpson to develop indicators which will enable the New Forest to report annually on how much progress it has made in achieving its Responsible Tourism objectives organised around VICE – a model which recognises the multi stakeholder engagement in tourism in the Forest and takes a holistic view of the importance of tourism to Visitors, Industry, Community and Environment.

Dear Patricia,

During the conference groups visited a number of projects and their comments -
some positive some critical – informed the Kerala Declaration which was agreed
line by line on the floor of conference.  The declaration is available on the conference
website at http://www.responsibletourism2008.org

The Conference was about Responsible Tourism internationally and the agenda
covered developments in many countries. This was not a local conference focussed
on Responsible Tourism in Kerala. There is a separate Keralan process which is
addressing the implementation of Responsible Tourism in Kerala -the minutes of
the multi-stakeholder meetings involving the elected representatives in the
municipalities and panchayats are available on-line at http://www.keralatourism.org
- as are the views of the elected Minister of Tourism. Kerala's efforts cannot
be reasonably dismissed merely as hype.

I think that it is a pity that before the conference was held such a negative
account of efforts towards realising the Responsible Tourism agenda was
published by Tourism Concern. There is always scope for criticism, but it needs
to be well founded.

I was in Kerala to co-chair the Second International
Conference on Responsible Tourism in Destinations, I was not there to inspect progress
on Responsible Tourism, or to endorse or evaluate particular initiatives by the
government of Kerala or other stakeholders. I have no doubt that there are
other views of the Kovalam beach story and I understand that the public
consultations are ongoing on this issue. It is for Dr Venu
of Kerala Tourism to respond on this issue and I understand that he as already
written to Tourism Concern about  this.

I appreciate the work that Tourism Concern does on behalf of communities who
are negatively impacted by tourism but I do think that when serious allegations
are made you should offer a right of reply. You too have a responsibility to
get the facts right, please give Dr Venu a right of reply in In Focus.

Kind regards

Harold

 
Harold Goodwin
Co-chair 2nd International Conference on Responsible Tourism in Destinations
/www.responsibletourism2008.org/keraladeclaration.php

Brighton and Hove have refreshed their tourism development strategy using the concept of Responsible Tourism. Allison Keech one of the ICRT's current students has worked with Adam  Bates  to develop this new approach. It is worth downloading a copy of the strategy to get the full flavour and perhaps to use it as a model.

The strategy is integrated with Brighton and Hove's broader development strategy and Allison has worked hard to engage all the stakeholders within the Council and from business and the community to realise the Cape Town Declaration aspiration of using tourism to make “better places for people to live in. better places for people to visit.”

The policy can be downloaded from

http://www.visitbrighton.com/members/165.asp