Taking Responsibility
for Tourism � A working week on responsible tourism planning in Myanmar

It was back in May that the democratic opposition in Myanmar
announced that it welcomed Responsible Tourism and other forms of tourism based
on respect. When I was asked in November whether I would be willing to travel
to Myanmar to lead a week of workshops and a conference on Responsible
Tourism I enthusiastically accepted. I spent last week in Myanmar arriving and
departing from Yangon via Bangkok and travelling to the new capital Nay Pyi Taw,
only recently opened to foreigners ,this entirely new city boasts 12 lane
highways and monumental buildings, the largest Parliament I have seen; a new
capital reflecting the ambition of its leaders for Myanmar in the C21st.

The Ministry of Hotels and Tourism invited all of the
ministries to attend, to hear about Responsible Tourism and to consider what the
contribution of their ministry was to ensuring that tourism in Myanmar becomes
and remains responsible. There was enthusiastic participation by all of the
government staff who came to represent no less than 22 ministries in a day of discussions
about the issues and what individual ministries needed to do to exercise their responsibility
for making tourism sustainable in Myanmar. There is both recognition of the
need for a whole of government approach to the sustainable development of tourism
in Myanmar and enthusiasm in the ministries to play their role, to take and
exercise responsibility.

The private sector workshop also brought a good attendance;
the Myanmar Tourism Board was formed less than a year ago to bring together the
various private sector associations which have emerged to represent the
interests of guides, hotels, agencies and operators. The industry was also enthusiastic
about adopting Responsible Tourism

The concluding conference brought the public and private
sector together to hear reports from each of the workshops. Opened by H. E. U
Tint Hasan, Union Minister Ministry of Hotels and Tourism & Ministry of Sports
and with a welcoming address from Dr Khin Shwe, Chairman of the Myanmar Tourism
Board, there was a meeting of minds between the public and private sector and a
willingness to take responsibility. The quality of the presentations from each
of the workshop days was high. There was recognition of the advantage which Myanmar
had in the opportunity to learn from the mistakes of others and to work to
ensure that the host guest encounter in Myanmar continued to be founded upon respect
and the realisation of the ambition to provide �a Warm Welcome to Tourists and
Take Good Care of Them.�

The Deputy Minister, H E U Htay Aung,  in his closing remarks said that �the mission
was accomplished, we did it and we succeeded� adding as he spoke to the public
and private   �if you don�t want to change you cannot
succeed.�

The Nay Pyi Taw Responsible Tourism Statement on Taking Responsibility
for Tourism is available on line

The statement concludes that there are two priorities the
development of a Responsible Tourism Policy and Strategy for the next couple of
years, this to be followed by the development of a Responsible Tourism Master Plan;
and a capacity building, in vocational and Higher Education and perhaps most
urgently Continuing Professional Development at Masters level for this in the public
and private sectors and in education, whose challenge it is to achieve the
aspiration for Responsible Tourism Planning in Myanmar.

Schumpeter in The Economsit reviews success amongst entrepreneurs and suggests that “Experience continues to count for a great deal, in business as in other
walks of life�or, to borrow a phrase from P.J. O�Rourke, age and guile
can still beat �youth, innocence and a bad haircut�.

“The evidence that older people are if anything becoming more
enterprising should help to calm two of the biggest worries that hang
over the West (and indeed over an ageing China). One is that the greying
of the population will inevitably produce economic sluggishness. The
second is that older people will face hard times as companies shed older
workers in the name of efficiency and welfare states cut back on their
pensions.

Here, Mr Cohen is a man for our times. In 2004 he faced financial
ruin when he discovered that his manager, Kelley Lynch, had
misappropriated most of his savings. He sued successfully but could not
lay his hands on the money. So he had no choice but to go back to work.
Mr Cohen told the New York Times that
reconnecting with �living musicians� and �living audiences� had �warmed
some part of my heart that had taken a chill�. Let us hope the same is
true of the ageing boomers who will have little choice but to embrace
self-employment as the West�s welfare states discover that they cannot
keep their promises.”

Read more

There is a report in today's Daily Telegraph, by Andrew Gilligan, that the Department for International Development  has committed almost �9 million to send
1,250 British teenagers and young people overseas for �projects of
development value�. But from internal DFID evaluations seen by The Sunday
Telegraph, the main beneficiaries of Cameron's flagship International Citizen Service appear to be the British youngsters
themselves, rather than the people of the developing world.

This is the kind of thing that gets gap years and volunteering abroad a bad name:

Gordon Bridger has 40 years of experience working for the UN and for the British Government – his critique of the aid industry should be heard. His book How I Failed to Save the World is a must read for anyone interested in why aid fails and may cause harm.
In contrast to large scale aid small scale initiatives and people to people aid can work he argues.

Listen to what he had to say on Radio 4 today http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b01bm0py

The green thing ………….

She was right — our generation didn't have the green thing in its day.
Back then, we returned milk bottles, pop bottles and beer bottles to the
store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized
and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really
were recycled. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new
pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away
the whole razor just because the blade got dull.


But we didn't have the green thing back in our day.

We walked up stairs, because we didn't have an escalator in every shop
and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into
a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks.

 

But she was right.
We didn't have the green thing in our day.

Back then, we washed the baby's nappies because we didn't have the throw-away
kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning
up 220 volts — wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in
our early days. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters,
not always brand-new clothing.


But that young lady is right. We didn't have the green thing back in our
day.

Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house — not a TV in every room.
And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?),
not a screen the size of the county of Yorkshire.  In the kitchen,
we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines
to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile
item to send in the post, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it,
not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn't fire up an engine
and burn petrol just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on
human power. We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health
club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity.


But she's right. We didn't have the green thing back then.

We drank water from a fountain or a tap when we were thirsty instead of
demanding a plastic bottle flown in from another country. We accepted that
a lot of food was seasonal and didn't expect that to be bucked by flying
it thousands of air miles around the world. We actually cooked food that
didn't come out of a packet, tin or plastic wrap and we could even wash
our own vegetables and chop our own salad.


But we didn't have the green thing back then.

Please forward this on to another selfish old person who needs a lesson
in conservation from a smart-ass young person.


Remember: Don't make old people mad. We don't like being old in the first
place, so it doesn't take much to hack us off.

Flight Centre is looking to capitalise on the trend to responsible
tourism with the acquisition of Canadian company GoVoluntouring, which
specialises in volunteer tourism. GoVoluntouring Founder & CEO Aaron
Smith says “The sheer breadth of distribution will make Flight Centre's
GoVoluntouring a massive change agent.”  Smith will remain as Business
Leader, based out of Flight Centre's Vancouver office. Source

Monaco adds Responsible Tourism read more

This is the next step of responsible tourism project called �Protection of the
forest and wildlife� implemented by GIZ Vietnam. This project encourages tourists come to Pu Hu. read more

The local tourism industry raked in about P1 billion during the festive season last year. Botswana

The Minister of Environment, Wildlife and Tourism, Kitso Mokaila
revealed this during the World Wetlands Day (WWD) commemoration last
Thursday in Gaborone.

This year�s World Wetlands Day theme was, �Wetlands and Tourism a
Great Experience – Responsible Tourism Supports Wetland and People�.
Mokaila said the revenue earned through tourism last Christmas showed
that the industry was a force to reckon with as the government tries to
diversify the economy. Read more

Taleb Rifai UNWTO writes about RT
At the same time, one billion is a serious responsibility on the tourism
sector. Unplanned and poorly managed tourism development can cause
serious harm. We need to be capable of building a more responsible
tourism sector; one that protects our common heritage while making it
accessible to all and providing the means to preserve it. Read more

I have written before about the importance of the Responsible Tourism initiatives taking place in Kerala and the way that because RT has secured support from both the panchayat and businesses it is firmly established and secure when the state government changes. read more

Kerala is self-critical of its Responsible Tourism efforts. The government has included eight more tourist
centres under responsible tourism programme. The potential of Responsible Tourism was yet to be fully tapped in the state.
Anil Kumar, the Kerala Minister of Tourism, said that although the programme of Responsible Tourism
had been launched in Kovalam, Kumarakom, Wayanad and Thekkady
it was successful to a considerable extent only at Kumarakom.
read more

And Kerala is discussing the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches to Responsible Tourism and learning from their experience. The success of the initiatives in Kumarakom which I have seen first hand over the last few days are being built on in Phase 2 of the Responsible Tourism programme: Let's Travel Together, Responsibly.

Last night the Hon. Minister for Tourism, Shri. A.P. Anil Kumar launched the second phase of the programme and honoured those panchayat leaders, local people and hotels who made the first phase a success.

The second phase involves extending the experimental work to other parts of Kerala, working to ensure that local people gain from tourism and have better livelihood opportunities as well as developing Responsible Tourism classification criteria and a new website: www.rtkerala.com

It was an honour to be present at the launch of the second phase and to be working the Kerala Department of Tourism, and the Kerala Institute of Travel and Tourism Studies (KITTS) to research the impacts of the porgramme.
read more

I wrote back in December about Tourism Abusing Human Rights and in partiular about the tourists treat the indigenous Jarawa of India�s Andaman Islands.

On Saturday The Guardian reported that “Jarawa girls told to dance semi-naked for the camera as two videos offer fresh proof of official involvement in 'human safaris'”

“A three minutes and 19 seconds clip, shot on a mobile phone, shows
half-naked girls from the tribe dancing for a seated Indian police
officer. A second, shorter clip again focuses on a girl's nudity, while
men in military uniform mill around.

The new evidence comes as
authorities in Orissa state set an example to their counterparts in the
Andamans by moving swiftly to end human safaris to see the Bonda tribe,
another abuse revealed by an Observer investigation.

The
Indian government had ordered both sets of officials to take swift
action to investigate and prevent abuse. In an interview last week,
tribal affairs minister V Kishore Chandra Deo said exploitation by
outsiders had to be stopped.”

Read more

Today Survival International reports that MP Andrew George has tabled a Commons motion calling for an end to recently contacted Jarawa being treated like attractions in a �human safari park�.

MEP Sir Graham Watson, Chair of the
Parliament�s Delegation to India, has described the Jarawa�s
exploitation as a �disgrace�, and vowed to keep pursuing the issue with
Indian officials.

Survival�s Director Stephen Corry said, �This new video released by the Observer shows current
precautions by the Andaman authorities are not working. It�s time the
government got to the root of the problem, which is the road: it must be
closed.�

Survival International is calling  on the public to write emails through its website urging the Indian government to take immediate action to stop the human safaris.

Read more

Catherine Mack has been writing about “punters”.

�Responsible tourism? Ha! Does that mean not dropping your litter as
you walk through the rainforest?� was the scathing reaction of a friend
when I told her that I was taking on an Msc in Responsible Tourism Management
six years ago. I tried somewhat pathetically to defend my tiny corner.
Then, �I am so tired all of this f***king eco shit� one award winning
travel writer said loudly in my direction a few years later at the ABTA
convention, to a round of back patting and communal cackling from his
peers. By then, I had learned to smile politely and walk on. But oh, how
they laughed.

So, six years later, with one Masters degree, a modest pile of
published work, three books, one app and an award, I am simply bemused
to see they are still laughing.  Just this week  on Twitter, in an
albeit humourous banter between fellow travel Tweeps, I posted something
about Responsible Tourism Week, an
online iniative happening 13-17 February 2012.  So why was I surprised
to see the ensuant piss taking? �Apparently it�s Responsible Tourism
Week soon. Personally I quite fancy an Irresponsible Tourism Week.
Anyone else?!� one travel writer teased. �Isn�t every week an
irresponsible tourism week?� another retorted. I retweeted and replied,
�Speak for yourselves�  *still smiling*

However,  what surprises me most is that six years later, after a
plethora of responsible tourism conferences, conventions and codes of
practice, so many travel writers, not just travellers, still think it is
amusing that our industry is �responsible�  for so much damage. As one
Tweep put it, the term responsible �feels at odd with fun�. They still
dismiss the responsible tourism movement as a bit of a whim, a green
geeksville. A posse of party poopers even. They still don�t get the fact
that the responsible tourism movement is about water inequity, human
rights abuses, irrational use of natural resources, waste, pollution,
commercialising culture, and so much more.  And why do they not know?
Because so many of the responsible tourism issues and destination
developments are debated in academic circles, at government or UN level
or around the board tables of small, committed tour operators and
agencies. And there is always one empty chair at these debates. That of
the media. There will always be travel writers for whom a commission
will come before a �cause�, of course, but there are so many who are
still just simply in the dark where responsible tourism, ecotourism,
green or sustainable tourism issues , call it what you will, are
concerned.

Read more