Kerala - Kochi   

‘Expose those who pay lip-service to Responsible Tourism’

KOCHI: Civil society, governments and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) must expose those who pay lip-service to Responsible Tourism, said Adama Bah, chairman of The Association of Small Scale Enterprises in Tourism.

“We cannot sit back and relax when unscrupulous players in the tourism sector indulge in practices that are unethical and are harmful to the environment. The speculation in the price of land in and around tourists locales and land-grabbing, are often the adverse fallout of government schemes to woo investors,” Mr. Bah, who is also the Gambian projects coordinator of the United Kingdom-based Travel Foundation, said.

The Travel Foundation is a multi-stakeholder Responsible Tourism partnership, to which tour operators give a portion of their income. The organisation looks for sustainable projects. In Gambia, it is engaged in training the local people at cultivating vegetables and marketing them (mainly to hotels). The Foundation also trains tourist guides in communicating with tourists and aspects such as their safety and hygiene, apart from training policy makers on responsible-tourism practices. It also sensitises people to issues such as child-sex tourism.

“Tourists are now aware of the adverse effects that many tourism developments have on the environment. They now consciously opt to travel to eco-friendly destinations, where the local community too benefits from tourism. Tourism players have to adopt ethical and Responsible Tourism practices, to capture this segment of tourists. Tour operators, who are the link between tourists and destinations, must remember that only sustainable tourism destinations bring in money – one complements the other. Their cooperation is required for poverty alleviation in locales,” he said.

While expressing dissatisfaction at many movements in Responsible Tourism not achieving their target, Mr. Bah expressed the optimism that things will fall in place soon. One should learn from case studies and bring in local ingredients for their venture to succeed.

“Tourism, with all its possibilities of transferring wealth from the North to the South, needs to do more on issues of poverty, fair-trading practices and societal justice. Above all, there has to be respect for people living in the destination, so that all stand to benefit from tourism.

A dialogue between stakeholders is required in the highly-competitive tourism business.”

Speaking about the tourist scene in Africa, he said that tourism is not all about jungle safaris in the continent. Western Africa has many cultural and historical sites too.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

Thousands turn up for Hubbu Rasool
‘Expose those who pay lip-service to Responsible Tourism’
An early warning system for epidemics
Midnight Masses, feasts mark Easter celebrations
Moolamppilly stir called off
Folk arts competition
Segregation of waste not picking up in city
‘Responsible Tourism can check globalisation’
High-speed rail corridor
Railways planning six high-speed corridors
Kochi Today

Copyright © 2008, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu