Travelling responsibly

Introducing Andy Jarosz as Guest Editor and our Travel Essay Series

ben on 2nd November 2010 | 0 comments

November marks the start of a new project on the Tourdust blog, we’ve invited Andy Jarosz from the acclaimed 501 Places blog to take the reins as guest editor of the blog and the @tourdust twitter account.

During Andy’s reign as guest editor we will be publishing a series of thought provoking articles questioning why we travel, how it effects the places we visit and ultimately how we can improve the impact we have on local communities.

We’ll be asking if travel is a rite of passage, a mythological adventure or simply just a form of consumption with the tourist nothing more than a cultural cannibal.

We’ll be investigating whether travel is a form of cultural imperialism destroying cultures and sustaining inequalities or whether the cultural change and development catalysed by tourism is actually a positive.

The Series in Full

Why we travel

1. Travel as religious experience
2. Travel as an epic adventure
3. Travel: the must have possession?

The impact of travel

1. Travel as imperialism
2. Travel as cultural perversion
3. Travel as Development aid

How and where should we travel

1. Where should we travel? Where should we avoid? Why?
2. How should we travel

With each subject we will publish thoughts both from Andy (in his capacity as travel blogger) and David Jobanputra (PhD in social anthropology) who has studied first hand the impact of eco-development and grassroots advocacy in India. We’ll be pitching the blogger's view against the academic's view, as well, of course as welcoming comments from all of our readers.

There are no right's or wrong's in these discussions, no absolute truths. Our objective, as passionate believers in local and responsible travel, is to provoke thoughtfulness and raise awareness of the issues. So please let us know your thoughts, your experience and your comments and if the debate moves you to blog about it, let us know and we will happily link to your contribution to the debate!

About Andy Jarosz

Andy blogs at 501Places and is a Lonely Planet featured blogger and freelance writer. Andy has travelled across six continents (Antarctica is still on the list) and has a particular interest in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, as these areas act as the backdrop to his family's incredible history. He also has a fascination with the aurora borealis and is always eager to brave the cold dark nights of the north to catch another glimpse of nature's greatest show. 

About David Jobanputra

David Jobanputra is a writer and anthropologist specialising in development, cultural change and environmental ethics.  He recently completed a PhD in Social Anthropology at University College London, which looked at grassroots advocacy and eco-development in the Aravalli mountains of Rajasthan, India.  In addition to living and working in the subcontinent, David has travelled extensively throughout Europe, Asia and Africa, including overland trips from Tibet to Scotland and Beijing to Java. David recently returned from 18 months living with a tribe in the Rajasthani desert.

Travelling Irresponsibly - The Impact of the Package Travel Regulations

ben on 5th August 2010 | 0 comments

Do you like to travel independently? Maybe you have done a little backpacking or taken time out and enjoyed the pleasure of exploring, discovering local gems and getting off the beaten track. Maybe you try to book locally and pay a fair price (and make sure as much of your money as possible goes to the local economy). So when you need to book ahead and can't rely on sorting it out on the ground, how do you book with a local company and make sure your holiday is protected? It is a tricky subject so bear with us...

The package travel regulations were introduced to protect your pre-payments (i.e deposits) and to provide a reasonable level of safety (i.e. insurance, health and safety). They are well intended, but nowadays they are in a mess.  They apply inconsistently across different categories, mislead and confuse people and create competitive advantage for established players - disadvantaging smaller local operators in the destinations we visit (read more about this in this excellent article by Harold Goodwin)- exactly the kind of businesses independent travellers want to support!

The unfortunate side effects of the package travel regulations is that they encourage the purchase of packages and therefore the continued dominance of the opaque outbound tour operator model. They discourage exploring, rebelling against the crowds and going local. Why? Well effectively, a small community safari lodge in Botswana, or a trekking outfit on the Inca Trail, that sells direct to a UK consumer should comply with the package travel regulations by EU law. Simply put, if they have a website through which a UK customer contacts them and tries to book, then they should have a level of insurance that is often impossible to procure in their countries and a level of financial bonding that is simply unrealistic to expect. You don't have to be a scientist to work out that this encourages bigger international companies and discourages smaller local companies. 

Instead these opaque outbound tour operators blossom. A tour operator by definition takes ownership of the delivery of your holiday, they carry the buck. And in their defense many do this very well, carrying out regular and stringent checks on the transport, accommodation, equipment and overall quality of what is delivered locally. In return they package up the discrete elements of your holiday and place a mark up on it for their services. There is nothing wrong with this in principle, but the unfortunate side effect is you don't know the nature of the local operator you will be using and have to trust your outbound tour operator blindly. For example, if you are trekking the Inca Trail, it doesn't matter which UK tour operator you book with, when you are in Peru,  you will be trekking with a local operator. The problem is that instead of being able to do your research and choose the best provider for you, you have to play an elaborate game of charades with your operator, as they rush to sew their logos onto the shirt's of whichever local guides they are working with. Your only resort is to trust the reputation of the outbound tour operator as you won't know who the actual local operator delivering your trek will be.

This all creates a quasi black market. You want to do your research on Tripadvisor, find the best local operator organising treks on the Inca Trail and book direct with them, you don't want a bloated outbound operator taking half your money to spend on UK headquarters. But when it comes to booking, in many cases you will find yourself having to send large sums of money overseas without any financial protection.

So is a little transparency too much to ask? Would it really be all that awful if we could know the name and reputation of the company who will be looking after us locally when we travel long haul and still be able to book with confidence?

There are clearly challenges. There is no way local operators will be able to comply in full with the package travel regs and sell direct to a UK customer. And of course, there is little incentive for the tour operator, with their oblique pricing mark-ups to disclose the name of the local operator!

Possible solutions could be in finding a way to overcome the bonding issue. Why can't we find a way to capture bookings without pre-payments? Why doesn't the industry abandon bonding and adopt some kind of per passenger supplier failure cover insurance as a de facto standard? After all, you will certainly pay an equivalent hidden cost anyway when you book with a bonded operator? Regardless, don't hold your breath!

For our part, we are taking a number of steps to help you find and book great local operators at local prices. It is a tricky task to balance, as the danger is, we introduce too much cost and divert money from the local operators. So what do we do? 

1. We do the research to find the best local operators, ensuring as far as possible (without becoming a tour operator!) that they are reliable and safe, 
2. We also happily disclose who they are and why we work with them before you book. 
3. We also provide supplier failure cover, taking any hassle and fear away from the purchase. Effectively you are covered should the operator (or heaven forbid ourselves) go out of business. 

We aren't resting there either, we are exploring options to provide full bonding (in addition to supplier failure cover) and better ways to expose the quality and credentials of our local operators. But until the industry as a whole gets its act together it will continue to be an unfair playing field that discourages true responsible travel.

What can ‘local travel’ learn from responsible travel’s chequered past

ben on 13th April 2010 | 5 comments

‘Local travel’ describes what many independent travellers have known for years - get off the beaten track, choose local, choose small and invariably you will choose well. But will the new ‘Local Travel’ Movement survive and prosper?

The concept of ethically responsible travel (deeply interwoven with local travel) has been around for many years now. Yet it is clouded in myth, misinterpretation, misunderstanding and tarnished reputations.  It has failed to go mainstream in anywhere near the same way as fair-trade tea and organic bananas have done in our local supermarkets. It seems responsible travel means different things to different people and is misunderstood by most. The problem has been partly caused by the media who over-simplify the issue, partly by companies who piggy back the movement without proper attention to standards and in the main due to a lack of international kite-marks by which consumers can easily judge operations.

As a result we have a situation where companies throw around terms like eco tours and ecolodge and community tourism initiative without ever being held up to real scrutiny – A lot is very much for show (including the hastily typed responsible travel policy). So as consumers, instead of being able to rely confidently on labels such as organic or fair trade, we have to to consider our own choices and make our own minds up, for instance:

1. Just because it is green we can’t assume it is good. A composting toilet doesn’t guarantee that the owners are paying fair wages to local staff.
2. Just because it isn’t green doesn’t mean it isn’t ethical. The social impact of travel is independent of the environmental impacts of travel and focussing on one is better than focussing on neither.
3. Volunteering isn’t always ‘good’. Short volunteering stays can sometimes do more harm than good. 
4. The same principles of independent judgement must be applied to ‘local travel’. Small, local and independent doesn’t guarantee quality nor does it guarantee ethics. There are many successful large international organisations offering thoroughly locally-rooted travel experiences that are better for the customer and better for the local community than the local alternatives.

The point is, travel is an experience without any hard and fast rules and not an easily defined physical product. In the absence of a common global standard (don’t hold your breath) travellers need to make their own judgements and companies need to do their best to make improvements.

Any companies that make efforts to provide or promote local travel or ethical or green travel experiences should be applauded. The net effect in most cases will be good, more operators will behave responsibly and more customers will choose responsibly. But there is a worrying danger when those same companies market their product or website as ‘responsible’ or ‘green’ or ‘eco’ or ‘local’ without thoroughly and fairly assessing themselves against these labels – it simply undermines the whole movement. 

We live in a complex multi-coloured world where white-washing, green-washing and blacklisting only serve to simplify a matter to banality. As a travel company, we should agree to treat the issue with respect, acknowledge the complexities of the issue and avoid the temptation to simplify for the sake of a good marketing slogan.

Tourdust scholarship winners

ben on 9th September 2009 | 2 comments

Back in spring we decided to get involved with the Geotourism 09 prize.  The process of collecting entries from all over the world, sorting them and picking three winners has finally come to a conclusion.  We can announce that RiverIndia, CapeRace and Ger to Ger are our winners.

To me, Geotourism is travelling to experience (and support) local culture, local places and local people (you can read more about this in my previous blog on Geotourism).   Our three winners are all putting on simply amazing adventure travel and cultural travel experiences, that they are all managing to do so whilst putting huge amounts back into the local communities is a miracle!

1. Ger to Ger provide deep cultural immersion in Mongolia offering homestays, guided trekking, and horseback expeditions along nomadic trails.  Ger to Ger trains nomadic herders and teams them up with local guides to give travellers a thoroughly authentic taste of Mongolia.  We were delighted to pick Ger to Ger because our inspiration to start Tourdust came during a stay with a nomadic family in Mongolia.  There were a fair few disneyfied nomadic camps around, but we got lucky. With Ger to Ger you know you are staying with a real nomadic herder family - I can honestly say that there is nothing else like it on earth, the nomadic way of life is so different from the West, it is simply enlightening.  I was particularly tickled whan I read that they mongolize the visitors rather than westernising the nomads.
2. Cape Race is a unique eco-cultural experience in Newfoundland, Canada.  You stay in three spectacular historic coastal homes and explore unique and out-of-the-way nature sites, pubs and music venues under your own steam.  The key is a tailor-made professional guide book written specifically for your trip and full of local contacts. Cape Race is trying to facilitate the ultimate aim of any independent traveller, to explore and get to know a place as only a local could.  We love that they try to give you real local contacts at each pub or place they recommend.  Importantly they also strive to ensure local encounters are spontaneous and authentic and never staged.
3. River India offers culturally-immersive white-water rafting, kayaking, and fishing expeditions on the undiscovered but epic Siang River.  Whilst the region is undiscovered and the river truly epic, what really marks River India out is their approach to protecting the river environment and supporting the local economy.  River India supports and operates a river skills school which trains and supports locals to set up their own companies on the river.  So many adventure holidays are all about the adventure and forget about the local people and place.  River India serves up the ultimate river adventure whilst putting you up in traditional local bamboo huts and dishing up local food. That they can manage this and put so much back into the local community is awe inspiring.

We spend a large portion of our time trying to find really authentic operators who have a genuine local expertise and run thing the way we like them run (small groups, expert guides, owners involved in operations, fantastic experiences).  We were looking for a way to publicise this search with a contest to find the the most innovative exciting small travel companies from around the world and the Geotourism contest is a superb vehicle for it thanks to the efforts of the Ashoka Changemakers organisation.  Ashoka Changemakers organise the Geotourism 09 contest and it is heavily supported by the National Geographic magazine.

We thought long and hard about the prize and have come up with something we hope will make a real and sustainable difference to the winners.  There is a financial element to the prize which includes budget towards online marketing and participation at an International travel show.  The other element is a mentor relationship with experienced travel industry professionals:

Christina Heyniger: Founder of Off The Radar and Xola Consulting Services, which works with owner-operators and innovative organizations blending adventure tourism and volunteer service. Christina is an Associate with the Adventure Travel Trade Association and serves on the board of directors for Sustainable Travel International, and Protect the Earth, Protect Yourself - an adventure travel/ volunteer tourism organization. She also serves as an advisor to the National Geographic Center for Sustainable Development.

Alex Bainbridge: Authoritative & insightful blogger on the travel ecommerce industry.  Alex is the founder and MD of Tour CMS, a web-based reservation system designed for small and medium-sized tour operators.  Alex has significant expertise in harnessing ecommerce and social media for small travel businesses.

Chris Noble: General Manager of World Nomads and co-founder of Footprintsnetwork. Footprintsnetwork is an alliance of online e-commerce companies making a difference with a solution that supports sustainable poverty alleviation community programs.

Photo of Ger courtesy of Flickr user the wandering angel.

Geotourism

ben on 8th September 2009 | 0 comments

I've never been a huge fan of labels, mainly because only a select few know what the hell they mean. However putting that aside, let me explain how I interpret geotourism.

We are quite set in our ways about the whole field of responsible travel.  We believe that people want great holidays first and foremost and the ethics of our holiday choices are only a hygiene factor.  So we want to have confidence that our choice is ethical but really just want to be able to concentrate on finding the most fun, most inspiring, most alive holidays.  That is why we love the concept of geotourism. 

To me, Geotourism is travelling to experience local culture, local places and local people.  At its simplest it is staying at a locally run b&b eating good local grub and getting a few tips from the landlady on where to visit.  The diametric opposite of staying in a four star hotel with international buffets.  The beauty of geotourism is that by going local, not only are you likely to have a better experience (assuming you don't like dull sameness) but by learning about the locality and using local businesses the local community and place will benefit more too. 

So is Tourdust a proponent of responsible tourism or geotourism?  I don't know, all I know is we spend a lot of time and effort trying to track down adventure holidays and cultural tours from local experts.  Most of the time this means a genuinely locally owned and run business, but not always - it comes down to who can give the best locally-flavoured experience.  Along the way we try and do what we can to support the communities we travel to.  From humble beginnings and all that, but at the moment we are supporting the Geotourism 09 contest and we have a monthly quota of new suppliers we take on who we work with on a non profit basis.  This tends to include our volunteering holidays, but also can include very small local operators who aren't set up to be able to pay commissions.