The third biennial World Tourism Forum in Lucerne, Switzerland, held last month, featured a sustainability-themed showcase of best practices selected from various realms of tourism. The Forum featured the 20-minute showcase in its main plenary session April 18 before a 400-strong international audience of travel CEOs, government tourism officials, heads of civic organizations, and —unique to this forum—rising young talent.

Entlebuch UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, near Lucerne, recognized for holistic practices. Photo: Jonathan Tourtellot

Cosponsored by National Geographic Traveler, the showcase “Green—And Beyond” sought to demonstrate how the sustainability movement in travel and  tourism is evolving from such basics as recycling and low-energy light bulbs into a more holistic approach that encompasses cultural and natural heritage, aesthetics, endemic arts and artisanry, and destinations as a whole. Your portal editor prepared the showcase, making selections based on the suggestions and support of colleagues and affiliates of the Destination Stewardship Center.

The showcase selections represented good practice trends from around the world. They included:

• Copenhagen—leader in sustainable hotels
• Alto Hotel, Melbourne, Australia—carbon-neutral pioneer
• El Nido Resorts, Philippines and Hotel Porto del Lago, Guatemala—conservation and jobs for local communities
• World Heritage destination of Alhambra and Grenada, Spain—excellent visitor management
• Orient Village development, St. Martin, French West Indies—suitable architecture
• Cayman Islands’ new “Dive 365” program—dispersal of diver traffic
• Roteiros de Charme hotel group, Brazil—combining charm, environment, and multiple price points
• InterContinental Tambo Airport Hotel, Johannesburg—local artisanry and cuisine augment in-hotel guest experience
• Entlebuch Biosphere Reserve, Switzerland—conservation and evolving cuisine based on traditional agriculture
• Qantas Airways—various destination-support programs for culture, nature, and aesthetics
• Helena, Montana airport terminal—design that evokes sense of place
• Royal Caribbean Cruises—newly launched certified shore excursion program
• Hoona, Alaska—cruise-passenger management
• Hong Kong’s new cruise terminal—notably appropriate for minimizing megaship disruption to port city
• Community Conservancies, Namibia—74 community-based conservancies and 1200+ jobs supported by wildlife tourism
• Zeitz Foundation’s Long Run Destinations—enterprises incorporating conservation, culture, community, and commerce
• Fogo Island, Newfoundland—geotourism enhancement by basing new assets on local tradition
• The city of Barcelona and the country of Bhutan—destination-wide sustainability policies.

The Thursday plenary session led off with a scathing and telling keynote [see 1st video, April 18] by Arab Hoballah, Chief of Sustainable Consumption and Production, United Nations Environment Program, who focused on the general failure of the travel industry to adopt sustainable practices with necessary speed. It was appropriate then, for the showcase to complement his reasoned critique with examples of how things can be done right—if there is will to do so. We hope they will provide inspiration for many others.

Other topics addressed by forum speakers ranged from the future of tourism to marketing and mobile media, along with a recognition ceremony for notably accomplished students in tourism from around the world. You can review all the presentations here , including those for the breakout session on destination sustainability. Setting the tone for the Forum was an introductory photo show of finalists from the 2012 National Geographic Traveler Photography Contest, accompanied by a live saxophone duet from the Lucerne school of music.

I offer my thanks to the many people and organizations who provided suggestions and material for the Best Practices showcase, including Sustainable Travel International, the Rainforest Alliance, the Zeitz Foundation, Solimar International, Tourism Australia, Jamie Sweeting, Costas Christ, Ariane Janer, Roger Sonderegger, the staff of National Geographic Traveler, and numerous others.

The latest National Geographic Geotourism MapGuide project rolled out for eastern Newfoundland last week, providing both a living website and a print map. As typical for these projects, a lot of Newfoundlanders helped.

Summer festivals are one place to find Newfoundland’s delicious but elusive moose-burgers. Photo: Jonathan Tourtellot

This geotourism project is personal for me. When my wife and I first decided in 2005 to flee the steamy Washington DC summer and visit St. John’s and the Avalon Peninsula, I rapidly came to the conclusion that Newfoundland was a perfect geotourism destination—deep sense of place, with distinctive nature, culture, history, architecture, and plenty of local pride. Further explorations westward only confirmed our impressions.

Wide open scenery, wildlife ranging from gannets to moose, rugged coasts, tiny fishing harbors—these you might expect. Better yet, Newfoundlanders themselves show just as much character as “The Rock” they live on.

Gannet rookery on Cape St. Mary’s, Newfoundland. Photo: Jonathan Tourellot

We found that theater, for instance, is woven into local culture. If you take in a play there, chances are it will not be some Broadway retread, but a drama based on this sprawling island’s own history and way of life. Music, too, crops up frequently, especially in St. John’s, contributing to feeling that you’re in some cold-latitude cousin to New Orleans.

So it was rewarding to see in 2010 that I was not alone in my assessment. The Avalon Peninsula scored first place on the  Destination Scorecard survey in National Geographic Traveler—best of 99 coastal destinations rated that year.

Not all is perfect, of course. St. John’s is spilling generic urban sprawl into neighboring parts of the peninsula, and backcountry restaurants—well, the cuisine is just starting to see needed improvement, although the local ingredients are great. Some people now fear that new oil wealth will introduce generic commercialization and erode Newfoundland’s distinctive character.

Historic houses at Trinity, Newfoundland. Photo: Jonathan Tourtellot

Maybe—but if anyone can resist that tendency, it will be Newfoundlanders. This is a place where visitors can have fun adventures among friendly, outgoing people with an acute sense of who they are.

After my first visit, numerous discussions and more visits over the years eventually led Newfoundlanders to team up with National Geographic Maps and Solimar International to create this year’s Geotourism MapGuide and website. Take a look.

My dream for several decades had been to buy a small boutique hotel or ecolodge in a culturally unique region of the world and partner with an experienced local. When I sold my company and became aware of the Center for Sustainable Destinations (then the custodian of the geotourism movement put forth by the National Geographic Society), my family became one of the first donors of both funding and pro bono research.

Restoration with the help of philanthropic investors will turn this timeworn mansion in Quito, Ecuador into an atmospheric boutique hotel. Photo courtesy László Károlyi

We traveled to Croatia, Costa Rica, St. Croix, Ecuador, and the Bahamas in a quest to find the best opportunity to demonstrate a model/prototype project to NGS. This project would have to include the necessary geotourism requirements. What we found in each location were qualified hospitality owners that lacked the necessary funds to expand or to upgrade their existing offering into something they, we, and NGS would be proud to be associated with.

Out of several years of research, we coined a concept—The Philanthropic Investor. These two words are normally not compatible, but our concept was that since “giving” people money in developing areas has proven to be a mistake, we would find philanthropists/investors to partner with these qualified people (and in essence “loan” the money, using the facilities as collateral). Since our type of investors are financially independent and don’t need these profits to support our lifestyles, we would be obligated to sell our portion back to the local partner once the project was stabilized, and to do so at some smaller proportion of the profit than the 50% an investor would normally seek in that type of venture.

The idea is that those profits can then be reinvested in another similar project, and the concept can spread worldwide far quicker than any charity or individual investor could accomplish.

Our choice was a 26-room boutique hotel in Quito, Ecuador, operated in a leased building by an Ecuadorian who has traveled extensively throughout the world. He had launched the business over 20 years ago as one of the first boutique hotels in Latin America, patterning it after European prototypes. The staff was all local. The manager was schooled and promoted from within, having started as a chambermaid. The products for the kitchen were all locally grown, and local cultural and nature were promoted.

But most important, the business owner was the head of a marketing group for other small hospitality ventures: the Exclusive Hotels and Haciendas of Ecuador. One of the most common reasons for failures by small, culturally distinctive properties is insufficient funds to market and compete with the “big boys.” Forming small-hotel groups like this one expands funding for marketing. Moreover, with member properties strategically positioned throughout the country, such a group enables the potential for whole tours, using facilities regulated by strict quality control.

Interior, pre-restoration.

After restoration and ready for guests. Photos courtesy László Károlyi

The current facility being rented, upgrading it was not possible. So I teamed up with another Philanthropic Investor, and we have partnered with the hotel proprietor to purchase a landmark mansion in severe disrepair. We are remodeling it to meet historical, sustainable, and geotouristic standards.

We hope to have the main structure completed for the Latin American Travel Mart in September of this year. The proprietor has the option to buy us out upon stabilizing the project.

Our intent is to reinvest those funds in the next Ecuadorian project. This will provide local jobs and provide the anchor hotel with a growing network of unique hospitality and transportation options in Ecuador.

We hope this will result in a model for future projects worldwide. If this kind of geotourism development makes sense to you as a potential Philanthropic Investor, contact Kit Carstens at info@destinationcenter.org. We will try to find a project in a region of interest to you and a respected hospitality operator there who needs a partner.

Minnesota research demonstrates the tourism economic value of scenery and scenic routes, says Max Ashburn of Scenic America. For more such studies, go to Scenic America.

A recent study by the University of Minnesota Tourism Center found that the Paul Bunyan Scenic Byway is a major draw for travelers and has a significant positive impact on the local economy. The study found that in 2010 an estimated 23,800 travel parties visited the region specifically because of the byway.  These visitors spent a total of $21.6 million dollars while in the area including $14.6 million on locally produced goods and services.

Of course, Scenic Byways do more than just contribute to the local economy.  They also help preserve and promote the natural, historic and scenic character of a region and are a source of pride for local residents and businesses.

The Paul Bunyan Scenic Byway is one of 150 designated roads in the National Scenic Byways Program administered by the U.S. Department of Transportation.

On the re-election of Dr the Rt. Hon. Keith C Mitchell: Grenada was stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea for this election; a government in power that was ineffective, inefficient and plagued with in-house fighting versus a government who has had a history of “running de money”, despite the many issues it may have thrown up that negatively impacted the environment and conservation, investment and marginalization of communities.

Mt Hartman, home of the rare Grenada dove, from Martin’s bay Marina. Photo: Denyse Ogilvie

Over 60% of the people are under the age of 25, over 50% of them are unemployed, all frustrated with no apparent light at the end of the tunnel at the most productive period of their lives. Frustration and desperation are dangerous elements upon which decision making should be based. Moreover, the NNP leader, Dr Keith Mitchell, had apologized to the people for the persecution of persons opposing him during his earlier stint in government and he promised to be more inclusive and tolerant. These factors all contributed to the end result.

In Grenada the issue of party politics is not a straight-forward or clear-cut one. Parties are a collaboration of people, some know what they are about, some are just following the popular trends, while others are in pursuit of their own delusions of grandeur. We have a small pool of technocrats and leaders on the island and many here are related to each other in some way. The key to sustainably managing this bag of ‘mixed up moods and attitudes,’ while exploiting limited assets in a way that protects and benefits  the country and ensuring that the investment trickles down, lies in the abilities and stewardship of the Captain & Chief of the ship.

The challenges of the last government’s in-house fighting, lack of efficient and effective people-centered policy development when it came to the issues of energy, health/wellness and livelihood creation would still have been an uphill battle if they were re-elected. The NNP’s manifesto reads beautifully; a promise of inclusion, education, youth development, etc. ; but so did the NDC’s, both when they were elected into office in 2008 and during the last elections campaign. The jury therefore, is still out and the reality would soon become clearer. Noted though is the fact that environmental interest and conservation is not highlighted by itself but integrated in the issues of energy, sustainable economic development and green economy. Their focus for tourism development is yachting and diving.

Having no official opposition provides more opportunity for NGOs to play a bigger part as watch dogs in the society, but this will also mean that we would need to keep the outside community better informed as there is the view that attempts may be made to mute the voices of NGO’s in the country. The fact that this new government will be leaning on the investment and promotion of this island by some very famous persons like Oprah, Morgan Freeman, Sir Richard Branson and others also creates an opportunity to hold the government to social and environmental accountability.  The next months will reveal the direction of Grenada’s development.

In 2005, People in Action approached the then NNP government Minister of Tourism, Brenda Hood, who expressed her interest in geotourism; especially to drive her interest in community tourism development.  Geotourism complemented the Government’s then interest in the ground-up approach to the macro economy as the holistic, synergistic characteristics of geotourism empower the community to recognize and invest in their “dead capital”; i.e. the environmental, historical, cultural and social assets yet untapped.

Questions now arise about the direction of tourism development for Grenada; “Will government now seek to sell our environmental interest to investors to escape Grenada’s debt crisis?”;  “How equitable will tourism development be for the people?”; “ Will we seek measures that will bring us a triple bottom-line of People, Planet & Profit?”. People in Action have vested time and resources into developing the ground-up approach to geotourism where tourism becomes the means to community ends and not an end of their means. The direction now lies in the hands of Prime Minister Keith Mitchell and his team.

Three cruise ships unload at the Philipsburg pier in St. Martin. Photo: Jonathan Tourtellot

It’s those four-digit passenger counts that can turn cruise ships into the strip mines of tourism when it comes to their impacts on small port cities.

Three ships at once are common for Philipsburg, St. Martin, and they have turned the once-charming capital—a mini-isthmus consisting mainly of Front Street and Back Street—into yet another duty-free shopping mall, increasingly disconnected from the host island’s history, culture, and traditions. Every day, passengers flood the town in numbers that that far exceed the resident population. Yet they contribute far less per person to the local economy than the average stayover tourist, most of whom find the mass crowds repellent. Repelling your most profitable tourists is not a good long-term strategy.

The World Monuments Fund and others recently sponsored a conference in Charleston, SC, on cruise-ship impacts in historic ports. Several speakers cited various studies that question the rosy economic-benefit figures touted by the cruise industry, finding instead that the percentage of passenger dollars remaining in the destination is negligible. In ports like Philipsburg, for instance, passengers may not even buy lunch, instead returning to their ships. For more on the conference findings, see National Geographic NewsWatch and the New York Times.

And if 3,600 passengers seem like a lot, just wait until you see your first Oasis-class ship, carrying more than 8,000 passengers and crew. Is here any sustainable way for port cities to manage these floating counterparts? One answer may lie in Hong Kong’s new cruise terminal, set to open this year and eventually capable of taking two Oasis-class vessels simultaneously.

Here’s why. Whether a port of origin or a port of call, Hong Kong is so populous it can easily digest an extra 10,000 or 20,000 people without much of a burp. Cruise crowds can’t overwhelm it. Second, the terminal’s location out on the old Kai Tak airport runway serves as a perfect filter for the cruise folk: Those who are sincerely interested in this thrilling city can easily go back and forth on shuttle services, while those more inclined to relax in the embrace of cruise amenities will have plenty right there at the terminal.

In short, cruise crowds belong strolling the decks on board or the streets of major cities, not smothering small ports like Venice, or Charleston, or Dubrovnik, or Philipsburg.

If you thought “sequester,” the American method of government budget-cutting, sounds incredibly stupid, you’re wrong. It’s stupider than that.

What will the sequester do? Photo: Jonathan Tourtellot

To achieve the noble goal of reducing federal spending, the sequester that goes into effect at midnight demands blind, across-the-board budget cuts of nine percent or more from nearly all agencies. A most ignoble method.

Let’s compare that to an overweight person, who has failed to diet. The person really must reduce by ten percent. So if you weigh 180 lbs, 18 pounds has to go. As your punishment for not dieting, the doctors call for surgical removal totaling 18 pounds from all parts of your body.

Most of the excess weight may be in your belly (like me), but only a tenth of your belly fat goes, perhaps a couple of pounds. Maybe a pound off the butt, leaving 15 pounds to come off elsewhere.

Sequester surgery takes a tenth of everything. Which one of your fingers would you like to lose? Which toe? Which bones? Which part of your eyeball? Your tongue? And if a purist points out that the sequester cuts only two percent of Medicare, the doctors will agree that since health is so important, they’ll remove only two percent of your heart and brain. (Not plaque in the blood vessels, though; that’s just inefficiency.)

That’s how stupid it is. Indeed, Congress designed the sequester to be so stupid that no sane government would do it, just as no sane doctor would perform what I just described.

Now Washington is doing it anyway, so Washington must be  . . . follow the logic.

Where and how this makes a difference to the quality of great U.S. places remains to be seen, but if the sequester is not changed, it will. Start with whatever air travel disruptions discourage beneficial tourism, which in turn damages businesses and employees who serve those tourists when they arrive. More significant is the impact on destinations themselves. Tightened budgets already restrict most federal programs that support the places we love to visit, hope to visit, or live in.

I refer to federal support for conservation, historic preservation, museums, rural poverty relief, arts and humanities, national parks and federal lands, coastal protection, scenic beautification, and so on. National Scenic Byways, Preserve America, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Endowment for the Arts, National Landscape Conservation System—these are just examples. For many of these agencies, such relative “nonessentials” as travel, conferences, interpretive programs, grant-making, etc. have already been cut. Over the past few years the national parks, for instance, have had to rely increasingly  substantial volunteer labor and donor contributions.

These federal programs provide quality of life, resources, and experiences far beyond their cost. Like organs of sight and hearing, of touch, smell, and taste, their benefits greatly exceed their weight. Yes, our destinations can survive with nine-tenths of a tongue, with 90 percent vision, with two percent less brain, but quality of place is degraded. The travel experience is degraded. Local economies are degraded.

Apparently Washington politicians have actually removed most of their collective brains. They should have stopped at ten percent.

Norway’s Fjordland region is one of the destinations adopting the GSTC sustainability criteria. Photo: Jonathan Tourtellot

The Global Sustainable Tourism Council, a group loosely affiliated with the United Nations World Tourism Organization, has been attempting to supply an answer. The GSTC, its volunteer Destinations Working Group (I am a member), and contributors from around the world have proposed over 30 criteria for what constitutes a sustainable destination. The GSTC is now requesting your opinion and has extended the deadline for filing your comments.

Given the GSTC’s three-year effort and its extensive U.N.-related partnerships, there’s a good chance these criteria will become enshrined as internationally accepted guidelines for destination stewardship. Aided by Sustainable Travel International, members of the Destinations Working Group have done the best job we could on this very complex question. Not surprisingly, we’re not always in agreement.

So it may be worth a bit of your time to offer your thoughts, especially since six “early adopter” destinations have already signed on. They are:

• Okavango Delta, Botswana
• Jackson Hole, Wyoming
• Huangshan, China
• St. Kitts–Nevis, Caribbean
• Lan­zarote, Canary Islands, Spain
• Fjordland, Norway

Several additional applications are pending. These places are committing to follow the GSTC criteria, so it’s important that the criteria be worth following. Through March 15, 2013, the floor will be open to any thoughtful stakeholder—business, nonprofit, resident, past visitor and aspiring visitor—who wants to comment on these guidelines.

So take the consultation survey. It divides the criteria into four sections:

• Sustainable Management
• Economics
• Well-being and Cultural Heritage
• Environment

What do you think?

As you review the criteria, questions may occur:
• Are they culturally biased?
• Are some criteria irrelevant for sustainability?
• Do they anticipate the many things that can degrade or uplift destination quality—pollution, cultural impacts, scenic issues, tourism management, appropriate architecture and landscapes, health of local businesses, community benefit for residents, and quality travel experiences for visitors?
• Most important perhaps, in this era of globalization, do the criteria sufficiently address all those things that make one destination experience differ from another and contribute to a distinctive sense of place?

Be prepared to spend some time—at least half an hour or more. Rather than fussing too much over the wording, instead look for what’s missing, or what shouldn’t be there in the first place.

This is Big Picture time. The GSTC is trying to cope with one of the major megatrends of our times: The erosion of authenticity and distinctiveness in destination tourism. At stake are the quality of the world’s destinations—and thereby the very value of travel itself.

So tell us what you think. Do it now.

Montana’s Glacier National Park, a World Heritage site. (Photo: Jonathan Tourtellot)

Working with the U.S. Park Service, which administers the domestic program, the UNESCO World Heritage Center now touts a new “passport” booklet intended to help Americans get to know their own internationally recognized gems, ranging from Yosemite and Yellowstone to Taos Publo and Independence Hall.

In honor of the 40th anniversary of the World Heritage Convention (a treaty separate from the U.N.), a 2012 Park Service video shows off the 21 U.S. World Heritage sites as points of national pride.

Some U.S. sites have not promoted their World Heritage inscription, even though the designation is a powerful attractor for foreign visitors. In some cases that’s because of the widespread domestic misunderstanding of UNESCO’s role, a fear that UNESCO (it stands for United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) is somehow a threat to U.S. sovereignty. In fact, UNESCO is rather toothless. It simply monitors the World Heritage List, advising the World Heritage Committee—a non-U.N. body—on proposed additions, perceived threats, and (very rarely) removal from the List. UNESCO’s advisory role, however, is extremely valuable in helping promote good care of these places, in the words of the Convention, “of outstanding universal value.”

Unfortunately, U.S. funding for the World Heritage program has been suspended for an utterly unrelated reason: Middle East politics, namely the 2011 admission of Palestine to UNESCO. One of those ironic unintended consequences, given that World Heritage sites attract foreign tourists, generating American jobs.

And the first country to sign the World Heritage Convention, back in 1972? The United States of America.

Bizarrely, the U.S. ski industry’s response is ambivalent at best when it comes to the threat of global warning, despite concerns raised by a few of the more cognizant resorts. One would think this travel industry above all others would be sounding the alarm about warmer winters.

Given that almost half all Americans still doubt there is actually a threat, resorts should also consider educating their own clientele. Skiers could receive entertaining bits of climate science in digestible portions—on the backs of aprés-ski menus, for instance. Maybe even a new drink, called the “Mogulmelt.” Recipe suggestions?