The Micronesian nation of Palau has been gaining a reputation not only for trail-blazing conservation measures, reports Tiffany Chan, but also for putting the brakes on irresponsible mass tourism. Now they’ve set their sights on carbon neutrality. [Above: The Rock Island archipelago, a … Continue reading
Dubrovnik, Croatia, a UNESCO World Heritage city, is known as the ‘Pearl of the Adriatic Sea’, its historic city center surrounded by original medieval stone walls – and until recently, thronged with cruise ship passengers. In 2017, that began to change. … Continue reading
VIDEO – Our expedition to the Balkan Adriatic shows what tourism should do—and not do. The rugged coastal regions including Albania and Montenegro have sustainability lessons the world should heed. Continue reading
How should undiscovered coastal destinations handle sustainable tourism? Learn tips from Jonathan Tourtellot’s interview with Urdaibai, a Basque magazine. Continue reading
Yet another voice in the overtourism discussion, this time from an Airbnb report with a Foreword by Destination Stewardship Center director Jonathan Tourtellot. Also, a re-post of his National Geographic Voices blog on the topic. Continue reading
At GSTC’s annual meeting, this year in Chile, hot topics included overtourism and the need for destination stewardship councils. Here, a set of recent news and comment on these topics. Continue reading
Salli Felton, CEO of The Travel Foundation in the U.K., shows how mass tourism can get out of hand. There’s a solution, she says: Measure success in terms of impacts, not arrivals. The tools for doing so already exist. But does the will to use them? Continue reading
The upbeat theme for World Tourism Day – “One billion tourists, one billion opportunities” – does, however, raise questions of carrying capacity and quality of the travel experience. Places are getting crowded, as the late Yogi Berra understood. It’s time to move the emphasis from quantity to quality. Continue reading
Facing congestion in Phuket, whether at the airport, on the roads or on beaches has long been a familiar phenomenon. What is different is that the congestion is mostly caused by the onslaught of mass tourism from Russia and China. Continue reading
Any destination that’s flirting with gambling should heed the collapsing casinos of Atlantic City, New Jersey, and beware. Continue reading