With its coal mines now closing, Norway’s polar archipelago of Svalbard faces a unique set of threats: disrupted tourism, rising temperatures, and increased international vying for arctic control. Yet its extreme location also provides a unique set of opportunities for reviving tourism. Continue reading
Inviting Hollywood into your home can backfire badly. Often, a roaring success on the screen may cause instant, irreversible collateral damage to the destination, its culture and citizens. Arild Molstad explores the too-much, too-fast story of Italy’s ancient, now-restored town of Matera. … Continue reading
This border-straddling North American destination council relies on three strengths – a robust local network, core sustainability principles, and a global brand affiliation. See the third of our profiles on destinations with innovative approaches to holistic management as prescribed by GSTC-D Criterion A1 and the National Geographic Geotourism Principles. Continue reading
Herewith the second of our profiles of destination organizations that at least partially meet the GSTC-D criterion for holistic destination management. In this post: Tequila, Jalisco, Mexico, which is adopting a multisector, high-tech “Intelligent Destination” approach. Continue reading
A 2016 travel fling to 41 World Heritage sites inspires admiration and respect for the renowned UNESCO-administered program, but also disappointment and frustration with a bureaucratic, underfunded system. Remedies exist, says Swen Lorenz, himself a World-Heritage-site veteran. 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
Topic Editor: Lucy Matthews Heritage, Architecture, Cultures, Gastronomy These links provide resources for enhancing the interaction between tourism and the human story of the locale. Scroll down to see Pertinent Findings: The Case for Heritage Tourism. Cultural tourism is: “A … Continue reading
A squabble over gift-shop tourist dollars on Santa Cruz island, Galápagos, is now threatening the renowned, if often troubled, Charles Darwin Research Station and its conservation work. Could better destination stewardship have avoided this? Continue reading
Poverty Point just became the 22nd U.S. World Heritage site. The much-desired designation raises tourism opportunities and a few concerns. Continue reading