Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
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This drive for certification and sustainable tourism grew out of the environmental move-
ment. The leaders of the ecotourism, or sustainable tourism, movement are not the fire-
breathing types. There is no one like Ralph Nader, who stubbornly forced the government
to demand safety features in the automobile industry. The tourism reformers are profess-
ors, writers and tour operators who wield ideas, gently. They write, lead groups, give awards
and, when asked, will help a country, a community or a hotel figure out responsible tour-
ism. One of their biggest difficulties is to explain that tourism is the classic double-edged
sword that, unless properly managed, can ruin a place as easily as save it.
Over the last two decades, several tourism activists saw the gross problems that tourism
was creating in the hyperactive world of cheap travel and the Internet. Jonathan Tourtellot,
writer and editor at National Geographic , coined the term “geotourism.”
Tourtellot was familiar with the work of Héctor Caballos-Lascuráin, the Mexican who
coined the term “ecotourism” to describe using tourism to enjoy and protect relatively un-
disturbed natural areas. Tourtellot wanted to broaden the concept to protect destinations
in a holistic fashion—its people, culture and society as well as its natural landscape. “Geo-
tourism” it the bill, he thought, a name that encompassed the globe. He defined it as
travel that “sustains or enhances the geographical character of a place—its environment,
culture, aesthetics, heritage, and the well-being of its residents.”
“The industry had become all about promoting tourism and very little about steward-
ship. I wanted to go back to the origins of tourism—meaning to tour, to see and appreciate
what is already there, the local culture, the sense of that particular place,” said Tourtellot.
“Tourism today is about resorts, spas, golf courses and theme parks that were built to bring
in tourists and was subverting the very idea of place,” said Tourtellot.
He founded the National Geographic 's Center for Sustainable Destinations. Then he
wrote a Geotourism Charter in 2006 with a set of “stewardship principles” for destinations
to adopt. In the first years Honduras, Norway, Guatemala, the Douro Valley in Portugal
and the City of Montreal asked to sign on to the program. He also helped create a Geo-
tourism Map Guide program in which locals submitted their thoughts about what was
most attractive about their locales for tourists and then created a map and blueprint for
sustainable tourism development.
Tourtellot's most controversial move was to break the tourism taboo and print articles
describing the worst as well as the best of tourism. And he published the list in the Nation-
al Geographic Traveler ; it was hard to miss. Tourtellot and his colleagues decided to select
a theme every year; for instance, coastal areas. Then they polled hundreds of experts to
decide which are the best and worst shores in the world, or which are the best- and the
worst-kept World Heritage destinations, or which are the best- or worst-kept national parks.
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