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PIRT Newsletters
PARTNERS A newsletter and update of Partners in Responsible Tourism (PIRT) Click On The Issue of Interest
Volume
6, Issue 1 Spring 2002
What an honor it is for me to be asked to be the next executive director of Partners in Responsible Tourism (PIRT). I owe a sincere thank you to the prior directors who have given so much of their time to develop PIRT into what it is today: Karen Killebrew, Laurie Lubeck, and my direct predecessor, Dr. Patrick Tierney.
What is Responsible Tourism? In my mind, Responsible Tourism is fundamentally a respect of others, and of precious resources, be they ecological, cultural, social or economic. Responsible Tourism is a set of values and hopefully actions among those who develop and promote tourism. Responsible Tourism says that it is not okay for tourism suppliers, i.e., the tour operators, cruise lines, hotel companies, etc., to exploit ecosystems, peoples, nor destinations for economic gain. On the individual level, Responsible Tourism is the individual traveler’s respect and sensitivity to the peoples, their culture, belief system, and the natural resources of the places they visit.
In a very simplistic way, Responsible Tourism means respect and sensitivity. To approach every new experience with open eyes and to listen to stories of the places. While I have lived in or visited far more places than I’ve ever counted, the only places that really stand out in my memory are those where I met the locals in their daily life and heard their stories.
One of our founding PIRT members makes her living in story telling. I find this relevant because at the foundation of tourism is the desire to learn about people, their daily lives and their country. It is only through the stories, anecdotes, or lessons that one learns what is precious to those in other locales. I’ve found this true internationally and within my own country. In this country I’ve gone on nature hikes in Maine, toured lighthouses in Oregon, or been on guided kayak trips in Alaska and have always been strongly moved by the new experience, and by the reverence in the voices of the local guides. In every case I’ve learned to see and respect a place or a natural resource through the eyes of those that cherish that resource, by their use of “I” and “we”, but seldom by the use of “they.” First-hand anecdotes are what make a trip memorable.
One type of “Ir-responsible Tourism” is when the product is planned and completely owned from beginning to end by one company, typically foreign. Sure vertical integration of travel products within a corporation may make sense to the accountants, but vertical integration cheats the traveler out of authentic experiences, and it is pure and simply NOT responsible tourism. To go on a trip that is purchased from a travel conglomerate in which everything from the hotel beds, to the airport buses, to the tour buses, to the imported tour guides and their scripts are owned & operated by that conglomerate drains the local economy of what Marx called “surplus value”, contributes very little benefit to the local community and cheats the tourist out of truly experiencing a destination.
Travel is a wonder to me. The ability to travel is always a blessing; never one we should take for granted, especially now that Homeland Security is making it very difficult for foreigners to get visitor visas to the USA. It could happen soon, and maybe already is happening, that countries will retaliate and not allow Americans to visit. That is another topic for another article though.
These past few days, while giving thought to what PIRT stands for, I read an article by Carlo Petrini, the founder of SlowFood, entitled “The Unsustainable Thoughtlessness of Speaking in Slogans.” (Sloweb, 10/03/04, www.slowfood.com) His article focuses on the use of the term “sustainable agriculture” and what he calls “the three pillars of sustainability: environmental protection, social justice and economic feasibility." I realized the same holds true for the term “Responsible Tourism” and its correspondingly similar three pillars: environmental protection, social respect and economic impact. Mr. Petrini opens the article with a statement that “Terms are used so frequently and so obsessively that their true meaning gets lost and they just become another way of filling speeches with grand-sounding but empty words rather than focusing on concrete programs and plans for action.”
With that in mind, here are some concrete programs and plans for action that I’d like to work towards in my finite period as the executive director of PIRT:
· To broaden the active membership of PIRT. Thriving organizations, like thriving communities, are always enhanced when infused with new members. New members bring enthusiasm, experience and a new perspective to an organization. As an actionable item, I challenge PIRT members to each bring one new member into the PIRT network this year. If we do that we will double our membership.
· To raise our voices to spread the word that Responsible Tourism is an option, even if it is just the periodic article written by a member, a letter to an editor, or manning the PIRT booth at the upcoming Adventure Expo Fair. Let's lend our voices to say that tourism should never be exploitative, it needs not be bland or homogenized, and it should benefit local operators, locally-owned hotels, independent restaurants, and locally-educated tour guides in order to bring much more benefit to a destination and to the tourist experience.
· To encourage today’s tourism & hospitality students to be cognizant of the underlying responsibilities as tourism promoters. To this end I propose PIRT solicit, select and publish at least one student paper per quarter on the PIRT website. The papers must deal with an issue that relates to responsible tourism, be it tour planning, protecting a specific environment or resource, respecting a cultural more, or the economic impact of travel on traditional societies. A small sub-group of PIRT will be asked to read and select papers for publication.
· And lastly, I promise to continue the PIRT custom of organizing quarterly activities to foster our own education on issues relevant to eco-cultural-social-economic tourism issues, and to keep open a dialogue amongst ourselves, our industry and our communities.
I look forward to working, traveling, dining and playing with all of you as together we take PIRT to what it can become in 2004 and beyond.
Sincerely, Bonnie Berg MacLaird ________________________________________________________________
PIRT MEETING: May 3, 7pm On Monday, May 3rd, PIRT will hold an organizational meeting to welcome the new executive director, Bonnie Berg MacLaird, and to discuss the future direction of PIRT. We hope you'll be there! The meeting will be a pot-luck dinner held at Bonnie's "Habitat Books" in Sausalito. Time: 7pm - 9'ish. Bring a dish and a drink to share. Bonnie will supply the napkins, paper plates, plastic silverware, etc. There will be plenty of parking in the lot behind the store, or across the street in the Valhalla Restaurant parking lot. Questions: 415-331-3344 HABITAT BOOKS, 205 Second Street, Sausalito, CA 94965 _______________________________________________________________ SF Adventure Travel Expo, Oct 10-12, 2004 PIRT will be participating in the San Francisco Adventure Travel Expo, October 10-12, 2004. We will be asking for at least six PIRT volunteers to help man the booth. If each can man the booth for half a day we'll have it covered. For more on the Adventure Travel Expo: www.adventureexpo.com ___________________________________________ Growing Ecotourists -- High School Students Learn What Conservation Takes In Costa Rica by Kathryn Levenson, PIRT Member
In March of 2003, founding PIRT member Kathryn Levenson took twelve of her students on a life-changing adventure. They travelled to Costa Rica where they worked to help protect Leatherback turtles from poachers, carried out research projects, reforested former rainforest, and birded with the best of them. They spent a day with their contemporaries at a public school in Puerto Limon, exchanging research and playing basketball. The students finished with a wet and wild rafting trip down the Class IV Pacuare River. The research program we joined is in its fifth year under the aegis of Ecology Project International. It takes high school groups to Costa Rica and the Galapagos to help with sea turtle research. It is directed by Scott Pankrantz, a young visionary, with a lively staff of young people. Maybeck High School students chose this as their Special Program for the year, for which they received academic and community service credit. Our areas of study were the Pacuare Nature Reserve, north of Puerto Limon, on the Caribbean coast. We had close contact with the leatherback sea turtles on 3 to 6 hour night patrols along the beach and saw crocodiles, eyelash vipers, spider monkeys and white face capuchin within a km. of our camp. Our next stay was at Selva Bananito, rated the 9th place ecotourism lodge in the world by OUTSIDE magazine in 2003. It is private land bordering the World Heritage Amistad Biosphere Reserve, stretching from Costa Rica into Panama. We birded with Victor, seeing over 34 species in two hours. He and I sighted two rare White-tailed Hawks not recorded before at that locale. "Sometimes we, as parents, see our kids have life- changing experiences...ones that make them a better person in some way. Your trip was that for our son. He had great fun and tremendous growth. Saw the world differently, and saw himself in a new way in the world. I can't thank you enough." These are the kinds of experiences we should search out for young people we know. The children of today will be the guardians of our Earth tomorrow. To read more about this visit www.pirt.org or www.ecologyproject.org.
E-mail Partners in Responsible Tourism: bapirt@aol.com PIRT website designed by Ron Mader and Scott Walker and maintained by Patrick Tierney
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