With innovative sustainable practices in travel and tourism, the winners lead by example. They are chosen by an international team of judges representing various backgrounds within the industry. Awards are given in four categories: Destination Stewardship, Global Tourism Business, Conservation, and Community Benefit. This year’s winners were selected from among 150 entries from more than 60 countries.

Winter in Røros. Photo by Terje Rakke/Nordic Life AS/ www.visitnorway.com

The 2012 Destination Stewardship award winner is Destination Røros, a Norwegian organization promoting tourism in a former mining town with a total population of just over 11,000. In accordance with a strategic sustainable plan drafted in 2008, Destination Røros has focused on five areas including: a host program training for tourism employees in the region, environmental certification for tourism businesses, sustainable waste management systems, local food training, and sustainable value creation. To date, 350 local employees in the tourism industry have participated in the host certification program, which requires workshops on local culture and history, and a completion of a “Copper card” designed to encourage a deep knowledge of the area; each participant must participate in five local tours or attractions to fill out the card and complete the program.

Singapore-based Banyan Tree Hotels & Resorts won the award for Global Tourism Business. Banyan Tree opened Asia’s first luxury spa resort at Phuket, Thailand, in 1994 and remains committed to blending ancient Eastern healing therapies with a modern twist. Thai villas feature a saltwater lagoon and coconut groves—the natural environment serves as a peaceful setting for the “high touch, low tech” resort. Banyan resorts are located around the world, and each setting includes plants indigenous to its respective area. In addition, the company supports the Banyan Tree Global Foundation, which gives guests the opportunity to volunteer for conservation efforts such as programs to protect coral reefs and green sea turtles.

Canopy walkway at Inkaterra's Reserva Amazonica. Photo from Inkaterra Media Picture Gallery.

The Conservation award for extraordinary contributions to the preservation of nature, wildlife, and biodiversity went to Peruvian tour operator Inkaterra, the first carbon neutral tourism company in the country. With 30 years of experience in the field, the company has conducted ecological research in the Andean cloud forest and the Amazon Basin, managing over 40,000 acres of rain and cloud forest, a rescue center for endangered bears, as well as butterfly breeding programs. In addition, the company invested in the Inkaterra Canopy Walkway, a suspension bridge system in the rainforest that gives guests unprecedented access to the biodiversity of the area.

Saunders Hotel Group of Boston, Massachusetts, won the Community Benefit award for their commitment to supporting the environment and the local community. Their eco-friendly initiatives started as early as the 1980s, when the company opened a historic hotel in a converted police station while also working to develop affordable housing in the surrounding neighborhood. The environmental initiatives in place at Saunders properties include recycling programs, hybrid cars, waterless urinals, ozone laundry systems, eco-friendly cleaning products, and replacing complimentary toiletries with dispensers. The family-owned company also has a strong commitment to social responsibility, providing extensive support to local nonprofit organizations through financial donations, volunteer efforts and other resources.

The Tourism for Tomorrow Awards were originally established by the Federation of Tour Operators in 1989 to encourage other industry stakeholders to protect the environment, and have been managed by the WTTC since 2006. This year’s winners and finalists were recognized at a ceremony at the WTTC Global Summit in Tokyo, Japan.

The Southern African Migration Project, an international network of organizations promoting awareness of migration-development linkages in the Southern African Development Community (SADC), has identified three major hubs – Thailand, India and Singapore – and three minor hubs – Costa Rica, Hungary and South Africa – for north-south medical tourists.

While India is the cheapest of all the hubs, with prices for surgical procedures averaging only a fifth of those in the United States, Thailand has the best elective procedures such as routine check-ups and cosmetic surgery, and Singapore has the best skilled practitioners and state-of-the-art technology.

While medical tourism packages consist of much the same in all tourism hubs – a consultation and surgery, a personal physical therapist and personal assistant during recovery in a spa, and a safari tour – South Africa’s professionalism and polish is by far the best, says Jonathan Crush, director of the Southern African Research Centre at Queen’s University, Canada.

Groote Schuur Hospital is one of Cape Town's top hospitals and a leader in providing services to medical tourists. Photo by Danie van der Merwe, used under a Flickr Creative Commons license.

Nevertheless, the project’s research shows that the “surgeon and safari” experience is only a small segment of South Africa’s industry, and that 85 percent of the medical tourism is from other African countries. Medical travelers from East and West Africa are generally middle-class Africans seeking specialist diagnosis and treatment, who spend more time in South Africa than any other traveler (including those from the northern hemisphere), while those from neighboring countries make up more than 80 percent of the total medical travel flow to South Africa.

The number of medical travelers increased from 327,000 in 2006 to more than 500,000 in 2009 but dropped again to under 400,000 in 2010. The proportion of travelers who came to South Africa for medical reasons from 2006 through 2010 is well below those who came to shop, on vacation, to visit family and friends, and on business. The length of stay of all tourists in 2010 was around 8.5 nights while medical travelers stayed for around 5.6 nights (up from 4.5 nights in 2007) on average.

The global north generated 281,000 medical travelers over this period while the global south was the source of more than two million. Regionally, Asia and Australia were the least important source of medical travelers at 29,000 (only 2.5 percent of total visitors), and Africa the most important at 2,196,000.

In an article on About.com, Africa Travel specialist Anouk Zijlma notes that it’s “ironic that countries that attract medical tourists are often unable to meet even the most basic medical needs for their own populations. This is not an either/or issue, but it’s worth thinking about and perhaps shopping around for a clinic that donates some of its profits to providing medical care for those who can’t afford it at all.”

According to an article on the website Tonic, a main reason couples choose to honeyteer is to strengthen their bond while also experiencing the world outside of the confines of a resort. “It’s a great way to learn more about your mate and discover new reasons to be attracted to him or her,” the article notes. “Honeyteering encourages couples to explore parts of the world that they might never have experienced.”

“Couples often choose to volunteer for their honeymoon because they want to do something meaningful,” says Li Quach, Senior Manager of Communications at Cross-Cultural Solutions. “The joys and challenges of volunteering abroad can definitely bring a couple closer together in new ways. They are also getting to know a culture in ways that they wouldn’t normally experience if they were at a beach resort.”

A CNN Travel article featured one couple, Aaron and Kristen Berlin from Massachusetts, who volunteered at an orphanage in Thailand for five days before exploring the country on their own. The couple said they “learned a lot about the culture” and “were really incorporated into the daily lives of the children and the volunteers who ran the orphanage.” Choosing to work with the community provides couples with an enriching experience that they may not find by just being casual tourists.

Another couple interviewed in the CNN Travel article spent four weeks teaching English and French to teenagers in a boys home in Moshi, Tanzania, through a Cross-Cultural Solutions volunteer program. Lisa and Yvan Lagasse had originally planned to go to the beach for their honeymoon but were happy they chose to volunteer instead. Lisa Lagasse told CNN that volunteering with her husband was “such a humbling experience, that to have someone there with you, especially your partner, who understands what you went through and learned.” The couple hopes to bring their young son to Tanzania someday and are even thinking about adopting a child from that region.

Couples considering honeyteering should keep in mind that it’s not without expense. Volunteer programs usually don’t provide airfare, and volunteers often pay a fee to volunteer to help the program with costs such as room and board or supplies, as an article on green weddings at The Knot website points out. Couples looking to volunteer should also be flexible with the dates that they want to travel because volunteer programs often have specific start and end dates.

Cross-Cultural Solutions works with couples to match up their interests with the right program and location, Quach says, adding, “We recommend that couples keep an open mind and just have fun doing the program together and learning about each other through this new experience.”

Kenya is home to five species of sea turtles, two of which are listed as critically endangered and the remaining three as endangered. The thriving fishing industry in the Watamu area presents hazards to turtles, including accidental capture in fishing nets; most of the turtles captured drown. Pollution is also taking its toll, along with erosion of nesting sites due to the construction of jetties, marinas, and hotels, The Guardian reports. The result is a difficult situation for the local workers and businesses who struggle to find a balance between revenue-generating tourism and environmentally sustainable practices.

Light and noise pollution are also major concerns. Female turtles don’t lay eggs if there is excessive noise or light, both of which are increasing in tourist hotspots along the coastline. Turtles that do hatch crawl towards the horizon to find the water, but may be confused by lights from the developing area.

Photo by Local Ocean Trust / Watamu Turtle Watch

The concern over sea turtles has been growing for several years. In 2008, as increasing development put pressure on local biodiversity, the Kenya Wildlife Service designed the Kenya Integrated Sea Turtle Conservation Program (KIST-Con), a three-year program that was completed in 2011.  The strategy involved both local communities and government stakeholders with education, public awareness and research projects. The conservation strategy was aligned with Kenya’s Vision 2030 development blueprint, a commitment to ecotourism as a sustainable solution.

More recently, the Local Ocean Trust has organized the Watamu Turtle Watch in response to recent surges in tourism. The Guardian reports that 62% of the turtles protected at the project’s rehabilitation center are there “because of human-related causes – many associated with tourism.” While tourism helps the local economy, sea turtle habitats are slowly eroding, while their numbers are dwindling due to pollution and poaching.

The Kenya sea turtle population relies on the efforts of the Local Ocean Trust and responsible visitors. Tourists can do their part by choosing responsible accommodations and tour operators, supporting local community development and environmental awareness efforts, and putting pressure on the Kenyan government to improve environmental protection and management. If sustainable practices are implemented and supported by local authorities, people working in the tourism industry – and tourists themselves – can help revive the wildlife that makes Kenya such an attractive destination in the first place.

Ian Kelly of the International Institute for Peace through Tourism (IIPT) sees responsible tourism initiatives as promoting peace because they “contribute to international understanding and cooperation, an improved quality of environment [and] the preservation of heritage.” In other words, tourism can reduce the likelihood of people resorting to violence to address problems.

The simple experience of tourism – getting to know another place and its people – can positively contribute to peace. A meaningful tourism experience can change prejudice and stereotyping into positive dispositions as tolerance, compassion, goodwill, justice and respect. Tourism is “able to contribute by providing experiences which involve communication and hospitality (in the broadest sense), and by expressing an ethic incorporated into tourism education and training,” Kelly notes. He believes that “tourism experiences can be managed to encourage the adoption by individuals of attitudes conducive to more harmonious relationships among people of different cultures.”

IIPT affiliate Freya Higgins-Desbiolles discusses one specific alternative initiative that aims to achieve peace through tourism in her paper “Reconciliation Tourism: Healing Divided Societies.” The focus of her study, Camp Coorong, is a community-based education facility and tourism enterprise run by the Ngarrindjeri, an Aboriginal community in South Australia. Children come to Camp Coorong to learn about Ngarrindjeri culture and history. Through tourism Camp Coorong aims to improve the understanding and relations between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians, a necessary step in achieving reconciliation.

Historical tourism focusing on activities and places linked to past conflict, such as tourism experiences based on slavery in North America or on the Jewish Holocaust in Europe, can also be effective in promoting peace. Such tourism can be “highly emotional, but may be therapeutic if handled well. [These places] are “potentially loci for reconciliation between past enemies where tourism can act as mediator. Visitors and residents are both patients and therapists,” note Richard W. Braithwaite and Yun Lok Lee in their IIPT paper “Dark Tourism, Hate and Reconciliation: The Sandakan Experience.” The tourist comes away with an understanding of how horrific and ineffective violent conflict is as a means of resolving problems.

If these kind of tourism initiatives gain importance and become more widespread, Ian Kelly believes, tourism can become the world’s first global peace industry, with every traveler a potential ambassador for peace.

Walk

If you aren’t pressed for time, the most eco-friendly way to explore a city is to walk. Walking tours are often more affordable than other guided tours because there is less overhead. Not only is walking free, it can also help you experience a place at ground-level in a way that buses, cabs, or trains can’t. As an added bonus, it’s also good for your health. Making a conscious effort to walk or hike while on vacation is a great way to keep fit while on vacation.

Bike

Although flying and driving may be fast and convenient ways of getting around, both are expensive and contribute to air pollution. To reduce your carbon footprint and stretch your budget, consider going on a bike tour of instead of a tour bus. Bike tours can be a fun way to meet other travelers and get exercise on your trip. Renting a bike – or buying one for longer stays – is also an option if you’d like to discover a destination at your own pace or are need a way to get around faster than walking.

Use Public Transportation

Taking public transportation instead of hopping in a taxi or renting a car may require a bit more planning, but trams, subways and other modes of mass transport are much more energy efficient and more affordable ways to get around. Public transportation is also a great way to interact with people who live in the area and to experience places off the beaten path. It can also be a goal in itself. For example, British expat Daniel Tunnard is filming a documentary and writing about riding every city bus in Buenos Aires, while Australian writer and teacher Peter Davies has launched a project to ride every metro line and explore the area around every station in Mexico City.

Lodging

Although eco-lodges are becoming more popular and increasingly more affordable, you can also try to conserve energy at hostels and budget hotels with sustainable practices. Wear multiple layers instead of turning up the thermostat, set a timer for your shower time and ask the owner not to deliver a newspaper to your door. Even if these measures won’t save you money off your bill per night, at least you can find ways to conserve energy without splurging on an eco-lodge if it doesn’t fit into your budget. Camping is also an option if you enjoy hiking and have room to pack supplies. Many hostels will even let you camp on their grounds at cheaper rates than they charge for their rooms.

Food

Much of the food packaging on airplanes, trains and long-distance buses is not recyclable, so if you have the choice of paying for a meal in transit or bringing your own pack granola, cereal, trail mix and even fruits and veggies in a reusable container to save money and spare the landfills. Also, patronize local markets whenever possible. It’s often cheaper to cook your own food from scratch than eating out, and you’ll get the chance to experiment with native produce or spices that haven’t been shipped in.

Water

Bring your own water bottle instead of paying for bottled water everywhere you go, and ask to refill the bottle at casual restaurants instead of using paper cups. If you plan to travel to a country where tap water isn’t always safe to drink, consider investing in a water bottle with a built in purifier or filter that you can reuse multiple times before replacing. You’ll save money on bottled water, which carries a hefty 4,000% markup.

It isn’t difficult to stick to a budget when you’re committed to eco-friendly travel; in fact, if you choose to be environmentally conscious while traveling, you may be surprised at how easy it is to save money.

Tom Lalampaa

As it turned out, his brother’s choice wound up changing not only Tom’s life but also that of the Samburu community and the land they call home. As community development manager for the Northern Rangelands Trust (NRT), Tom is now a key player in efforts to protect Kenyan wildlife and improve the lives of his people and others who inhabit this beautiful but often unforgiving place.

The savannas of northern Kenya abound with wildlife, including several endangered species, notably the Grevy’s zebra (only about 2,500 individuals remain in the wild, the majority of them in Kenya) and the Hirola antelope (whose wild population is probably no more than 400 animals, making it Africa’s most endangered antelope). Yet problems have been widespread: poaching of elephants for ivory, the killing of a variety of species for bush meat and cultural reasons (wearing lions skins is a key part of traditional ceremonies), and general environmental degradation from human use and migration. Add to that a porous border with the Sudan to the north and a high level of conflict and mistrust between different ethnic groups in the area, and you have a region where conservation challenges have long outweighed successes.

Since 2004, however, all that has been changing. That’s when the nonprofit Lewa Wildlife Conservancy joined with representatives from the Kenyan government and local stakeholders including private and community conservation initiatives to create the Northern Rangelands Trust. Formed to coordinate previously fragmented conservation efforts and promote cooperation rather than conflict between different ethnic groups, the NRT is “a home-grown institution aimed at addressing home-grown problems and creating long-lasting local solutions,” according to its website. It unites different interest groups “with a goal of collectively developing strong community-led institutions as a foundation for investment in community development and wildlife conservation.”

Hirola antelopes, photo courtesy of Northern Rangelands Trust

The NRT links conservation and development through community conservancies, which are community-led initiatives that work to meet conservation goals in ways that also benefit local residents. Conservancies engage communities in conservation efforts and natural resource management while simultaneously developing wildlife-based sources of income.

Since the establishment of the NRT, “security in northern Kenya has greatly improved,” Tom Lalampaa says. “Security for people, and security for wildlife.” Local conservation staff are now equipped with VHF radios, enabling them to report violations or other problems quickly. Increased communication between ethnic groups has greatly reduced intertribal conflicts. “Eight different ethnic groups are getting to work together, plan together, and to trust each other,” Tom explains.

On the conservation front, NRT successes have included improved grassland management (benefitting both wildlife and livestock) and an intensive aerial survey of the Hirola antelope population (efforts are now underway to secure funding to develop a predator-proof sanctuary to safeguard a breeding population of the species). The organization was also instrumental in the recent reintroduction of the endangered Rothschild’s giraffe to areas where it had not been seen for 40 years – an effort that involved a dramatic and complicated transfer of eight giraffes on a barge across Lake Baringo to a community-owned wildlife sanctuary on the opposite shore.

Transferring giraffes across Lake Baringo, photo courtesy of Northern Rangelands Trust

In the past, conflict has kept most tourists away from northern Kenya, but now visitor numbers are increasing. Six community-run lodges provide revenue for community development, and other tourism-related enterprises are taking root. Many local women have received microloans to establish businesses making and selling handicrafts. Traditionally wealth was concentrated in the hand of the men, but now, Tom says, “the dynamics are really changing. Women are getting their own resources, their own voice.”

Other community development initiatives have included cutting out middlemen in order to enable locals to command higher prices for their cattle, and building a water pipeline to save women from having to walk for hours every day to fetch water. Educational opportunities have also increased: In 1990, Tom was the only person from his village to go to university; now there are 43 students from the community pursuing higher education.

“When I look back to where we were some time ago in the community to where we are now, it’s amazing,” Tom reflects. “People are now seeing wildlife as a resource and taking responsibility for their lands. There is dialogue where there was conflict.”

A recent study of NRT conducted for The Nature Conservancy by researchers at the University of Southampton supports these claims. The researchers found that “[c]ommunity conservation has significantly enhanced both livelihoods and habitat condition in northern Kenya” and concluded that “community conservancies may provide a framework for integrating conservation and development at the local scale.”

The NRT currently supports 18 community conservancies that protect 2.4 million acres (971,000 hectares) of land, with more communities clamoring to join. Ultimately, Tom dreams of having 10 million acres of land in conservation. It’s a big goal, but he is undaunted: “I look at my past, I look at where I am, and I look at where I’m going, and I think the future is bright.”

*****

Note: This story originally appeared on ET News Editor Annika Hipple’s blog.

Air travel accounts for three percent of global carbon emissions, which may seem like a minor offense in the spectrum of environmental transgressions. However, according to the Christian Science Monitor, air travel is steadily increasing at five percent every year, and the number of aircraft alone will likely double in the next 10 years. With the current alarming rates of fossil fuel consumption, air travel could quickly become a serious threat to global warming and air quality.

So, aside from staying home, what is the environmentally conscious traveler to do? Although no easy solution is in sight, the aviation industry and government agencies have been testing and implementing several ways to make air travel more sustainable.

Carbon Offset Programs
Delta, Continental and JetBlue currently offer carbon calculators to help interested travelers offset carbon emissions from their trip. These tools are then linked to a voluntary contribution system, where users can donate funds toward planting trees or other eco-friendly projects. The major problem with this solution is that the programs are entirely voluntary. If carbon offset programs are truly to neutralize air travel’s carbon footprint, full participation is necessary.

Biofuel
Some airlines are looking at alternatives to petroleum. Alaska Airlines, for example, introduced a limited number of alternative-fuel flights in November. The airline estimates the total carbon-emissions savings on its 75 trial flights to be “the equivalent of taking 26 cars off the road for a year,” the Seattle Times reports. Biofuels emit just as much carbon dioxide as standard jet fuel, but the biofuel itself is from a renewable source; however, it is six times more expensive than standard fuel. United and Virgin Airlines have also conducted biofuel trials, with similar results.

Carbon Permits
Implementing sustainable practices may no longer be a matter of choice for airlines that frequent certain regions. On December 21, the European Court of Justice approved a proposal to make airlines that take off or land on European Union soil pay for 15 percent of their carbon emissions. According to the Washington Post, EU officials argue that the measure is necessary because emissions from airlines have doubled in the past decade and are expected to triple in the next 10 years. The new carbon permit policy, which went into effect on January 1, 2012, may head to the United Kingdom’s High Court this month, since the industry trade group Airlines for America has already filed suit, claiming violations of state sovereignty.

If voluntary carbon offset programs don’t cover the full effects of environmental damage, and biofuel is expensive, are state-enforced carbon permits such as the EU policy the best solution?

Founded in 2008, PwP was launched to build community among travel bloggers and provide a way for travelers to give back to the places they visit. Every year, the founders select a specific project to support, from building a school in rural Cambodia to constructing an entire village in India.

“We pick our projects really carefully,” explains Mandel. “We’re partial to education projects, and projects that help women and children. We also look for some kind of partnership locally that makes it sustainable. The ability of the project to run on its own after we launch it is critical. We also look for projects where we can make a high impact with the amount of money we can raise.”

Villagers in southern India build homes with funds raised by Passports with Purpose in 2010. Photo by Beth Whitman.

This year, PwP seeks to raise $80,000 for Room to Read to build two libraries, to be located next to schools in southern and eastern Zambia. The project will provide hundreds of children with access to age-appropriate books in their own language, at libraries staffed by trained librarians.

The PwP fundraising model is simple: Travel bloggers line up prize donations and promote these prizes and PwP on their blogs. The posts link back to the Donate page of the PwP website, where the public can make donations in $10 increments. Each $10 donation earns one entry to win the prize of the donor’s choice. Donors who make more than one $10 donation can choose to split their entries between multiple prizes or put all their entries toward a single prize. At the end of the fundraiser, a winner is drawn for each prize from all entries received.

“What bloggers have is access to people who want to give them products to talk about on their blogs,” says Dubrow. “We ask them to use those connections, and then we provide the infrastructure.”

Raising $80,000 in two weeks is a lofty goal, one that the founders could hardly have imagined when they first came up with the idea for PwP in 2008. That first year, PwP raised $7,400 for Heifer International. Expecting a dozen or so bloggers to join in, the founders were stunned and gratified when 80 people signed up. Building on that enthusiasm, they set a goal of raising $14,000 in 2009 to build a middle school in a Cambodian village – a goal that was quickly surpassed, with nearly $30,000 raised.

“People sort of rushed in to help us,” says Mandel. “People want to do something that transcends their classic travel experience. We tap into the idea that when you travel it changes you, and you want to make the world a better place.”

Passports with Purpose co-founder Michelle Duffy cuts the ribbon at the opening of the Passports school in rural Cambodia, built with funds raised in 2009.

Co-founder Duffy had the opportunity to attend the opening ceremony for the Passports school in Cambodia earlier this year. Expecting it to be a run-of-the-mill ribbon cutting, she was blown away by the experience. “What I didn’t appreciate was what a really big deal this was,” she says. “When we arrived, the children of the village gave us an honor guard. They were tremendously happy that we had helped raise their level of education just a notch.” Prior to the school’s opening, the closest middle school was located too far away for most children in the village to attend; as a result, fewer than 10 percent continued beyond primary school.

Last year, PwP raised $64,128 to construct 25 homes in the small village of Karunganni in southern India – 25 percent more than the already ambitious goal of $50,000. Land for Tiller’s Freedom (LAFTI), a nongovernmental organization in India’s Tamil Nadu state, provided the land for the houses, allowing 25 families to become land- and homeowners for the first time.

This year’s PwP began on November 30 and is off to a rousing start. The nearly 100 participating bloggers have procured prizes ranging from travel gear to eReaders to hotel stays in destinations around the world to multi-day tours in places such as the Canadian Rockies, Thailand, and Costa Rica. Together, the PwP network of blogs reaches nearly a million unique visitors per month, along with hundreds of thousands of Twitter and Facebook followers.

“To me what’s so amazing is it’s totally grassroots,” says Dubrow. “If you tell a couple of friends about it, it might make the difference between our getting to build these libraries or not.” Eighty thousand dollars is a lot of money, but the PwP team is confident that its network of supporters will rise to the challenge yet again.

To help Passports with Purpose meet its goal, visit http://www.passportswithpurpose.org/donate/. This year’s fundraiser runs until December 16, 2011. Prize winners will be randomly selected and notified on December 23.

One of the travel industry’s biggest annual events, World Travel Market, takes place in London next week (November 7-10), with November 9 designated as World Responsible Tourism Day (WRTD). In one of WRTD’s most anticipated scheduled events, Leo Hickman, author of a widely debated book on sustainable tourism, takes the “hot seat” for what organizers are billing as a “contentious face-to-face discussion” with BBC World’s Stephen Sackur.

Hickman’s book, The Final Call: Investigating Who Really Pays for Our Holidays (Transworld Publishers, 2008), takes a critical look at how tourism has already changed the world for the worse and the negative impact it will have if it continues to grow unchecked in the coming years. “Tourism is one of the world’s largest unregulated industries,” Hickman writes. Far from being a boon to locals, he notes, “[e]ven in developing countries, most of tourism is controlled by a small number of Western corporations.”

Hickman, a journalist for The Guardian, lives in Cornwall, directly under the flight path of 500 planes that fly in and out of Heathrow airport every day. The noise pollution keeps him awake at night, counting passengers on planes instead of sheep. This sleeplessness turns his thoughts to tourism, specifically ecotourism, and the positive spin and aura it has developed. At its best, tourism is touted as a lucrative way for developing nations to make money. According to its proponents, it leads to job creation for locals, the development of infrastructure and the promotion of the host country’s unique culture and customs. But to its detractors, tourism promotes globalization, increases climate change and destroys the very cultures and nature that tourists spend billions of dollars each year to experience.

“What effect does our footfall have on places that are both environmentally and ecologically sensitive?” Hickman asks. “And just how much do the resident communities really have to gain economically from our stay?” To answer these questions, Hickman investigated several popular destinations across the globe. He interviewed resort owners, tourism ministers, housekeeping staff, sex workers, politicians and tourists. What he found is not exactly inspiring.

The problems Hickman discovered on his journeys include water shortages and coral bleaching in Mexico, child prostitutes in Thailand, human rights abuses against foreign workers in Dubai, melting glaciers in the Swiss Alps, cruise ships dumping waste into the Pacific, and a dangerous lack of sewage infrastructure across India, Spain, China, Costa Rica and Estonia. Meanwhile, many resorts and destinations are promoting ecotourism as a way to lure environmentally conscious tourists to these and other destinations. To Hickman, “ecotourism” is just another unregulated way to put a bandaid on a gaping wound. “Is there a term more used and abused in the tourism industry than ‘ecotourism’?” he asks. “What does it really mean? Are these tourists all ‘keenly involved in conservation issues,’ or are they on a holiday where the natural environment around them is just part of the entertainment?”

According to the United Nations World Tourism Organization stats cited in The Final Call, there will be over 1.6 billion annual “international tourism arrivals” by 2020. In his final chapter, Hickman encourages travelers to think seriously about how they travel and what each trip means for the planet, advising readers to stay home for their holidays or, barring that, to find more eco-friendly alternatives to air travel. Further, he strongly encourages countries to place caps on the number of tourists allowed to visit ecologically sensitive areas like reefs, mountaintops and coasts. To prevent these destinations from becoming exclusive playgrounds for the rich, he calls for a lottery-based quota system and free admission to locals.

“My travels through some of the world’s major destinations did not reassure me that the industry has a full grasp on how tourism can so often be a negative force,” Hickman writes. “This is not to say, though, that the future is one of total despondency – far from it. Encouragingly, there does seem to be growing acceptance and understanding by some within the industry that it is in grave dangers of trashing the very assets of which it depends to survive.”