Tag Archives: Conscious Travel
1billiontourists

Can 1 billion tourists create one billion opportunities or 1 billion headaches?

December 12, 2012 by xplorer 7 Comments

As I am an optimist by necessity and an altruist by choice, I’ve no desire to criticize the sentiment behind UNWTO’s campaign  http://1billiontourists.unwto.org/. Hopefully it will also get the millions of hosts – many of whom are struggling right now – thinking more deeply about their future.

Source: UNWTO

Source: UNWTO

The campaign serves two objectives: first to remind the world just how big international tourism has become – transporting a billion people across international borders every year, and second to suggest that this literal mass movement could be a huge force for good. Implicit in the UNWTO’s visionary statement is the notion that if one billion tourists do so much good then more is better.

 “Imagine if every one of these tourists made a conscious decision to protect the people and environments they visited. Imagine how much water and energy we could save if one billion tourists simply used their towels for more than a day. Imagine how many people would benefit if one billion tourists bought locally.”Source: UNWTO web site

The altruist in me shares the view that one billion people on the move connecting with hosts from other cultures, sensing the world through a different perspective and experiencing their interdependence has the potential to be a “good thing.” But – and it’s a very big BUT – realizing that lofty vision will take an awful lot more than a trendy campaign and marketing spin. Unless there is a robust and well thought out vision as to how to convert one billion wanderers from being what some perceive as a plague of greedy locusts into positive agents for change, this campaign will attract either ridicule or slip quickly into obscurity.

Given that we live in an age of transparency in which citizens are better educated and informed than ever before, it behooves global bodies as well as corporations to be very careful about what they say and how they say it.  In the corporate world, reputation for integrity, authenticity and responsibility now accounts for much of a company’s market value. And this celebration might just be premature as I am believe that when the tinsel and pine cones are finally swept up in January we’ll be reminded just how fragile we are environmentally, financially and socially.

In today’s Age of Transparency, a most important first step towards building trust with any constituency is to be truthful (as in honest); the second is to be inclusive /interactive (i.e, involve other parties in your ecosystem) the third is to be practical (by complimenting the aspiration with practical steps for its realization) and the fourth is to be logical (ensure that the aspiration makes sense and is internally consistent).

Proponents of international tourism such as UNWTO and WTTC have had years of practice promoting tourism’s ability to generate investment, create jobs, enable money to be exchanged between rich and poor nations, and support the preservation of some precious spaces, places and artefacts. But it has been left to NGOs such as Tourism Concern in the UK; journalists such as the Guardian’s Leo Hickman, author of The Last Call and a growing number of bloggers and writers in the responsible, sustainable, fair trade movement to draw our attention to the costs and transgressions associated with this global juggernaut.

There can be no denying the evidence that mass tourism also produces vast amounts of waste (garbage and carbon); uses disproportionate amounts of scarce resources of water and land; displaces local and established populations; creates congestion and often does not leave much wealth behind for local populations to enjoy.

Until the UNWTO and its member governments start publicly acknowledging tourism’s dark underbelly, and take steps to account for the costs in order to measure “net benefit,” then campaigns such as these may generate skepticism at best and, worse, disdain.

Having said that, One Billion Tourists; One Billion Opportunities is a great vision so don’t let’s dismiss it out of hand. It’s crazily ambitious and noble but an aspiration worthy of serious, creative attention. If tourism realizes the UNWTO’s own growth forecasts, then there’ll be an additional 400 million more international tourists every year by 2020 (a mere 7 years away) and, given that we cannot expand a finite earth by 40% at any point in time, then the negative aspects of tourism – as it is currently practiced in many places – will soon become impossible to ignore and much harder to manage.

So here’s my take on the action necessary to attain this aspiration:

The opportunities that UNWTO describe will only be realized if there is a mammoth waking up to the realities of growing tourism on a finite planet. We need tourism leaders, policy makers, hosts and travellers who are conscious in the sense of being awake – capable of mindful, informed decisions; aware of the impact of their actions and alert both to the options open to them and the business environment in which they operate. This requires the same degree of ruthless self-honesty asked of addicts prior to commencing a recovery program. It also requires more humility and curiosity and engagement than many central bodies have been famous for in the past.

In short, the billion opportunities will only materialize if those same tourists know how to make conscious, informed choices and can be persuaded and enabled to select places and hosts who can prove that they care and are responsible.

That will require a lot more than wishful thinking  - nothing less than a huge social transformation – so I earnestly hope that UNWTO won’t treat this as just another smooth campaign but as a huge invitation to all its member governments, private sector partners and NGOs to come together to plan just how 1.6 billion tourists in 2020 will have become 1.6 billion opportunities for good. The alternative is a headache too big to contemplate and the challenge is simply too good to waste!

Note: as far as I can see, the UNWTO revised its forecasts down from 1.6 billion in 2020 to 1.4 billion and their forecast for the number of international arrivals in 2030 still stands at 1.8 billion. 

Postscript
Ethan Gelber has written a quality post on this subject here: 

http://travelllll.com/2012/12/12/unwto-one-billion-tourists-campaign/      and 

http://travelllll.com/2012/04/11/bloggers-retained-by-un-gstc/

 

Leadership, People, Protection, Purpose
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airbnb logo

10 Reasons Why Airbnb is an awesome Conscious Travel Enterprise

November 26, 2012 by xplorer 1 Comment

Some hoteliers hate them, many consumers and cash strapped property owners love them – and so do I. There’s no doubt that Airbnb is proving to be a highly creative and gutsy source of disruptive innovation and,  what’s really exciting,  is that it’s not the technology but the daring application of technology that’s the cause.

Back in 2008, three young men found themselves broke but living in a city temporarily full to overflowing with visitors – mostly delegates at the Democratic National Convention. They turned a problem into an opportunity by realising that their challenge was likely being faced by countless others and by asking the right question: “what if you could book space in anyone’s home the way you could book a hotel?” Four years later, they have over 250,000 homes on their site across 30,000 cities and 190 countries; have done over $4.5 million room nights in business and the company is valued in excess of US$1 billion and climbing.

At first only the technology community took notice even though Airbnb isn’t really a technology company at all. But it did make use of peer to peer technologies that underpinned the success of companies like E-bay, Craigslist, e-lance etc. According to Triple Pundit, its success is due to the fact that it overcame the two main obstacles associated with “peer to peer” marketplaces – fear and inventory.

Now here are 10 reasons why I consider Airbnb not just the poster child of the phenomenon known as “collaborative consumption” but for Conscious Travel as a whole.

1.CRAZINESS – they faced the fear and did it anyway; always finding practical and often contrarian solutions to the problems that many investors turned away from – to their cost.

Source: Steve Jobs, Apple

They didn’t think it crazy or stupid to do the unthinkable or seriously consider what others thought impossible or even stupid. They were NOT engineers looking for a market to showcase their clever algorithms but ordinary guys looking to pay their rent and solve a problem in a way that could benefit others.

They used both sides of their brain (early on potential investors couldn’t understand why designers out numbered engineers) and were often contrarian in their views taking a common sense approach to seemingly intractable problems.

They are obsessive about customer satisfaction, ease of use and creating something of beauty – just as well because the majority of travel is booked by women and if you make the tool nice to look at as well as easy to use you’ll get and keep our attention. (I still avoid Craigslist simply because it’s so geekily ugly). They constitute what Steve Jobs called “The Crazy Ones” and it’s these kinds of people who will be the first to become conscious hosts.

2. PEOPLE:  Airbnb acknowledges that hospitality is first and foremost about people meeting people and when people are staying in other people’s home trust and confidence are needed to overcome fear. Sure there’s a transaction and all three parties (host, guest & Airbnb) benefit financially from that but their motivation was enabling both parties to do something they hadn’t thought was possible before. For the guest it meant not only accessing an affordable bed and place to stay using searches of homeowner/renters’ room inventory in real time but the chance to experience a destination in a much more meaningful, personal, human way.

 ”When someone steps foot in your door, or you step foot in someone else’s door, something powerful is happening – we are breaking down cultural barriers and connecting people in a real way.” Christopher Lukesic, Airbnb employee

When you listen to any of the AirBnB principals speak, the word that you’ll hear over and over again is “community.” Here’s the presentation Disruptions in Brand Building that Christopher Lukesic made to Sustainable Brands last year that highlights the people  and place focus, core principals of Conscious Travel. And if you want further proof that transactions will only occur when trust between people has been established then look at their safety video.

3. PURPOSE: AirBnB’s primary purpose as stated on their web site:

The Golden rules listed on their website for travelers and hosts alike all encompass values identified as core to Conscious Travel – respect, reciprocity, reliability, commitment, and transparency.

4. PLENTY: a founding principal of Airbnb and Conscious Travel is that everyone wins – guests get personable hospitality at an affordable price; hosts get extra income; communities get more spending in less congested commercial areas and more of the money stays in the community.

Airbnb provides an income to hosts from an asset they would otherwise not be able to access. Note 90% of hosts rent out space in their own home and 50% depend on the income to pay rent, mortgages or other household expenses like medical bills etc. In challenging financial times, this additional income has been a lifesaver for many and, furthermore as over 60% of properties are located outside the downtown cores where hotels are generally located, the tourism benefits are dispersed more widely.

Airbnb provides a large and very diverse range of properties from sofa beds and single rooms at less than $30 a night through to shared mansions and castles and very quirky spaces (tree houses, airstream caravans). It thereby meets a social need for affordable accommodation that benefits host as well as guest.

Airbnb recently commissioned a study to measure its impact in the San Francisco area. A more complete description of its findings is presented in an article in Forbes magazine here and I recommend a read. Some headlines from the Forbes article are presented below:

5. PLACE: While Airbnb doesn’t promote destinations as such, its appreciation of community means that it does try to ensure guests can really get to experience the place like a local and not miss experiencing local attractions, amenities and food etc.

Research with their own guests showed the principals at Airbnb that these travellers were going to exceptional lengths to research locations and neighborhoods before booking, and by giving those potential customers more information the company would be solving a piece of the puzzle and potentially extending stays.

As recently as 10 days ago, the  company launched “Airbnb Neighborhoods,” a feature designed to  help users decide which neighborhoods within a city they would enjoy most. For example, you can filter by museums, restaurants, and transit options when exploring a city on Airbnb. This feature will initially be rolled out in 300 neighbourhoods in seven cities around the world.

The company is also launching a “Local Lounges” product, which will include local partnerships with coffee shops in city neighborhoods as places for travelers to find free wifi, travel guidebooks, and a friendly face. San Franciscois the test case for this service.

The following 14 minute video presents the launch of these two features.

So with this foray into the travel guide business, expect further disruption – especially if the hosts are solicited to curate and adjudicate local content and more deals are done with local providers of “local” services.

6. PULL: Airbnb makes really effective use of social media to harness the power of the social graph as a way of  mitigating the risks that both guests and hosts associate with renting a part of their homes to strangers.  When the potential guest does a search, the system identifies properties where there is a connection to the person doing the search ( a Facebook friend might “know”  - as in be connected to the owner)

Another attractive feature is the Wishlist which enables browsers to create a short list while browsing to create a themed list for sharing.

Airbnb understand that unless they are active n the mobile space they’ll lose a lot of business. Some 26% of all bookings are now made on mobile devices and they are completed more quickly as illustrated in the following info graphic. The large, high definition professional images also present very well on the newer high resolution smart phones and tablets making the app an attractive to browse through and send time on,

7. PROTECTION: While Airbnb does not overtly claim to be particularly “green” or sustainable in practice – it can be argued that, by making better more efficient use of existing housing assets, it places less demand on resources. The potential exists through the neighbourhood program to inform guests of ways in which they can support local businesses,  assist local sustainable and rejuvenation efforts, make better use of alternative forms of transport and support other tourism providers that have committed to environmental protection and cultural rejuvenation.

8. PACE: Airbnb guests do tend to stay longer than hotel guests and, because of the dispersed location of many Airbnb properties, they are likely exposed to less well known parts of a city that could cause them to slow down and explore. Admittedly, there is more potential for the realisation of this Conscious Travel principal, than practice right now.

9. EXPERIENCE: the entire Airbnb experience for both guests and hosts is designed to be aesthetically attractive (nothing could look less like Craigslist), simple but functional and reassuring. A striking feature of the service is the use of high quality, professional images that have been know to help significantly with booking rates. Airbnb understand that travel is an emotional purchase based on dreams and fantasies and “eye candy” sells.

10. MINDSET: I’ve saved one the best reasons for claiming that AirBnb is a Conscious Travel Enterprise till last and that’s their mindset and approach to business which are so refreshing. The founders claim that travel is the social network in motion; they subscribe to the values underpinning what as been described as the sharing, collaborative economy; they refuse to be drawn into zero-sum games and do not see themselves as stealing from the hotel sector but as meeting a need of people that no one else has addressed.  CEO, Rob Chesky spoke eloquently and passionately at the end of his presentation to Phocuswright (see here) that travel is still undervalued and implied that there were enormous opportunities in overcoming the problem called “youth unemployment.” If this mindset does hold firm then I hope we’ll lots of creative and collaborative partnerships going forward.

In fact when it comes to disruption and the democratisation of travel, I think this company has barely scratched the surface. Imagine links to other P2P providers such as Tripbod and Hostme (local tourist guides); or helping to find an activity companion via a servce such as Uniiverse: fancy a sail this afternoon with a local sailing enthusiast; need to rent some snorkeling equipment that’s sitting in someone’s closet unused;  or a want a lesson in preparing a local delicacy while staying at your Airbnb?

Admittedly, my somewhat rosey and self serving post doesn’t address all challenges (eg the health and safety issue, taxation issues etc.) Nor does it mean to imply that the majority of hosts can be described as “conscious hosts” or that the majority of guests live up to the desireable practices of a conscious traveller, but here’s a company seeing & doing tourism differently (as a network not a fragemented industry) while meeting a market opportunity without the need to pour more concrete or erect more buildings that will never be fully used.

Pace, People, Place, Plenty, Pull, Purpose, Value & Views
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storymap

Tourism of the people, by the people, for the people – the story of StoryMap

November 13, 2012 by xplorer 8 Comments

Thanks to a sharing in Facebook’s Responsible Networking Group – thank you Jeremy Smith and Ethical Traveller, Catherine Mack – I was introduced to StoryMap.ie and heard myself (there was no one else to hear) let out an almighty YEEEEES!

I wasn’t planning to write a post today but felt compelled to share this development from Dublin with readers of Conscious.Travel who are proving to be such a loyal supportive group despite the  fact that most of you are invisible.

This initiative proves why the focus on place and people can be so powerful. Two unemployed Dubliners served themselves and their community by providing the means whereby Dubliners could tell their stories and invite others to share what what makes Dublin unique. It’s an innovation that simply emerged from the grassroots, required no top-down planning or feasibility studies and, once you start watching is guaranteed to distract you and make you want more – perhaps even to visit Dublin. Simple, Brilliant and in its execution, utterly Irish!

It ticks all seven of Conscious Travel’s working Principles – creative people, with a sense of purpose talking about their place, using social media and story telling to pull customers towards their community; offering opportunities to tell stories about the culture and nature that is or needs to be protected; and suggesting that if visitors simply slowed their pace, they too could create stories of their own. The end result: Plenty – plenty of delight for the viewer, fulfillment for creators, a reason to stay long and savour more for guests and a highly cost effective way of expressing the kind of quirky experience and warm welcome you might expect from Dubliners.

Here’s the Story Map story in the creators’ own words – they don’t need me to be a intermediary……

Storymap is the brainchild of two Dublin filmmakers, Andy Flaherty and Tom Rowley. Just back from working abroad, unemployed and in between film projects, the lads became annoyed with all the negative press the city was receiving. The bleak tales of recession, the gloomy accounts of unemployment and the notion that Ireland’s best and brightest had emigrated was completely at odds with what the lads were experiencing being back in their hometown.

“We wanted to do something to get people as excited about the city as we were. While loads of great people have left the country, you only have to walk into any gallery, gig or any of the fantastic spoken word or comedy nights to see that Dublin is a ridiculously fun and vibrant city with wonderful characters and a flourishing art scene. We wanted to bring the charm and character that had been pushed aside by the Celtic Tiger and bring it centre stage” – Andy

The lads came up with Storymap, a web based multimedia project that revives Ireland’s age-old tradition of storytelling and tries to capture the personality of Dublin city through its stories and storytellers. These stories are filmed being told where they happened and integrated into a live map to create a charming and layered collective vision of Dublin city made by the people of the city.

“Walking around the city – everyone has their own stories that they remember on certain streets, stories that flavour their personal experience of the city, that they tell on to friends. We thought it’d be exciting to pool those stories in one place, like one big pub where everyone shares their stories, creating a sense of what the city means to Dubliners. It’s a simple idea, but with complex possibilities, and we’re only just at the beginning of it.” – Tom

The site is expanded by a story a week to create a ‘Storymap’ of the entire city – a vision of the city as lived across nationalities, generations and centuries. The site is developed by Tercet, and was built through funding by DCEB.

OK, now for a bit of healthy interaction and dialogue so that I don’t have to talk to myself all morning. Which stories did you enjoy the most?  Why don’t you take a small step and fill in the comment box or, just as good,  share this post with friends.

Pace, People, Place, Plenty, Protection, Pull, Purpose
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Conscious Travel has an eye-catching new look

November 1, 2012 by xplorer 2 Comments

Thanks to the generosity of Lynne Gray of ThatsPR and Jenni Jackson of JayMac Graphics, we are pleased to unveil our new custom built logo.

Not only is it eye catching (pun intended) but it communicates the essence of our focus.

Conscious Travel is about a fundamental shift in perception – seeing our world differently.

But, by seeing, we don’t just refer to our physical and visual senses. Modern science informs us that 94% of the world is effectively invisible so we have to develop other ways of knowing.

Each person’s mindset or worldview is formed from personal experience and strongly influenced by the culture and physical setting  in which we grow up and live. So in that sense it’s shaped by “place” – a key principle of the Conscious Travel model. By travelling to other places we have a chance to experience another perspective (way of seeing) that can cause us to become more aware of the values, beliefs and assumptions that colour our own lenses (mindsets/worldviews).

Consciousness is universal. Perspective is personal. Deepak Chopra

Source: Thatspr

We find ourselves truly appreciating the inter-connectedness and inter-dependence of all forms of life – our “oneness” – when we recognise that we only have “one earth” while simultaneously recognising and respecting the uniqueness of each “place” and the unique gifts of each individual.

Tourism’s future depends on our ability to stop the force that converts diverse cultures and ecosystems into sterile and highly vulnerable monocultures. When all places seem the same and become mere objects for consumption,  they quickly degenerate into substitutable commodities and the value potential – built up over 13.5 billion years of evolution – is lost. Only when we see with fresh lenses,  will we have a chance of generating the highest and best return from the diverse places and people upon which we depend.

We have deliberately chosen the domain http://www.conscious.travel (not live just yet) because the dot separating these two words expresses a punctuation point – a moment when our perception experiences a quantum leap or phase change after which reality is never quite the same. After an “AHA moment,” an old way of seeing and being is discarded so that new possibilities can be embraced. Once that shift has occurred we are then able to turn endless possibilities into tangible probabilities.

That’s where we’re at as humanity and that’s where we’re at as the community engaged in welcoming and serving guests.

And that’s why our last post summarizes conscious travel in 3 words: value, mindset and place.

Conscious Travel, Mindsets, Value & Views
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the land is sacred

Conscious Travel in Three Words, 17 Characters & 3 spaces

October 23, 2012 by xplorer 3 Comments

If I had to summarize what Conscious Travel is all about in just three words I’d use: Value, Mindset, Place

Value

The biggest tragedy associated with mass, industrial tourism is that it is selling itself, the rest of humanity and the planet short. Ironically, this is a “no no” in the commercial world of which it is so proud and keen to be a part. Thousands of speeches have been made and words written about the contribution of tourism to economies (developed and developing).  The other most frequently used buzzword is “value added” when the reality is often so very different.

Cheap Travel is Viewed as Right By Many

Yet, other than technology (especially information-related technology), I can’t think of another industrial sector that has seen the real cost of its products  (as expressed as a percentage of disposable income) plummet as much as tourism.

A billion people are travelling internationally and many are doing so frequently because they can afford to.

Travel is no longer a privilege that one saves up for, anticipates and savours, it’s considered a universal right, expected to be cheap and has become an itch that can be instantly gratified – not because it’s highly valued but because it is not.

If the reduction in the real cost of travel was due to brilliant innovation that supported huge productivity gains and vast increases in consumer satisfaction, we’d have reason to be proud. But that isn’t the case either. Obviously we can’t overlook the infusion and diffusion of technology – our boarding passes come out of kiosks instead of being accompanied by the warm smile of a contented airline “hostess”; our planes have become bigger, slightly more energy efficient and cramped; travel information is universal, ubiquitous, and sometimes instant  – but, generally speaking, we move and house people the same way we have done for 60 years using the same, fragmented organizational structures by using fewer people but more machines and efficient processes.

As tourism has grown as both a domestic and international phenomenon, the net returns to tourism provider and host community have diminished and are on a downward trajectory. That means we are failing to generate the highest and best return from the “resources” (land, water, landscape, culture, people) on which we depend – despite the fact that the occurrence of such resources, in terms of sought after places (often called hot spots) is incredibly rare. There is only one Venice, Machu Pichu, Galapagos, Angkor Wat, Bali. Uluru…Yet you can “consume” the travel products built around such unique places almost as cheaply today as my grand parents would have consumed a weekend away on the beach in Blackpool.

Value isn’t an ingredient that can be added by a supplier. Value is a belief, a perception or attitude expressed by the buyer that can be realized. When we value a person, place, or object we behave differently – we rearrange our own personal resources of time, attention or money to sustain and enjoy that value. In a world dominated by money, we show our sense of value by being willing to pay more for what we consider more valuable. Somehow, 50 years of continuous tourism growth has resulted in a situation whereby tourism is more accessible to more people than ever before but less valued and generates less net value per trip.

 Conscious Travel is about realizing a higher value for and from all participants in the tourism system – hosts, guests, host communities and the other members of the biosphere on which we depend.

For the host, Conscious Travel  about achieving a higher, more stable and consistent profit margin that enables the business to endure, to adapt, weather crises and provide a decent living for employees and suppliers.

For the guest, it’s about returning home feeling better, more optimistic & hopeful, physically refreshed, mentally stimulated, emotionally alive and spiritually fulfilled.

For the host community, it’s about realizing a net income that not only covers the cost of supporting the visitor but generates tangible improvements to local culture and ecology.

For the planet, conscious travel has the potential to become a major force for change and renewal – for helping humanity make the “Big Leap” required of it, if it is to cope with the converging challenges of its own making.

Mindset

Change your Lens, Change Your World

Because value is a perception and, like beauty, is held in the eye of the beholder, real, radical and systemic change will not occur until a critical mass of hosts and guests change their perception; their mindsets and way of thinking. If you change the lenses through which you see your world, then your world does indeed change.

I have written extensively on this topic so won’t repeat myself too much here and encourage interested readers to check out:

Why Mindsets Really Really Matter

Why Tourism Will and Must Change Its Operating Model

Screw Tourism As Usual  

We’ve used the word “conscious” because it means to “become awake, aware and alert;”  and acknowledge that there is no objective reality that isn’t filtered by our mindsets – a set of values, beliefs, assumptions that form a basis for the agreements we make with each other.

Conscious travel as a movement is about participating in and accelerating a huge value shift that is taking place as growing numbers of people from all walks of life and all countries consciously question and re-frame their values with enormous implications for every aspect of society and economy. The emergence of conscious consumers and conscious capitalists, even, is described elsewhere on this web site.

Conscious travel as a learning program is about helping hosts and guests see their world through another set of lenses – ones that are more suited to ensuring their survival and prosperity than the ones they have been consciously or unconsciously wearing in the past.

Conscious travel as an economic phenomenon and Conscious Destinations are about businesses and places able to attract conscious travelers who truly value the act of travel as a privilege, the opportunity to become a better human being, and who value and honour the unique attributes of the places they visit and the hosts who extend hospitality in their own unique way.

Conscious Hosts are business owners and managers who will have consciously examined and defined their own mindsets; who base their business on their own set of values and purpose; reflect the uniqueness of their place; and work collaboratively in a community of hosts. They will generate a higher net return to their communities; enjoy more stability, prosperity and personal meaning; and be recognized as positive change agents and custodians of local ecologies and cultures.  Some might use the term “eco”, other responsible, sustainable, fair trade, good or green.

Place

Absolutely core to the concept and practice of Conscious Travel is acknowledging  “the sanctity of place.” We take for granted that travel and tourism are about moving from one place to another yet, in our enthusiastic adoption of the lenses called “rational, scientific materialism,” we have turned unique and sacred places into sterile, often uniform, sometimes mechanized, products that, in turn, have been cheapened (discounted), replicated and become commodities – with anyplace being substituted for another providing it’s “a good deal.”

One of the reasons for the rise of the “local travel movement” stems from a disdain for the homogenized, standardized approach to product development. Conscious travelers want variety, authenticity, engagement etc. They want to go home changed. Truly embracing the uniqueness of each place – however small – and expressing that uniqueness is the antidote to “commodification” and the key to realizing true value for host, guest and host community. But such an embrace cannot take place without a change of heart; a shift of mindset.

The best way to understand just how different mindsets can be is to spend time with indigenous people who, by definition, have never lost their sense of place and who define their personal identity with the place they and their people occupy and care for.

Ben Sherman, co-founder of WINTA speaking on indigenous values

That’s why I believe that so called mainstream tourism has more to learn from indigenous communities than the latter have to learn from mainstream tourism. That’s why Conscious Travel is profoundly and deeply influenced by an indigenous way of thinking and being and will support all efforts that ensure their worldview gains voice and attention in the tourism community.

At one point I became enamoured with the term “place makers” until I realized that it showed how much grip the old western mindset still has on my thinking. It implies that places can be made as in manufactured or constructed in the same way that a brand can be created and applied.

Authentic and real destinations or experiences cannot be created. They can be allowed (possibly encouraged) to emerge as an expression of the essence, personality or spirit of a place that is always alive. Once you have stopped thinking of separate subjects and objects, of people, places and things that can be observed objectively but as one constantly interacting whole, this will be understood. You will experience a place as real – for what it is – and know that in your heart. When the knowing takes place there, you will be changed in some way and the act of travel will have realized its true purpose.

When a sufficient number of hosts know their place as sacred, they will enable their guests to experience its unique vitality – an experience whose value is truly priceless. Because as Wendell Berry understood:

You can’t know who you are until you know where you are. 

When we know that, we will have found our way back to what it means to be human

OTHER READING

Postscript  - external article on indigenous objections to carbon trading mechanisms 

Why all Travel is Local

The Role of Indigenous Tourism in Developing Conscious Hosts

Link to new Wold Indigenous Tourism Alliance

Adventure Travel Trade Association (ATTA) recognise the importance of indigenous participation  bit.ly/QD79Bb

Presentation Slide deck WINTA Forum

Linked in Group on Indigenous Tourism

Definition of Indigenous Peoples – WINTA

Conscious Travel, Mindsets, Place, Value & Views
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Source: Pachamama Alliance

On Honouring Time as a Sacred Gift

October 16, 2012 by xplorer 1 Comment

At WINTA’s Indigenous Tourism Forum held as the concluding day of the Adventure Travel World Summit 2012,  my role was to explain why Indigenous Tourism is an approach whose time has most definitely come (slide deck here). When guests are received and hosted by indigenous peoples they have an opportunity to look at life through perceptual “lenses” that are not only different to the prevailing western worldview but are more likely to ensure our survival and prosperity as a species.

It’s my belief that only when a critical mass of people become aware of the lenses through which they perceive the world (ie their unexamined assumptions, values and beliefs ) and  wake up and become conscious will a real shift in collective human behaviour occur and we’ll start to live in harmony with Mother Earth. Travel and tourism can play its part in achieving this Shift. It was exciting to hear the Secretary General of the UNWTO position the 1 billion travellers as providing a huge opportunity to accelerate the shift in consciousness provided that the tourism community woke up themselves and assumed a role as guides along this adventurous journey!

The good news is that “waking up” is exactly what is happening on virtually every continent of this beautiful Planet Earth as you can see from this post by the Pachamama Alliance – an organization that has had a direct and, I think, very positive influence not just on my personal worldview but on my commitment to supporting “the Big Shift.”

In order to achieve their core mission of empowering the indigenous people of the Amazon rainforest to preserve their lands and culture its leaders have understood that their success depends on the extent to which they can convince the western world  of the relevance and power of a worldview that has sustained these first inhabitants for thousands of years.

Ben Sherman Addressing WINTA Indigenous Tourism Forum

The article titled New Moon Action: Honor Time As a Sacred Gift expresses and affirms the values that Ben Sherman (from Lakota Territory in the USA) spoke so eloquently about at the WINTA Forum – values of love, respect, reciprocity, and gratitude.

The Pachamama Alliance author points out that one of the most precious gifts of all is time – it is not a commodity that should be spent or even saved but a gift that should be consciously received (by stopping rushing and being still); shared (by focusing attention) and celebrated through acts of being rather than doing..

I’ll keep this article short because I know most of my readers consider themselves time pressed so rather than read my words please read the Pachamama post. When you start to think about time as a gift it puts the concepts of “voluntourism” and “slow travel” in a much deeper context with powerful implications for how tourism is practiced. As the indigenous worldview sees both time and space as a sacred gift, it’s less about spending time than investing time. People help each other using what has been described as “currencies of caring” i.e., “the mutual respect, relationships built on trust and the joy of sharing your gifts and talents” that Ben Sherman described as central to the indigenous world view.

“We’ve all been given a gift, the gift of life.

What we do with our lives, is our gift back”
Edo

And if you find these ideas inspiring, then I am sure you will be similarly encouraged by the concepts that a very bright young man, Charles Eisenstein, has presented in his latest book, Sacred Economics  as summarized in the short video positioned at the end of the article. Right at the beginning, Eisenstein distills in a few profound words how the old stories, which we have been telling about ourselves in our world for the past 300 + years,  have shaped our actions and our institutions:

Every culture has a story of self and answers the question “who are you” “what does it mean to be human?” Our current story says that you are a separate being among other separate beings living in a universe that is separate from us as well. You are not me; that plant is not me; we are each something separate. This story of self creates our world.

If you are a separate self and there are other separate selves out here and the universe is fundamentally indifferent to you or even hostile then you definitely  want to control and have power of these beings and those whimsical forces of nature that could extinguish you at any time. This story is becoming obsolete. It is no longer true and we don’t resonate with it any more. It is generating crises that are insoluble from these methods of control. That’s what is clearing space for us to step into a new story of self. Transcribed from video

The values articulated in the Pachamama article form a key part of the Conscious Travel model as simplified in this expression of the 7 new Ps of tourism.

Conscious Travel Operating Model

Each guest experiences the gift of a unique place (space) at a unique time as seen through their own unique set of lenses. Conscious Hosts are encouraged and enabled to slow their guests down so that they can use all their senses to experience their surroundings (Pace). Even time can stretch when we are so immersed and captivated that we lose track of it and enter “the zone”, or “flow” and another state of consciousness. In other words, instead of needing to discount products as commodities, we have the opportunity to realize and release true value associated with enabling our guests to expand their consciousness through their travel experience. To quote the Mastercard advertisement – the travel experience that transforms- priceless. This is the essence of Conscious Travel.

Some More Relevant Reading From This Blog

The Role of Indigenous Tourism in Creating Conscious Hosts

Where Do You Stand?

Changing the Dream – Why Mindsets Really, Really Matter

The Legend, Prophesy of the Eagle and the Condor

Tourism – Whats the Point Part 3 & links to Parts 1 & 2

Conscious Travel, Indigenous Values, Pace
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anna in ecuador

Galapagos – a place or a parable for our time?

September 27, 2012 by xplorer 2 Comments

Charles Darwin as a Young Man

Ironically, the very individual who put the islands of the Galapagos on the humanity’s mental map was an unconscious traveler, whose arrival in 1835 did so much to enhance mankind’s awareness & understanding of Nature while starting a potentially destructive trend on the islands themselves. At the moment when Charles Darwin first stepped ashore, he was probably unaware that he and his human companions were not the only life forms to invade this exotic yet very fragile ecosystem.  But inevitably a few claustrophobic rats from the ship, along with fleas, microbes, plant seeds and spores made it to land, chose to stay and, in so doing, accelerated the change in ecological balance that has been developing ever since.

Were we able to reach back in time and persuade Mr. Darwin to join us on a modern day visit, he would be in for a shock. Of the 450 species currently identified, there are now 106 that are considered critically endangered and a further 90 are classified as highly vulnerable. Some species of giant tortoise and the Galapagos mouse have disappeared completely. There could be many other species that became extinct before we were able to identify them. The BBC’s excellent documentary on the Galapagos Islands is available on You Tube here.

While experts and opinion makers both within and outside Galapagos disagree on solutions, there is consensus on one key point. Galapagos is both a place and a metaphor/parable.

 Tourism is a mixed blessing for the Galapagos but the fact is, if there was not tourism to the islands and the local people did not get any income from it, there would be nothing left there now. It would be all gone. It is the lesson of conservation around the world that unless the people who live in such places, whose land they feel belongs to them, are on the side of conservation, you’re doomed. Source: Galapagos Islands Need Tourism To Survive

Andrew Marr, the well known journalist and TV presenter, who is also President of the Galapagos Conservation Trust, argues here for significant reduction in visitation and has vowed to “walk his talk” and never return so that he is not part of the problem of rising demand.  In this article, Galapagos Needs Tourism to Survive, Marr’s media colleague and acclaimed naturalist, David Attenborough, on the other hand, describes tourism as a “necessary evil” which provides income to islanders and conservation but which must be controlled.

I was exceptionally privileged to have been invited by Freddie Ehlers, Ecuador’s Minister of Tourism, to accompany him and several other fortunate participants of the recent combined event (UNWTO’s Tourism & Ethics Conference and the OAG Annual Tourism Ministers Summit) and spend three days exploring the eastern islands of this precious archipelago.

To be frank, I departed Galapagos with very mixed emotions – the human history of this place makes for very depressing reading (it’s as if the very rocks keep trying to kick off the most invasive species of all time) yet the wild and natural landscape  – despite its brooding clouds and undeniably strange and exotic character – also evoked a profound sense of peace and trust in Nature’s ability to adapt, endure and evolve.

Given that the theme of the UNWTO/OAG event was “Turismo Consciente” I can’t think of a better location to jolt delegates into a wakeful awareness of the profound challenges facing tourism growth on a finite planet.

Galapagos may well prove to be the “canary in the mine” with its fate a sign of things to come. Or, as David Attenborough observed, “we can screw up the Galapagos in a way that we can easily screw up the whole planet”. Its future depends on all of us – as visitors, hosts, residents, investors, other members of the tourism value chain and, given its uniqueness, all of humanity – becoming conscious of our responsibilities and finding effective, durable  solutions to the following issues:

  • Population pressure – the number of residents has increased ten fold from under 3000 to 30,000 plus in 50 years.
  • Popularity – the number of visitors has exploded from 40,000 in the 1990s to 180,000 in 2011 and is growing at well over 5% per year.
  • A vast increase in invasive species – such that a mere 177 years after Darwin’s arrival there are now four invasive species competing for light, water and food for every one endemic species
  • Growing residues of waste – human garbage, effluent, abandoned detritus of modern “civilization”, oil slicks, and carbon
  • A widening gap in mindset and aspiration between residents, understandably desirous of a decent life, and visitors/conservationists who fear for its ecological destruction.
  • The as yet unknown impacts of climate change and an increase in extreme weather events on the existing ecosystem.

It isn’t as if people don’t care or are not concerned, committed and active.

In July 2011, the Ecuadorian Government organized an interactive workshop attended by representatives of the Embassy of Ecuador, Galapagos National Park, the Charles Darwin Foundation, Galapagos Conservation Trust, the World Wildlife Fund, and tourism stakeholders to look at Ecuador’s tourism strategy in general and its approach to the Galapagos in particular. The results of that workshop are documented in a report published by Galapagos Conservation trust here.  This document provides a helpful summation in its Appendix of the 1st Sustainable Tourism Ecotourism Summit in Galapagos held in September 2010 when a revised ecotourism model addressing governance; destination re-engineering; market positioning and development of a Galapagos Tourism Observatory (management tracking system) was proposed following extensive consultation with over 400 stakeholders. Another key resource is a 2007 publication by the Charles Darwin Foundation titled Tourism, the Economy, Population Growth and Conservation in the Galapagos (accessible here)

A recent creative initiative undertaken by the Galapagos Conservation Trust and the Gulbenkian Foundation is a roving exhibition featuring the works of eleven highly diverse artists who spent time on the island capturing impressions of life. For more information, visit: Artists Visit Galapagos

But while these efforts are digested, the number of visitors and residents continue to increase and investments are made which are difficult to undo.

Source: Galapagos Conservation Trust

I have enormous admiration for Ecuador and their introduction of Turismo Consciente as a concept (the original concept paper presented to the OAG in April 2012 is available here)   – but now the hard work of making it a reality must start. Even though the future of Galapagos must be considered within a broader national context (Ecuador has so much else to offer the discerning traveler), all eyes in both the tourism and ecological community will now be on Ecuador’s performance as custodian of the unique jewel in Ecuador’s crown.   Unless, a tangible shift in the present development trajectory of the Galapagos can be made that does indeed provide value to all stakeholders, the term Turismo Consciente will be just another bright star that proves to be piece of galactic debris burning up as it enters a resistant atmosphere of greed and self interest. But based on my experiences in Ecuador earlier this month, I have every confidence in my new Ecuadorian friends to tackle this challenge with dedication, insight and imagination. Let’s do all we can to give them encouragement and assistance!

In the meantime, I am pleased to share some of the images I was fortunate enough to bring back with me. The first slide deck is of landscapes and the second animals.

Muchos Gracias Freddie Ehlers and team for such an inspiring and likely life changing experience and for letting me participate in such an historic event.

Galapagos Landscapes

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

– taken with iPhone September, 2012

Galapagos Wildlife  - available here

Biodiversity, Conscious Travel, Place, Protection
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Captain Hook's Arrival in Botany Bay 1770

Where Do You Stand?

September 9, 2012 by xplorer 5 Comments

Botany Bay 2012

I write this before dawn in Sydney in a modern, sterile hotel room overlooking Botany Bay – the sheltered harbour that James Cook entered some 242 years ago when our current scientific, materialisitic worldview was just entering adolescence. I am sure that, if brought back by a Dr Who type figure, Cook wouldn’t recognize this place at all: paved with concrete, the horizon marred by giant oil storage containers, the incessant roar of jet engines, the continuous ebb and flow of taxis, cars, people, and luggage for whom this is now nothing but an anonymous, sanitized, securitized springboard to and from somewhere else.

I too am about to embark on an adventure – leaving for South America (my first visit) in six hours time and becoming the guest of my gracious hosts in Ecuador where I am sharing my thoughts on Conscious Travel at the UNWTO’s second conference on Ethics and Tourism.

I’ve just left Tasmania – a place where the transition from one economy to another is still proving painful and divisive. Blessed by nature, the state is rich in mineral and natural resources.  Many Tasmanian families have built their livelihoods and far fewer have garnered great wealth from their extraction and exploitation. Despite diminishing net benefit to the community as a whole, they are reluctant to let go of a way of life that has sustained families with seemingly no ill effect for generations. It’s proving to be a clash of worldview. Those who can see how quickly human society is shifting its values; those who can see that dependency on a limited non-renewable resource is folly; and those who wish to ensure their grand children will have a life, let alone a livelihood, are demonized as anti development.

Ecuador is at a very different stage – with a rapidly expanding population and rising expectations, it also needs to build a sustainable economy. But as each of us knows personally, to participate in the global economy (now its only option) it needs to generate cash quickly. The Ecuadorians are fully aware that the Amazon is worth far more to humanity as a life support system, but until we humans recognize that without air to breathe, water to drink and biodiversity we are doomed to become another Mars, there apparently is no immediately accessible market for those life support services can satisfy the demand for jobs and cash. Ecuador was the first nation to recognize the Rights of Nature and it looks like New Zealand is moving in that direction with respect to the Whanaganui River at least,  thanks to the opportunities afforded by the Waitangi Treaty and the influence of a Maori perspective. Ecauador also did a while back what the Tasmanians have just commissioned and that is calculate the value of their forest as a sink for carbon and not as a source of oil and lumber.

This is why both places are looking to tourism as a plank of a new sustainable economy. But what kind of tourism will best fit, and produce the greatest net benefit over the longer term? How can it be developed from the start and not applied like a bandaid after the damage has already been done? These are the questions that need serious attention in both communities. A new model for tourism development, that is environmentally sustainable, socially just and spiritually fulfilling for all its participants, has to be envisioned from the outset and the people of Ecuador and Tasmania need to ensure a modern version of prospecting and speculation doesn’t pre-empt their options. If we don’t, then the children of the leaders in both places will be facing the ire and dismay of their people as is now happening in Venice and Bali – two priceless jewels that have now been trashed by greed, selfishness and myopia.

There are no simple answers and a conference on ethics and tourism isn’t going to scratch the surface for the simple reason that doing the right thing is being positioned as a choice and as an after thought. Until our most fundamental beliefs about the how the world works shift, until we wake up from the delusion that one species can grow indefinitely, applying a predatory, consumption-based economy that doesn’t give back, or “know its place” then the talk of ethics will evaporate like the morning mist over the Amazon.

The following video about the challenges in Ecuador is titled The Heart of Everywhere because its creators rightly recognize that the challenges in Ecuador encapsulate the issues affecting all of us. But imagine you are situated on a globe without either poles or national boundaries. In this case, every point is the centre of everywhere and that means that all problems are our problems and each of us, regardless of where we are located, shares equal responsibility for the whole.  In tourism, that means listening to our indigenous brethren and experiencing all places as alive – not dead;  and as  sacred – not profane. It means knowing that all manifestations of so called reality (inanimate and animate) are not just connected but in a constant but evolutionary dance with one another; and they are willing us to wake up and dance with them! Travel is one means whereby we can shift our perspective and develop lenses or eyes that see a version of reality that is “pregnant with possibilities”

I titled this blog post Where Do You Stand? because I want you to stop being a wallflower at the most amazing, colourful and creative party/happening on Planet Earth today. Join now and you can shape its future, set its rhythm and cadence or invent some steps of your own. At the very least subscribe to this blog and contribute to the discussion. In the next post I’ll share how my thinking is developing on the shape of an alternative model. I shared it with some very forward thinking people in Tasmania and they liked it. We’re hoping to co-develop it together in a totally open, inclusive process.

Biodiversity, Conscious Travel, Leadership, Place, Protection
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Desticorp at WTM

Deja Vue or Clairvoyance – You Be the Judge

August 27, 2012 by xplorer 0 Comments

It was November 2001 at WTM and we were reeling from the impact of 9/11 and the aftermath of the dotcom crash. Thousands of IT specialists were out of work; CRM was the latest “new thing” as were XML, “web services” and “interoperability.” I’d just had to let go my involvement in a software company and formed DestiCorp Consulting and did this interview with a former colleague.

How might this image be a metaphor for international tourism?

Fast forward 11 years and I have just spent the past 8 days producing three webinar/videos on Conscious Travel which I will upload this week. To be honest I am not quite sure how to react to this DestiCorp interview – the content is remarkably consistent; the passion hasn’t waned but the wrinkles have certainly deepened! Eleven years have passed and I still feel compelled to be putting out the same message. It seems like yesterday.  Where did the past eleven years go? How much has changed or not changed? Will we get to the year 2023 just as quickly and how will we have handled the extra 600 million international trips that are forecast to take place?

They say that timing is everything. My timing wasn’t right in 2001. The tourism industry wasn’t ready then to hear anyone suggest that it should take time out to re-think. Many operators were holding on to the bucking bronco of demand after the attack on the World Trade Centre. What wasn’t clear either was just how quickly (relatively speaking) the economy would bounce back – especially in the US and UK where hedge funds were just beginning to scout for real estate in Mayfair; house prices were still to soar and ordinary Britons were to start taking advantage of Easyjet and Ryanair’s crazily low fares to Europe and speculate in real estate. The next six years (2001-2007) were about to see a few people get very rich and cause an even larger number of people to think were because of the extra zeros on their net worth statements. We lurched from one bust in 2001 (when the dot in dotcom punctured the bubble) to another one in 2007 when the financial house of cards came down – only this time its impact cut deeper and is lasting longer.

So is the timing right now?  Will the message be better received now than then? The simple answer is yes – I do sense a sea change. When a former senior executive of the UNWTO now describes himself as a Chief Disruption Architect, then something is shifting. When Michael Porter declares it’s time to “re-think capitalism” and companies like KPMG state that the current approach to business is non-sustainable and Deloitte support Elkington’s Zero Impact concept, then people like me can take heart.   It’s become disturbingly fashionable now to talk about sustainability, higher purpose, doing good, going green.  The good news is that  the number of initiatives (for want of a better word) in the sustainable, eco, ethical, fair trade, geo, local, responsible and good tourism arena is already significant and gaining momentum every day  – albeit in a very fragmented way. The challenge now is unifying the multiplicity of weak signals and diluting the semantic confusion as the sustainable Tower of Babel gets larger – but that’s another topic.

The more truthful answer is “I simply don’t care whether it’s right timing or not.” Conveying this message is simply my destiny. I can’t escape it. I feel as if I am an instrument being played. The words of Jean Paul Sartre keep echoing in my head.  Thanks to my role in tourism – that of quasi futurist and  sense maker I have to expose myself to information many others would prefer to ignore. I now simply know too much to mute or modify the message.

My circumstances over the past 18 months – when I have been travelling and staying with a host of friends and supporters – have provided an opportunity to test out my ideas. I am even more convinced that change is necessary and  encouraged to see it happening spontaneously. I’m also more convinced that the only effective  approach is to work not with the traditional sources of power and influence (the centralized associations and agencies) but with groups of hosts in small communities. They are the ones that must develop their creativity, ingenuity, self-confidence and resilience if they are to survive let alone thrive over the years ahead. This is how change occurs in the natural world and nature has had over 13.5 years of practice! We are trained to think that the itelligence of a cell is centred in its nucleus – the command centre but current biology has learned that the real smarts lie in the cell membrane where the edges of the cell interact with the environment. This applies to tourism – tt’s the hosts and their employees who know what’s really going on and have the most leverage to effect change.

As I have been saying for over 15 years, the role of Destination Marketing Organizations going forward should be to do less and enable more. They need to use the resources they have been allocated from the public purse to create the conditions whereby innovation and creativity can emerge and erupt naturally – just the way that it occurs in the natural world. Two of those conditions are trust and confidence – trusting in their capacity to adapt and providing the support and recognition. Conscious Travel is designed to provide a support structure for collaborative learning, experimentation and adaptation in the membrane.

Next week I’ll be launching three beta videos (beta is a fancy way to say they are home made and draft) that describe what we mean by conscious travel. The interesting thing is that this 11 year old interview is as good a sneak preview as any!

Conscious Travel, Purpose
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turismo consciente

Conscious Tourism, Conscious Travel or Turismo Consciente?

August 1, 2012 by xplorer 8 Comments

After years of travelling, I shall be stepping on the South American continent for the first time on or around September 9th, 2012 when I am privileged to have the opportunity to speak at the  UNWTO’s Ethics and Tourism Congress. The provisional program can be downloaded here. The Congress precedes OAS’ XXth Inter American Congress of Ministers and High Authorities.

I am triply excited because not only will it be my first experience of South America but the host country is Ecuador – a country I have long admired for being the first country on the planet to recognise the Rights of Nature in its 2008 Constitution

Rights of Nature recognize the Earth and all its ecosystems as a living being with inalienable rights: to exist, to live free of cruel treatment, to maintain vital processes necessary for the harmonious balance that supports all life. (excellent history of this movement here)

This bold step by the Government of Ecuador was encouraged and supported by the Fundación Pachamama, the Ecuadorian arm of The Pachamama Alliance whose achievements I applaud and with whom I work – Conscious Travel communities will help introduce the innovative one-day,  awareness-raising Symposium developed by The Pachamama Alliance and we share their mission which is to bring about an environmentally, sustainable, socially just and spiritually fulfilling presence (tourism) on this earth.

Thirdly – and I could hardly believe my eyes when I read the email of invitation, the theme of this important event is “Conscious Tourism For a New Era” – a concept proposed to the OAS and developed in June 2011 by Ecuador’s  Minister of Tourism, Freddie Ehlers,  and his colleagues. I’d like to think I might have had some input into this exciting vision but,  as there was no conscious conversation beforehand, it’s likely one of those serendipitous eruptions of a concept whose time has come.

Either way, I can’t wait to meet the participants at the august meeting and share in some very important and exciting discussions.

Here’s how the Ecuadorians defined Conscious Tourism after one of their brain storming sessions:

CONSCIOUS TOURISM*

Conscious tourism is a life-changing experience that brings about personal growth and makes one a better human being. 

This new concept is based on principles of sustainability and ethics and promotes the values of peace, friendship, respect and love for life as the essence and practice of tourism. 

Conscious tourism is a covenant in which travel agents in communities of origin and destination and tourists pledge to co-exist with, have a sense of responsibility and mutual respect for, and commune with the natural and cultural heritage. 

Conscious tourism is a living, dynamic, and constantly evolving concept. It is an experience in giving and receiving.

Source: Concept paper presented to the Organisation of American States  by the delegation from Ecuador, download here

I am speaking on a panel with Gloria Guevara, Secretary of Tourism of Mexico.

I only have 20 minutes so I shall have to be focussed on what I think are some key points that are likely to encompass the the following:

1. It’s not conscious tourism but Conscious Travel. And this isn’t splitting hairs. Language is important. We’re not looking at incremental improvements to the stays quo but a fundamental, radical evolutionary shift  in how we live and travel on this planet. The word tourism keeps us mentally tied to the root of mass tourism – the tour, the package, the object, the thing, as opposed to the experience enjoyed by and supported by people. Conscious Travel is, as the Ecuadorians recognise, all about people – human beings not human doings. Language reflects our mindset and to change that mindset we need to converse in another language – a simpler, more gentle, less technical,  ostentatious language that speaks to the heart and soul as well as the cerebral calculations of a left brain.

That’s why I am not surprised that the term Conscious Tourism has emerged first from South America where a more youthful tourism economy is developing at the same time that the continent’s enormously rich population of indigenous peoples are taking a stand for Pachamama in so many ways. Between now and the OAS meeting, and especially during Indigenous Peoples Week (#ipw2012) I’ll be blogging frequently about the critically important role that Indigenous peoples have in developing Conscious Hosts and accelerating the BIG Tourism Shift.

Achuar Host

Achuar Host

2. Conscious Travel constitutes a completely different way of seeing – it involves casting off of outdated, inaccurate, distorted lenses that don’t enable us to make our way in this world.  Until a critical mass of us (and that doesn’t have to be a majority) have made that shift ; understood the implications;  and can create opportunities from this new way of seeing then we’ll always be tinkering at the edges and identified as fringe.There’ll be endless conferences, declarations, great initiatives and projects but no real ground-breaking change.

3. Conscious Travel is about a new set of  ”Ps.”  Travel is, of course the movement of PEOPLE (who come with bodies, minds, spirits and souls)  between PLACES  - from one space to another. The old mindset focussed on products but they can be standardised, homogenised, automated and substituted – quickly becoming commodities that lose their value. Places on the other hand, cannot be reproduced – unless you have 13.5 billion years to wait – as each place is both geographically and historically unique.  By celebrating the uniqueness and, therefore scarcity, of places, we might recoup a higher and more appropriate yield and return greater net benefits to the host community.

The next key “P” stands for PURPOSE – a community of conscious guests and hosts are shifting from an obsession with “a cheap deal” or “quick return” to a sense of meaning, a desire to personally expand, to leave the world a better place. We know that more and more travellers want to return home transformed in some way and that conscious businesses (of which there are a growing number) are discovering that when they focus on generating value to all stakeholders (of which the environment is one), they thrive.

When a guest, who is seeking to connect with the people of a very different place to the one they call home,  meets a host whose PASSION  for the unique attributes of his place is infections and who has the capacity to re-create a sense of wonder and awe, then magic happens.  A trip is turned into a transformative experience taken home as a memory that can last a lifetime.  And the “passion” comes out when we “PLAY ” – when it’s safe for the host to experiment and be herself (authentic)  while “ad libbing” and when the guest feels fully alive, yet comfortable and at ease while ready to be stretched.

4. The shift from one decaying, mechanical  model of tourism (the industrial model) is replaced by its holistic, organic, juicy ecological version will occur not thanks to any more conferences and, God forbid sterile declarations of populated by pompous phrases but when, individual by individual, and community by community, hosts wake up to the opportunities and responsibilities; when hosts step up and commit to becoming change agents in their communities; and when they meet up with each other and the broader community and engage in spirited dialogue that leads to action that is right for the place and time they find themselves in.

So I am excited because this meeting in Quito might create the space in which we can drop our masks and defences and figure out out to birth a new operating system and make that shift from product to place.

This is a meeting of leaders (ministers and top authorities) who have traditionally been tasked with leading the people out of one troubled place to a promised land. With no disrespect intended towards the participants, I don’t think they can do that by declaration, policy statement,  international agreement, or even by pulling in the big consulting guns. But what they can do is create the conditions that support communities of tourism providers embark on a journey of discovery and action together.

It’s as if we’ll be journeying up a river through a dense forest pregnant with possibilities and the strangeness and richness of the surrounding environment will be eased if we are guided through this landscape by a scout who knows the territory. That’s why developing real conversations with our indigenous brothers and sisters is crucial. Their understanding that all  land is sacred  is the key  to shedding the materialistic lenses that have spawned so much greed, destruction, unnecessary competitiveness and sense of scarcity that plague modern society and that is so evident in mass tourism.

Source: Survival International

Machu Picchu (Wikipedia)

Ironically, in making this journey, we’ll be coming home. All tourism has its deepest roots in the soil of pilgrimage. Many of our most popular tourist “hot spots” are ancient sacred sites – Stonehenge, Machu Pichu, the Great Pyramids of Egypt, Angkor Wat, Borabador, Varanasi..Sadly, many tourists, don’t know what to do when they get there because, thanks to the dominance of a materialistic, reductionist worldview,  we have lost that spiritual connection that depends on a genuine sense of wonder and awe.

Over the next month, we’ll look at the key values common to an indigenous worldview that could nourish and shape new roles played by conscious hosts.

Readers – of all persuasions – do please feel welcomed and encouraged to add to this discussion.

Next: Changing the Dream: Why Mindsets, Really, Really Matter

Biodiversity, Leadership, Place, Protection, Value & Views
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