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Travel 2025
Travelers are interested in how their presence affects the citizens of the places they visit. The industry is reacting.
By Paige McClanahan
A recent Booking.com global survey of 31,000 travelers found that 71 percent of respondents “want to leave the places they visit better than when they arrived.” Eighty-three percent said that sustainable travel is important to them. Now, as travelers wake up to the social effects of tourism, travel businesses are responding in kind, helping visitors maximize the positive — and minimize the negative — impacts of their trips.
The Kind Traveler platform, for example, introduced a program where every guest who stays helps fund a local charity. StayAltered offers a “community-driven” accommodation booking platform that connects travelers with independent hosts in more than 30 countries on six continents. Home exchange platforms like Kindred offer opportunities for travelers to avoid some of the negative effects associated with short-term tourist rentals.
Tour operators also train travelers to take on complicated social issues in the communities they visit. The nonprofit Abara organizes three-day “listening trips” along the US-Mexico border, with the goal of giving visitors a sense of the social and human dynamics at play in the region. Telos Group will offer trips to South Africa, the southern United States, Ireland and Northern Ireland, with the purpose of having travelers interact with complicated social histories. Organizations such as Unseen Tours, Invisible Cities and Migrant Tour have designed walking tours whose guides offer visitors selected perspectives on social issues in cities such as London, Edinburgh, Paris and Rome.
There are also new resources for travelers who need to be informed about the social effects of their trips. The RISE Travel Institute offers online courses on guilty trips and other topics; The organization also recently published a free e-book on decolonizing travel. Non-profit organization Tourism Cares has created a major travel map showcasing organisations, accommodations and tours designed to have a positive impact on communities and the environment.
Vincie Ho, the executive director of RISE, acknowledges the growing public awareness about tourism’s impacts on communities and the environment, but noted that “the say-do gap is still huge.”
Travelers should be wary of greenwashing and “ethical washing”, Ms Ho said.
“We want to dig deep and think critically, and not just sell ourselves something because a company says it’s doing the right thing,” he said.
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