How to decide on a tourism company

There are a number of guides available on the web and in print that list tour companies that consider aspects of responsible tourism in their operation.  It is important to look at what measures these listings use, some are a lot more stringent than others.  You can use the information in this website and the resources below to guide your choice.  

One guide that is available from the Dev-Zone library is:

The Ethical Travel Guide: your passport to exciting alternative holidays.

Pattullo, Polly and Minelli, Orely. London: Earthscan, 2006.

The successor to the good alternative travel guide this book provides information on, and contact details of, community initiated projects in developing countries that are environmentally friendly and offer sustainable alternative incomes for communities living in threatened ecosystems.

To help you quickly find the key resources on tourism held by Dev-Zone, we have produced a Where to Start Guide on Tourism.  Click here to download it.

Web resources

• The Tourism Section of the Dev-Zone Knowledge Centre has links to articles, reviews, reports and organisations associated with issues around tourism and development.
• Ecumenical Coalition on Tourism- A coalition of over 70 faith-based and secular groups that promote socially responsible tourism.
• Ethical Traveller - grass roots alliance uniting adventurers, tourists, travel agencies who believe in using economic power to strengthen human rights and protect the environment.
• Global Exchange Reality Tours - 'hands-on' opportunity to meet with community leaders and visit environmentally sustainable agricultural projects.
• Partners in Responsible Tourism - San Francisco based network of individuals concerned about the impact of tourism.
• Pro-poor Tourism - 'pro-poor tourism' is defined as tourism that results in increased net benefits for poor people.
• south-pacific.travel has endorsed the responsible tourism code and is committed to supporting the code.
• Survival International - an international organisation supporting tribal peoples worldwide.
• The International Ecotourism Society (TIES) - the largest and oldest ecotourism organisation, dedicated to information about ecotourism.
• Third World Network/Tourism - focuses on tourism issues affecting local communities and the natural environment, highlighting voices that usually have little opportunity to influence policy-making structures.
• Tourism Concern - a source of information on tourism's impact, independent voice for justice and sustainability in tourism. Includes a project on Fair Trade tourism.
• WTM World Responsible Tourism Day 12 November - This event is supported by the UNWTO, promotes responsible tourism within the industry and consumers.
• The World Tourism Organisation has a department devoted to the Sustainable Development of Tourism. It produces reports, conferences and research.

Print resources

The following resources on tourism are available through the Dev-Zone library. Available to anyone living in Aotearoa NZ, it's free to join and borrow material from the library and you can join online, via fax, in person or by mail.

Tourism and the Majority World

Dev-Zone Onepager. Number 3, May 2008.

This onepager gives you an overview of the problems associated with tourism in the majority world and a guide to some of the solutions. More.

Rethinking Tourism: An Engine for Third World Development. Third World Resurgence. Issue No. 207-208, Nov/Dec 2007.

Published by the Third World Network, this edition looks at tourism, offering different perspectives on the role of tourism in development.

Ethical Travel. New Internationalist. March 2008.

This issue looks at air travel; one of the central current debates in tourism, along with a number of other topical issues in tourism.

Just Change - The Tourism Issue. Dec, 2004.

The first issue of Dev-Zone's new magazine, focusing on responsible tourism. You can contact Dev-Zone if you would like a copy posted to you. An PDF of the magazine is available on the Dev-Zone website .

The no-nonsense guide to tourism. Nowicka, Pamela.  London: New Internationalist, 2007.

This guide demystifies the often invisible impacts of global tourism, one of the biggest industries in the world. From labour conditions to development by stealth; to the role of elites and the cultural impacts on both the visitor and the visited.

Critical Issues in Ecotourism: understanding a complex tourism phenomenon. Higham, James (Eds). Great Britain: Butterworth-Heninemann, 2007.

Some of the key writers in the field of ecotourism take a look at where ecotourism is currently at and investigate some of the emerging issues for the industry including climate change, certification, indigenous perspectives and corporate social responsibility

Tourism and Responsibility: Perspectives from Latin America and the Caribbean.  Mowforth, Martin Charlton and Munt, Ian Clive.  London: Routledge, 2007.

This book provides a critical perspective on existing and new forms of tourism looking at the relationship between tourism, responsibility, power and development.

Tourism and Climate Change: Risks and Opportunities.  Becken, Suzanne and Hay, John.  Clevedon: Channel View Publications, 2007.

This book discusses the latest knowledge in the field of tourism and climate change. It looks closely at tourism management and climate change mitigation, adaptation and policy. 

Rethinking Tourism and Ecotravel (2nd ed.). McLaren, Deborah. Bloomfield, CT : Kumarian, 2003.

A critical examination of the impact of tourism on local communities and environments. It doesn't look pretty. Deborah McLaren offers some thoughts, with contributing authors, on how to make tourism more responsible.

Tourism for development: empowering communities. Scheyvens, Regina. New York: Prentice Hall, 2002.

This book provides a contemporary analysis of the potential for tourism to work as a strategy for development in developing countries.  

Tourism and development: concepts and issues. Sharpley, Richard and David. J. Telfer (Eds.). Clevedon: Channel View Books, 2002.

A number of prestigious authors challenge the assumed wisdom regarding the contributions that tourism can make to development.

Travels in the skin trade: tourism and the sex industry. Seabrook, Jeremy. London: Pluto Press, 2001.

Through the words of sex workers and their clients, Jeremy Seabrook explores the myths and realities of prostitution in Thailand.

A trip too far: ecotourism, politics and exploitation. Duffy, Rosaleen. London: Earthscan, 2002.

Rosaleen Duffy turns an unwavering and at times sardonic gaze on the notion of ecotourism. Her argument is that ecotourism providers and consumers capitalise on the politically correct notion of ecotourism while actually fuelling the same problems inherent in conventional tourism.

 

DVDs/Videos

These videos can be borrowed by any member of the Dev-Zone library. It is free to join and borrow (limited to those living in Aotearoa New Zealand).

Changing lives: Tourism that makes a world of difference to destinations, customers and business

Bristol: The Travel Foundation, 2007. 6 mins

This DVD is aimed at the tourism industry and how they can make their practice more sustainable. Three key areas are highlighted; local supply of produce, protecting national resources and developing sustainable excursions.

Play your part: A guide for tour operators

Bristol: The Travel Foundation, 2007. 33 mins

This guide covers a wide range of sustainability issues and is directed at tourism staff and operators and what they can do to improve sustainability and change customer behaviour.

Take it Personally (Hands On) : Earth report X 

London: Television Trust for the Environment (TVE), 2006. 23 mins

Amongst other stories, this film looks at the way villagers in Nepal are updating their traditional craft skills to bring much-needed foreign tourism cash and development to the countryside

Voices from the International Forum on Indigenous People
USA: Indigenous Tourism Rights International, 2002. 22 mins.

This film captures discussions held at the March 2002 International Forum on Indigenous Tourism organised by Indigenous Tourism Rights International in partnership with Instituto de Ia Naturaleza y Ia Sociedad de Oaxaca (INSO) about the priorities and difficulties indigenous organisations have faced in tourism development.

Your place or mine?
Tourism Concern/VSO, 2001. 13 mins.

Targeted at young people, presenter Andy Jones follows the advice of responsible travel experts as he explores the world.

Me, a camera and 70 million locals
Australia: Caritas, 2000. 45 mins.

A group of young Australian teenagers visit the Philippines and venture beyond the tourist track providing a moving insight into the lives of people in a 'developing' country.

Place and people Asia Pacific
UK: 1998. 100 mins.

Filmed on location, these programmes explore current geographical issues including trade and industry, urban and rural development, tourism and the environment in the Pacific rim - looks at Thailand, Philippines, Korea, Vietnam and Singapore.

Thailand for Sale
Connected Media Trust, 1991. 29 mins.

Using a small domestic camera, film-maker David Jacobs exposes the reality behind the paradise image of Thailand promoted in a thousand holiday brochures. Highlights Kanokpohn Yomana and Supa Jirapatpimol who have founded the Phuket Environmental Protection Association to protest at the rapaciousness of the tourist industry.

Pacific: paradise - paradox
Christchurch: 1988. 23 mins.

Pacific Islanders speak about the effects of tourism on their families, economy and development in general, including agriculture, aid programmes, industrialisation, health and the influence of Western civilisation.

Cannibal tours
Canberra ACT: Ronin Films, 1987. 23 mins.

This film is an attempt to discover the place of the 'Other' in the popular imagination. It gives a glimpse at the real (mostly unconsidered or misunderstood) reasons why civilised people wish to encounter 'primitive' culture.

Please contact us with any recommended links or information.