A List of Eco, Ethical and Responsible Travel Organisations on Twitter

I've become aware of late of the various eco-tourism, ethical tourism and responsible tourism organisations who are on twitter but I sometimes feel like there's a lot of us working towards the same ends, but we're not always as in touch as we could be.


I've put together a list of people who I follow on twitter and I am sharing the list here. I have featured the ones below as a taster of the entire list as a whole.  To follow the entire list on twitter just click on the link below.  

@ecothreesixty/eco-travel-orgs

Sustainable Travel @STI_travel

STI's mission is to positively impact communities and travelers worldwide through sustainable tourism development that delivers measurable results.

Hidden Britain @HiddenBritain
We’re a charity helping local communities to realise their tourism potential, creating a fantastic place to visit for everyone and supporting the local economy

Resp Tourism Canada @ICRT_Canada

International Centre for Responsible Tourism Canada - promoting & developing the concept of responsible tourism in Canada

World Green Tourism @WGreenTourism
ADTA and EAD initiative to promote sustainable tourism globally - especially in the Middle East . Tweets news on the region and titbits from further afield.

Mary Mulvey @ecoireland

Ireland only Ecotourism criteria approved by Global Sustainable Tourism Council 2012


Chitwan Jungle Lodge @ChitwanJungle
I'm Nistha Shrestha, Marketing Exec for Chitwan Jungle Lodge, a quiet little family-run lodge located deep inside the Chitwan National Park in Nepal.

Nat Geo Traveler @NatGeoTraveler

Traveler championed sustainable travel before it was cool and celebrates cultural and authentic journeys. 

Carin Cowell @EcolodgeMorocco

Founder of www.khanfousretreat.com, a bamboo retreat experience on the gorgeous Atlantic coast of Morocco, where sustainability and responsibility matter.

Tourism Concern @tourismconcern

We're the only organisation in Europe actively campaigning on tourism & human rights issues. Our mission is to ensure that tourism always benefits local people

Joie de Vivre Hotels @JDVHotels

Joie de Vivre manages over 30 boutique hotels, restaurants and spas located in Calif. and Ariz. and is opening in Palm Springs and Chicago in Feb. 2012.

The Social Travelers @SocialTravelers

WE BELIEVE IN THE POWER OF TRAVEL TO EFFECT POSITIVE CHANGE...WE LIVE FOR EXCEPTIONAL MOMENTS...THE WORLD AWAITS!

Sandy @TiptoeTraveller 

French Marketer, loves life, people, nature, real food, travelling near & far. Keen to share small ideas for greener adventures just 1 little step at a time.

One World 365 @oneworld365

A directory of meaningful travel opportunities including volunteer work, jobs, teaching, conservation, eco / adventure trips & tours worldwide

Ethan Gelber @thetravelword

The travel blog of the WHL Group (www.whl-group.com), the largest local-travel company in the world, connecting mindful travellers to responsible experiences.

TIES @ecotravel

Dedicated to promoting ecotourism since 1990.

Kate T @Thedivehub

Applying responsible tourism principles to scuba diving, making a difference - one dive at a time! Kate Turner

SustainableTrip.org @SustainableTrip

Helping travelers find sustainable tourism destinations in Latin America and the Caribbean! Created by the Rainforest Alliance, a nonprofit organization.

Stephen Chapman @maketravelfair

The original sustainable travel Blog network. Make Travel Fair is about unleashing the potential of travel to educate, engage and inspire

Ecotourism Feeds @EcotourismFeeds

GO GREEN ON THE ROAD!!Tweets and retweet to inspire to conserve local nature and cultural differences!

Himalayan Footsteps @Himalfootsteps
Himalayan specialists. Follow for adventure with altitude and attitude. Olly tweets news from Himalayas, ethical travel & travel tips.

Irene Lane @GreenloonsEco
Founder of Greenloons | educates & connects eco-conscious travelers with certified ecotourism operators & accommodations | aims to visit a new country each year

Ecotourism Australia @EcotourismAus
Ecotourism Australia is committed to growing and promoting ecotourism and other sustainable tourism experiences

Katie @QualityUnearthd
tweeting about anything that grabs my attention, eco-builds, yurts, retreats, quirky stuff and even, sometimes, QU holidays!

Muskoka Foundation @DoGoodAsYouGo
We equip&inspire a network of travelers to live the idea of use what you know, to do good as you go. Programs create skills, independence &sustainable change.

If you think you can recommend any organisation who is worth adding, I'll happily add them.

What's the most stupid thing you've ever heard a tourist say?

I had been meaning to write about tourism more widely today, and then I thought back to things I've overheard tourists say at various attractions around the world.  And thought I'd just post a brief couple of thoughts about that.  

The Griswalds Abroad

So here are a couple of choice phrases that I have heard over the years from the mouths of tourists that have stayed with me.


At Stonehenge 
"It's really beautiful, it's just such a shame they built it so close to the road."

At Tate Modern
"Okay, we've done this room and that room, that just leaves this room.... or have we done enough art?"


I hope that I have not managed to utter anything as stupid.  Actually, okay, I have one confession, when my ex and I were about to fly out of Mumbai we'd booked ourselves into the Iskon Hotel in Mumbai, its is a nice hotel owned and run by devotees of Hari Krishna which has amazing food, and its own temple within the hotel complex which runs food kitchens for followers and guests, very nice place to stay and not too far from the airport.  


Anyway as my ex and I were heading back to our room we were accosted by a really big (I'm 6'2" and this guy must have been at least three inches taller than me, I digress) he asked if we had visited the temple?  We had got there after rather long journey due to serious floods in Goa, little did we know what would happen that afternoon. (Again with the digression).  No, we hadn't taken the opportunity to see temple, so off he took us off to see the beautiful temple a few footsteps away.


He lead us in and talked us through the various elements within the temple.  After a moment he fell silent and let us wonder at the beauty of the place.  And what did I say, as he stood welcoming us into this sacred place?  And I still cannot for why it sprang out of my mouth.  I uttered "It's amazing how you keep it so free of dust." !!!!  I don't think about dust, I don't have OCD, I'm not constantly aware of surfaces, but at that moment I managed to offer the point of view of an American house-wife in a cleaning commercial from the 1950s. Fortunately he was such a happy guy that he just nodded and turned back smiling at the impressive ceiling above us.  Doubtless to say after we'd learned a bit about the early days of the Hare Krishna movement we thanked him, made a donation to the food kitchen run by the devotees and continued on to our room.  My ex enjoying the opportunity to laugh at my perfectly chosen compliment.  Anyway these days I try and keep my ear open for new utterances.  (My internal monologue has stopped me saying anything as stupid as the above, ever since.)

A Film Review of The Lady and whether you should travel to Burma

Michelle Yeoh as Aung San Suu Kyi

I saw the film "The Lady" a few days ago at an advanced screening, the film is the biopic of tireless campaigner for Burmese freedom and Nobel Peace Prizewinner Aung San Suu Kyi.  And I thought I might try and combine a rather ragged review of the film with some thoughts on whether it is ethically acceptable to travel to Burma.  


The film does give you an interesting insight of Aung San Suu Kyi's curious situation of being someone who had a comfortable life, who due to circumstance found themselves in a position and was left with the quandary of whether she could walk away. Aung San Suu Kyi as a Burmese woman whose father had brought the country independence from the British, felt a compulsion, to stay and campaign from house arrest and other ongoing degradations for freedom.  The generals who are responsible for savage acts are depressingly comic, they seem to look group of taxi-drivers who like to dress up as generals on dress-down Fridays.  Knowing the butchery and inhumanity the real generals have inflicted I felt we should have felt more than amusement upon seeing them.  Perhaps the one things to come from the portrayal of the generals, is that they are constantly playing for time and ultimately seem to only be slightly bothered about external pressure be it from the US, Europe, China or Russia.  

The Fighting Peacock Flag

The film tries to capture Burma's struggle against oppression, through the life of Aung San Suu Kyi's relationship with her husband and her two sons.  And on some level, it kind of succeeds, for brief moments, but overall it doesn't leave you with much hope for her or the country, and it feels quite distanced from the real the horrors faced by ordinary Burmese people for most of the film.   


The film focuses in the main on Aung San Suu Kyi's house arrest and she has now been freed from house arrest and with her freedom has come a change in her views on tourists visiting Burma.  Until recently Aung San Suu Kyi and the Free Burma Coalition, which are (effectively the elected government which has not been allowed to govern the country) were both firmly against foreign travellers going to Burma.  
But obviously after such a strong and lasting stance against it, travellers are still reticent and concerned about travelling to a country which such an oppressive regime in power. I think those concerns are perfectly justified and regardless of the views expressed by Aung San Suu Kyi and the Free Burma Coalition each traveller must first find peace with their own conscience.  If travellers can do that, then they may find solace in the interview she gave to the Daily Telegraph this November in which she stated that “There has been change, not sufficient yet but we’ll get there” and that she hopes that the changes will occur sooner rather than later.  I'm of the mind that the generals of the junta will loosen the reins of control off a bit and then pull hard on them when they start to feel real power start to slip away from them.  It was only 2007 when the monks rose to protest against army rule and were brutally put down. I hope will be proven to be wrong as time progresses and if the selfless and courageous people who have spent every day of every year since 1947 trying to bring peace and democracy to Burma say they welcome visitors to the country then you have an open invitation from the people best placed to make that judgement.  

A simple misunderstanding?

A couple of weeks ago, a company that shall remain nameless, contacted me on twitter, saying they’d be interested in being listed on ecothreesixty.com.  I did the usual thing of checking over their website to see who they were, what they do and what their “eco” credentials were.  Other than offering what look liked very attractive excursions on the great barrier reef, they actually had nothing in their offering to guests, that was actually geared towards either minimising their impact on their immediate environment, improving their immediate environment, or improving the wider environment.  It wasn’t the first time I had encountered an “eco” lodge without any “eco” credentials. 


While researching eco accommodations to list on ecothreesixty.com, we found plenty of so called “Eco Lodges” which were small operations whose "eco" dimension was that they were small, but that was the most environmentally positive thing that could be said for them.  As time has moved on, we’ve found the overwhelming majority of places positioning themselves as “eco-friendly” or “green” accommodations, have made a reasonable attempt to live up to those terms.  

It can always be argued that some people will always stick on a label that is current, or that they think will help sell their hotel or lodge.  You need to only look at the word luxury and see how often it is applied to hotels, and see how; in many cases it isn’t really accurate.  But I honestly think there are people out there amongst the hospitality trade who do not really know what ecotourism actually is.  And that is surprising, as it is growing area of travel and number of guests or travellers who do know what the word means are part of that growth.  So if you do use the word as a tag to attract business without any clear eco credentials I think you will actually start to see your business suffer, especially as guests who feel short changed post comments on TripAdvisor.  

But to go back to my initial reason for posting, when I sent a tweet back to the company operating on the great barrier reef, saying we’d be happy to list them once I could see on their website their eco credentials, I got no response and when I checked my followers list, they had unfollowed us.  Were they guilty of a little bit of conscious “greenwashing” or were they just under the misapprehension that “eco” can mean anything where nature is involved, I guess I’ll never know.  But thankfully, I think one by one making a case for a “misunderstanding” is just getting that little bit harder.  

The Usage of a Word, and the Witnessing of Lives Saved

I've been on twitter a fair bit this weekend, something I feel I can share with you, partly because I have deleted all spam accounts which were following us, which left me with a rather loathsome feeling of smugness, which has now fortunately left me.  But more importantly one of our tweets ended up in an ecotourism Google, alert which made me feel as though we're doing something of worth, in a very modest way.  


Anyway while tweeting, I saw how often the word traveller is used by people as term for a cool, independent (one L for our American cousins of course).  The word tourist would appear to have too many negative connotations for most people, the word conjures up mental images of feckless, camera-laden morons walking gormlessly around oversubscribed tourist hotspots looking for somewhere to have lunch.  


While the word traveller on the other hand, brings to mind people of intelligence understanding their surroundings, interacting on an equal footing on those around them, wherever they are.  A traveller is thought of as someone who can blend into their surroundings effortlessly, who isn't governed by schedules and who is knowledgeable about the places they visit.  


Many westerners who do travel, will have their own stories, in fact they may have, that many will have become oft repeated tales, about near misses and close calls, and some of them will have come close to death.  But I'm sure almost all their travels were undertaken as part of their own choice, not from pure desperation.  So with that in mind I want to expound the need to widen meaning of the word traveller.  


Prior to going out this last Friday evening I was watching Channel 4 news (the best television news by far in the UK) and there was a report from Tripoli.  The correspondent* had happened into a group of rebels who had found a group of black Africans.  The rebels claimed the men were mercenaries who had been fighting for Gaddafi.  The captives were in a state of shock, the fear on the mens faces was palpable.  Their eyes had that look of distance, desperate, unable to see a way out of their situation and the exhaustion of being in a heightened state of terror for a long time.  The men pleaded their innocence as best they could while not resisting the manhandling of their angry captors.  The men claimed to be passing through Libya and had just been trying to get across the Mediterranean and into Europe in the hope of finding work.  The rebels where convinced the men were mercenaries, who had been fighting for Gaddafi. 


The prisoners whispered and pleaded with the correspondent not to leave them, convinced they would be shot as soon as the correspondent left.  The correspondent said he would stay with the men, so that nothing would happen to them.  While the correspondent spoke to one of the prisoners the man asked if the correspondent could convince the rebels to let one of the men to take their captors to see the women the men were travelling with, who were taking refuge nearby.  After a brief conversation with the correspondent the rebels were convinced the men were not mercenaries, the men were released, given water and sent on their way.  


What has happened to those men since then, is anyone's guess.  Will they make it across the Mediterranean, are they now in the hands of new rebel group who are less inclined to believe them, who can say.  I hope they get somewhere safe, where they don't live in fear and are not exploited.  But this briefest of glimpses of these men's lives made me think they aren't just "migrants", a 'catch all' dehumanising term, but these men were travellers, on a journey.  Risking all they had, in the name of hope.  


So I appeal in a wider context to have the word traveller broadened back to include those who travel for reasons of utter necessity, not just to take time from their busy schedules to have experiences, or to brighten up a cut and dried career progression.  A traveller in the past often meant someone without much in the way of possessions and sometimes, someone in often in desperate need of help. I think one reason, many cultures offer the traveller hospitality, is perhaps the knowledge that they, one day may well be in far from home and in need of help themselves.  


*The correspondents name is Alex Thompson.