Really fantastic day long event on sustainable travel. Thanks to Impact Travel Alliance for inviting us to participate and share some of our ideas! Great Q and A session and a lot of very insightful participants!

Talking about what it means to be an enlightened traveler what makes travel different from tourism: getting off the beaten path to have genuine experiences.

Travelers seek out real experiences in the places they visit!

The classroom style setting (with participants who were virtual in addition to those physically present) encouraged informal interaction and brainstorming.

Talking about the stack effect and other passive cooling strategies that are perfect for tropical climates!

Discussing the challenges and opportunities of this new way of seeing the world, and how to weave sustainability in with every step.

Taking questions from the audience!

Questions about how to get the locals on board with sustainable practices and how to encourage genuine engagement of the local scene by travelers.

The future of tourism is travel, and this crew has their finger on the pulse of it!

Great to have such fantastic audience engagement, let’s do more!

More on the event can be found here: http://www.impacttravelalliance.org/immersion/

A description of the session is below.

This session will take a look at a holistic view of sustainability that combines ecological concerns with social ones. We will look at travel in developing countries in urban as well as rural settings, with an emphasis on travel that is both ethical and ecologically sensitive. We will look at non traditional forms of tourism such as cultural or heritage tourism, eco-tourism, glamping, edu-tourism, and voluntourism, among others. Their will be a workshop portion focusing on creating development solutions for two very different potential sites, one urban, the other rural and remote.

• How are tourists different from travelers?
• How can travel be used to create economic opportunity, upliftment and empowerment as well as deeply meaningful and transformative experiences for the traveler?
• How can we plug into the local setting and engage with the people who are already there in a sensitive and sustainable way?