Sustainability, Outdoor, Tourism, and Adventures

More and more tourists would rather describe themselves as travelers. For ages the tourism industry would not include this strain that has evolved from the small group of pioneers to become a new reality.   Things are blurring: tourists are also travelers, and travelers do tourism. Bing a traveler means to integrate in the local reality, to leave the “tourists compound” to be part of the picture of the location. It’s written nowhere that a tourism agent cannot offer this kind of experience, and taking into due account the demand, this is evolving too, through the way excursions are organized, to where tourists are taken to, and to what they are offered.   Disintermediation provided by internet is widening the options for travelers/tourist-travelers. Airbnb is in the forefront of this trend. But, regardless the fact that Airbnb is already a consolidated reality, is it really something new in the history of how we travel?   Tourist accommodation has change...

Ecotourism and sustainable tourism represent a very viable option for rural areas, for developing countries or regions. If, for example, mass seaside tourism in the last half of the XIX centuries required significant investments, overbuilding, concreting, and the most attractive destinations were those that offered standardized and high-level services, the demand in sustainable tourism is satisfied with the authenticity of the destination. In a word: you don’t need to build a 300 room hotel to launch an ecotourism destination. As for the quality of the services, of course the rule is that tourists should be offered the best possible. Still, the average eco-tourist is willing to accept inconvenient and small disruptions more than the demanding average mass tourist, if these are understandable and commensurate with the socio-environmental context of the destination. If a locality therefore holds a potential in terms of uniqueness and authenticity, attractiveness and willi...