Dogs, Tourism and Traditions
Apr 13, 2011 | Filed Under Adventure Tourism and Social/Environmental Issues, Rural Communities, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
This blog examines the ethics of culling sled-dogs used for tourism purposes. Recently, a tour operator in British Columbia, Canada was accused of inhumanely euthanizing 50 sled dogs, which were used in tourism activities. The basic chain of events was this: after the winter Olympics, tourism in British Columbia decreased. Outdoor Adventures at Whistler (OAW) took [...]
Read More →Ecosystem Services: Help for Building the Financial Case for Adventure Tourism
Dec 6, 2010 | Filed Under Adventure Tourism and Social/Environmental Issues, Rural Communities | Leave a Comment
Globally, ecosystems’ assets – crucial to adventure tourism markets – are poorly understood, monitored inconsistently (if at all) and facing rapid degradation. Adventure destinations and tour operators often experience the effects of this resource collapse first-hand, becoming advocates for change in their home regions. One of the crucial challenges they face in this process, however, [...]
Read More →Rural Culture and Adventure Tourism – How Adventure Races Can Coalesce Communities
Sep 14, 2010 | Filed Under Adventure Tourism and Social/Environmental Issues, Destinations, Rural Communities | 1 Comment
Adventure racing has become increasingly popular since the UK hosted a two-day marathon, the Karrimor International Mountain Marathon, in 1968. Races that involve multiple disciplines, navigation, and the personal stamina to travel through rugged terrain for many hours to many days have been occurring, officially and not, throughout history. In many ways, the concepts and basic rules [...]
Read More →Adventure Travel and Rural Economic Development in the United States
Aug 26, 2010 | Filed Under Adventure Tourism and Social/Environmental Issues, Rural Communities, Uncategorized | 2 Comments
While Senate partisanship continued to stall a Bill that would create a $30 billion lending program and $12 billion in tax cuts for small businesses in the US, there is still good news for rural small businesses in both state and national programs. The Rural Microentrepreneurship Assistance Program (RMAP), launched in June 2010 under the [...]
Read More →Carbon Emissions and Adventure Travel
Jan 3, 2010 | Filed Under Adventure Tourism and Social/Environmental Issues | Leave a Comment
It’s not uncommon for people to question the utility of adventure tourism as a means of encouraging conservation, when it so often involves air travel, something we all know generates a significant amount of carbon emissions. In this blog, we review a recent study entitled Carbon Footprint of Nations: A Global, Trade-Linked Analysis (Environmental Science [...]
Read More →Adventure Tourism Challenges and Potential in Sardinia
Jul 30, 2009 | Filed Under Adventure Tourism and Social/Environmental Issues, Destinations | Leave a Comment
Sardinia, the Italian island south of Corsica in the Mediterranean Sea, is an adventure traveler’s paradise: rock climbing over turquoise waters, the ancient granite mountain top of Gennargentu covered in snow and mist, well-defined treks across the island, and a mysterious prehistoric past defined by 6000 year old stone temples. I recently returned from a [...]
Read More →Saving Culture Through Tourism
Jun 2, 2009 | Filed Under Adventure Tourism and Social/Environmental Issues | Leave a Comment
In some cases, tourism signals an end to local culture. In other cases, it offers one of the few compelling reasons to retain it. Sadly, in the case Kashgar, an historic Silk Road City in western China, tourism’s being developed in a way that spells disaster for one very historic cultural place. A recent article [...]
Read More →Mountain Film Festival 2009 Highlights Adventure Travel’s True Spirit
May 28, 2009 | Filed Under Adventure People, Adventure Tourism and Social/Environmental Issues | Leave a Comment
I was lucky to spend last weekend at the Mountain Film Festival in Telluride, Colorado as the guest of National Geographic ADVENTURE magazine, one of the event’s sponsors. This was my first time to the Mountain Film Festival and I expected to see such films like the snow-boarding thriller “That’s It, That’s All” and “Solo,” [...]
Read More →Meeting Planners Look to Volunteering
May 26, 2009 | Filed Under Adventure Tourism and Social/Environmental Issues, Meeting Planning, Travel and Volunteering | Leave a Comment
Last week I attended an educational conference for members of San Diego Meeting Professionals International. It was great to talk with attendees and observe such interest from corporate groups to bring community service projects and volunteerism into their meetings and incentive programs. It’s clear to me that the increased focus on Corporate Social Responsibility combined with the many new outlets for group volunteering, puts meeting planners in a position to truly get creative, offering innovative programs while making a positive contribution in the destinations they visit.
Read More →An Alternative to Mass Tourism: The Adventure Opportunity the Wall Street Journal Didn’t Mention
May 18, 2009 | Filed Under Adventure Tourism and Social/Environmental Issues, Product Development | Leave a Comment
Headlines like this make me cringe: “To see some of the most spectacular spots on earth before the tourist buses arrive, visit the sites being considered for World Heritage designation.”
Why? Because it assumes that the only way to bring tourism to a region is to bring it with loads of buses and inconsiderate people who destroy the place.
In the Wall Street Journal’s May 15, 2009 Weekend Journal the cover story is by Stan Sesser, who highlights a number of sites around the world that may become World Heritage Sites in 2009. This designation can be a blessing or a curse, depending on how destinations manage their resources, and Sesser quotes an official at the World Heritage Organization who rightly observes that the program “has been turned into simply a branding scheme.”
Read More →Off the Radar
Visit us at travelofftheradar.com for the complete archive of past editions as well as beautiful photos, travel writing and video from our adventuring readers.