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The Organization of American States and the George Washington University International Institute of Tourism Studies in collaboration with the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs have organized a virtual gathering, October 12th through 16th, that will give Indigenous, business, and government leaders a platform to explore the ways in which tourism can drive economic recovery and sustainable development. Participants will meet for five days via Zoom webinar to exchange experiences, share knowledge, re-trace ancient trade networks and re-establish connections.

For millennia, Indigenous peoples engaged in trade and commerce throughout what is now known as the Americas.  

This vast and complex exchange network that produced food, medicine, ceremony and knowledge, evolved over time and can only be authentically shared by the Indigenous people whose ancestors lived it.

Unfortunately, this history is largely left out of the history of the Americas as it is widely shared today.  

Tourism has an important role to play…it can provide Indigenous communities with  economic opportunity while allowing visitors to learn about the Indigenous experience. 

But because Indigenous communities have limited access to the resources needed to develop, manage, sustain and control tourism on their own terms, they’re largely left out of the conversation

Indigenous communities using their own cultures and traditions to shape their economic future and share it in a way that enhances quality of life and cultural expression is what this Indigenous Tourism Collaborative is all about.  

We are creating the framework for a network of Indigenous representatives to join forces to discuss, share, and inform us and other resource providers and industry experts on how to better support the development of tourism on their terms as they take control of their own narratives.

The recent coronavirus pandemic has not only brought the tourism industry to a halt around the world, but it’s exposed the vulnerability of Indigenous communities —their lack of infrastructure and access to resources to prevent transmission of the virus and care for the sick.  The resulting lock-down of many communities is a means of self-protection and cultural survival that indigenous peoples have been practicing for years.  

Because so many Indigenous communities have a deep knowledge of and dependence on their environment, these natural resources are helping to sustain them now, just as they have historically, particularly when access to commercial food resources are impacted.  Yet, for those Indigenous communities that have been displaced from their homelands and access to their indigenous food resources, food sovereignty is a goal of paramount importance.

The Indigenous Tourism Forum of the Americas was designed to provide a platform for community leaders, policy-makers, and business owners to share their experiences to learn from one another and to better understand how to drive change through tourism.  The George Washington University, International Institute of Tourism Studies reached out to the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Organization of American States to discuss the idea of building a network of Indigenous development organizations and leaders along with a network of tourism industry and government resources to identify how we can better identify the issues and needs of Indigenous development and the resources necessary to address them.

The forum was intended to be the first step in an Indigenous Tourism Collaborative, long before COVID-19 appeared.  Now we see this effort as needed more than ever—to bring together Indigenous people from across the Americas to re-establish their historic connections, drive understanding, and create new opportunities for people everywhere.  

Who better than the First Peoples of this hemisphere to lead the discussion of true sustainability for future development in the tourism industry and help define the resources and guidelines to achieve it?  

We are also inviting tourism industry representatives and government resource representatives including academia, non-governmental organizations, development organizations, and others to advise and be advised on our initiative.

To learn more and to register for the forum, please visit www.indigenoustourismforum.org

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted tourism more than any other industry. While people everywhere have been instructed to stay home, lock down and even quarantine to stem the spread of the virus, in the places most dependent on visitors, people have watched their primary source of income dry up. This is particularly true in the Caribbean—the most tourism-dependent region in the world.

According to a recent survey conducted by the George Washington University’s International Institute of Tourism Studies (GW IITS) and the Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO), destination management and marketing organisations must take immediate steps to recover from the economic fallout of COVID-19 and its impact on tourism. Along with crisis management and communications, the Destination Organization Responses to COVID-19 report stresses the need for CTO member countries to find additional sources of funding for destination organizations in order to withstand future crises.

As Seleni Matus, Executive Director of the International Institute of Tourism Studies urged, “It’s essential that destination organisations act now to work with local governments and businesses to find ways to create public and private partnerships that will benefit all parties involved, from hotels, tour operators and restaurants to local residents and tourists—immediate investment is urgently needed.”

The main findings of the survey indicate that COVID-19 had affected the financial health of the tourism organizations; nearly all of those polled either had already experienced or anticipated cuts to their operating budgets. “This is an ominous signal,” concludes the report.

“This study brings into sharp focus the impact the COVID-19 pandemic has had on the very institutions that will likely be tasked with leading the recovery of the tourism sector at the national level,” noted Faye Gill, Director of Membership Services for the CTO. “It will be critical that the tourism recovery plans take into consideration the resourcing of the destination organizations to adequately meet the demands that will define this period.”

The report called for advocacy on behalf of the destination organizations for financial support in order to remain strong and help to lead tourism’s recovery and rebuilding efforts. It also said these entities would have to find creative ways to do more with less, especially with regards to marketing. 

“Moving forward, destination organizations will need to consider how to diversify their funding sources, which are mainly based on lodging and cruise taxes, to ensure that they can withstand future COVID-19 waves and future shocks to the tourism industry,” GW IITS recommended. 

Despite these financial constraints, most respondents had not reduced their employment levels and do not foresee having to do so. “The commitment that the destination organizations’ showed to their employees throughout the pandemic is commendable," said Gill. "Even in the face of reduced budgets, the majority managed to keep their teams intact.”

At the same time, the report recommended that the tourism organizations needed to remain vigilant and advocate for continued support to tourism businesses. “Without sustained financial assistance, tourism enterprises that are operating at less than full capacity will be challenged to remain in business through 2020,” the report said.

The online survey, designed and analyzed by GW IITS students, was disseminated in mid-May amongst CTO’s 24 member countries. The GW IITS also inventoried tourism destination actions from mid-March to early May on mobility, economic relief, destination management and community support, crisis communication and destination marketing.

The university reviewed the websites and social media channels of various destination marketing organizations, industry associations and destination websites to better understand the tourism industry’s response to COVID-19, and compiled data on mobility and economic relief from various secondary sources. Forty-three countries in the greater Caribbean, including CTO’s 24 member countries, were included in this phase of the research.

Interested in learning more? Check out this podcast featuring GW IITS Executive Director Seleni Matus and CTO Communications Specialist Johnson Johnrose discussing the report’s main findings. Download the full report here.

In early January, a few days after returning to Washington DC from China, where I spent the winter break, I first heard about the coronavirus. In the beginning, people seemed somewhat curious and confused. But when the government issued a shelter at home order just before the start of the week-long Chinese Spring Festival, which was scheduled to start on January 24, I realized the virus was quite serious. Nothing before had ever stopped us from celebrating the most important festival in China.

I video chatted with my parents during those early days, just to make sure they were well-prepared. Fortunately, both of them understood the situation and were taking good care of themselves.

At about the same time, I heard the news of the first few cases in Washington State. At that point, my family and friends in China started to worry about me and offered advice, based on their experience. One friend suggested, jokingly, that I: “Buy some potatoes as you can grow them in an emergency.”

I read the news every day, in both Chinese and English and prepared to stay at home, by stocking up on essentials along with carrots, celery, and sweet potatoes for my two guinea pigs and a Nintendo Switch for my own exercise. I even packed a small suitcase with IDs and basic clothes, just in case of emergency. At that point, while most people around me seemed less concerned, I skipped a midterm exam before the campus had officially closed. Having grown up in China, where we had already dealt with disasters including SARS, I was prepared from the beginning.

As a tourism student, I’ve been paying close attention to how businesses can remain resilient and creative during this global pandemic. For example, the hotel in my neighborhood has started to provide take-out meals for local residents. Not only are they providing a service for the community, but they’re finding a way to generate income and stay relevant.

I also came across this piece, How Chinese Tourism Operators Survive In The Crisis. While the article is written in Chinese, it basically describes how Chinese tour operators are finding creative ways to survive during the crisis, including selling and delivering fresh local produce from various destinations to people quarantined at home. For example, they’re sourcing bamboo from Fujian, rice from the North East, millet from Shanxi, and mango from Hainan. The point is that these businesses are staying nimble by staying relevant and figuring out new ways of supplying demand.

In Chinese, the word “opportunity” literally translates into “threat-opportunity”. I believe everything that comes with a threat, comes with an opportunity as well. And for now, staying apart is to stay united.

At the crossroads of the Silk Road was Kazakhstan, which today is the world’s ninth largest country and remains at the center of Central Asian commerce. In March, George Washington University’s Larry Yu visited Kazakhstan’s Abai Kazakh National Pedagogical University (KazNPU) to attend the first International Scientific and Practical Conference on Trends and Perspectives of Tourism Development in Kazakhstan and Central Asia. GW alumnus Kenenbay Mambetaliyev, a faculty member at KazNPU, helped to organize the conference along with George Washington University’s International Institute of Tourism Studies and the Department of Tourism of Alamaty City.

“Most US tourists have not focused on Kazakhstan, much less Central Asia, as potential travel destinations. However that may soon be changing,” explained Dr. Yu, who spoke at the conference’s plenary session Tourism as an Engine for Development and conducted two workshops for participants. “While the Kazakh economy has relied on oil and gas exports, tourism has increasingly been recognized as key to economic diversification in the region, which has been hard hit by the fall in the prices of natural resources over the last decade or so.”

Not only is Kazakhstan vast but culturally varied, historically rich and teeming with unusual flora and fauna. Take the Aksu Zhabagly Nature Reserve, for example, which is not only home to snow leopards and other rare mammals, but it’s believed that tulips originated there, long before they were introduced to Holland. Or the Korgalzhyn Nature Reserve, famous for its pink flamingos and other bird species. Or the mystifying singing sands of the Altyn Emel National Park, which emit a low-pitched, synchronized musical sound.

To attract more foreign visitors to the region, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan have announced a program to allow tourists to travel between the two countries on one visa. The so-called "Silk Visa" is so promising that similar arrangements are being considered by nearby Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan Azerbaijan and Turkey. Since 2017, citizens of 45 countries, have been able to travel to Kazakhstan visa-free for 30 days. As a result, in 2017 alone, Kazakhstan saw almost an 18 percent increase in tourists, achieving a record of 5.8 million foreign visitors in the first nine months of the year. According to a recent TripAdvisor survey, 47 percent of travelers responded that a single visa regime in Central Asia would increase their willingness to travel to the region.

However, visas are not the only the obstacle to tourism development in the region. Flights between Central Asian countries are relatively infrequent. And Central Asia’s proximity to Afghanistan raises safety concerns for visitors. Nevertheless, the Kazakh government is committed to bolstering the country’s tourism sector, a goal shared by the conference attendees, who included university professors, researchers, government officials, industry professionals and students from the US and Central Asian countries.

“Sustainable tourism development has enormous potential for this region,” notes Yu. “Visitors can generate revenue for local communities while providing them with the incentive to protect their cultural and natural resources.”

Yet Roatán is confronting its own set of issues. The island’s growing popularity has resulted in increased wastewater, pollution and other environmental threats posed by the accelerated growth of tourism, let alone the impact of climate change, which is impacting coral reefs around the world. Nevertheless, Roatan’s offshore reef, remains one of the healthiest stretches of the Mesoamerican Reef system, the largest barrier reef in the Western Hemisphere.

To help Roatán manage and plan for a sustainable future, a team from the George Washington University International Institute of Tourism Studies has been working with conservationists, business owners, local government and community members on a destination sustainability plan that will allow islanders to derive economic benefit from tourism, yet manage problems associated with increased visitation.

“I conducted Roatán's first destination assessment about five years ago, explains International Institute of Tourism Studies Executive Director Seleni Matus.  “They’ve made impressive accomplishments since then. The establishment of the Bay Islands Destination Management Organization in 2017, which is ensuring coordination and collaboration among stakeholders for shared management of tourism on the island, has been a key development.”

Roatán’s success is due largely to the active involvement of a number of local NGOs including the Bay Islands Conservation Association, whose mandate is to conserve local resources, and the Coral Reef Alliance, which works with local communities to protect and manage the reef.

In January, Matus returned to Roatán with Masters of Tourism Administration student Taylor Ruoff to conduct a reassessment of the island based on the Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC) Criteria for Destinations. These guidelines, which serve as the global baseline for sustainability in travel and tourism, cover four general areas—cultural, environmental and socioeconomic impacts of tourism, and sustainable destination management.

In addition to the reassessment, Ruoff explains that, “To better understand the current challenges of sustainable tourism development and allow the community to decide on growth priorities for the next five years, we held focus groups with tour operators, attraction managers, NGOs, community groups and other representatives from the local tourism industry. We also conducted interviews with the governor, mayor, hoteliers and key business owners.”

In March, Matus and Ruoff presented their assessment findings and facilitated the development of a five-year community action plan with priority projects that include, for example, initiatives around wastewater management, improved zoning and food safety regulations, support for local entrepreneurs, and the establishment of an artisan-designated marketplace and culinary festivals like this summer’s two-day Roatán International Shrimp Festival.

Concluded Ruoff: “The passion demonstrated by local community members around the importance of natural and cultural heritage conservation— along with seeing the progress they’ve made over the last five years— is enormously inspiring." While Ruoff concedes that there’s still a great deal more to do to make the destination sustainable for the long term, she is optimistic that this community is up for the challenge, thanks to the collaboration and dedication of local leadership, community groups, business owners and NGOs.

This GSTC Destination Assessment is  supported by the GSTC, the World Wildlife Fund, and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit. It is funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development and Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. to promote destination stewardship and cruise tourism sustainability.

According to the 2018 Adventure Tourism Development Index, a publication of the International Institute of Tourism Studies and the Adventure Travel Trade Association, this year’s winners are Iceland and the Czech Republic.

The index evaluates countries around the world for their competitiveness in adventure tourism. Countries are ranked according to ten criteria including: a sustainable development policy, safety and security, health, natural resources, cultural resources, adventure activity resources, humanitarian  (opportunities for visitors to engage in authentic interactions with local people), entrepreneurship, tourism infrastructure and image.

For 2018, Iceland topped the list of developed nations and the Czech Republic led for developing nations. Through its Promote Iceland campaign, the country invested heavily in marketing and product development, and efforts paid off. The island nation also became an airline hub with improved accessibility. Switzerland, Germany, New Zealand, Norway, Australia, Finland and Canada were not far behind in their readiness to host adventurers.

Among developing countries, the Czech Republic held the top position, as it has since 2013, primarily because it leads in two key categories: adventure activity resources and entrepreneurship.

This year, the International Institute of Tourism Studies took the lead on a brand new index category: a social media netnography. We analyzed online social media reviews posted by travelers to gather first-hand insights around three popular destinations for hikers. These included Peru’s Inca Trail, the Mount Everest Base Camp and Mount Blanc.

According to International Institute of Tourism Studies Executive Director Seleni Matus, “Hiking remains the most popular adventure travel activity bar none. By providing destination managers an analysis of traveler feedback by hikers, they can incorporate this information into their long-term planning. For instance, are travelers generally happy with accommodations? Are trails well-marked? Are guides adequately trained? We hope that destination managers will use this approach more broadly and take online reviews into account when evaluating their adventure resources.”

To download a free copy of the report, please visit the Adventure Travel Trade Association website.