 | "Whether you are traveling on your own or arranging travels for others - the Earth is your homeland. Give it the care and respect it deserves; learn about its environment and geography; spend time getting to know its people and their art, culture, history, and livelihoods. While you derive pleasure, knowledge, and understanding from your encounters, hold close the importance of preserving these treasures for those who may follow in your footsteps." |
|
| Click here to download your copy of ETC's Responsible Travel Handbook, created exclusively for the conference's new Responsible Travel Forum. The Responsible Travel Handbook will help guide you along the long and winding trail that is responsible travel. |
|
| Share in the Momentum and Further the Reach of Responsible Tourism! |
|
| There is an increasing drive to expand the responsible tourism agendas within the ETC community, both collectively and within individual travel programs. The Community serves this mission on two fronts; 1) Advancing the responsible tourism agendas and information on our site and within the conference and; 2) Recognizing exceptional projects or practices of our suppliers furthering these goals. From its' inception in 2000, the Responsible Tourism Showcase has served to recruit and evaluate stellar examples of responsible tourism projects worldwide. As of 2003, instead of looking outward to identify exemplary practices of sustainable and community based tourism projects, ETC now looks inward to showcase its' own members, and their exemplary projects and tours which promote the practice of educational and responsible tourism as defined below. |
|
| Responsible Tourism Defined |  top |
|
|
|
| Educational travel with a priority focus on the positive economic impacts travel can have on local communities and places visited, while minimizing the ecological, social and cultural impacts through pursuit of sustainable tourism agendas, traveler philanthropy and service/volunteer vacations, and support of eco-sensitive providers. |
|
| Educational Travel Defined | top |
|
|
|
| Educational travel facilitates deeper, more enduring connections between travelers and the communities they visit through strong interpretation, experiential programming, and meaningful engagement.
|
| Community Resources in Responsible Tourism | top |
|
|
| We are pleased to offer resources and networking contacts to our ETC community members interested in promoting Responsible Tourism in our world. This is just the beginning. . .
 Sustainable Travel International is a membership-based, 501(c)(3) non-profit organization whose mission is to promote sustainable development and eco-friendly travel by providing programs that help travelers and travel-related companies protect the environmental, socio-cultural and economic needs of the places they visit, and the planet at large.
www.sustainabletravelinternational.org
|
|
