SNV's responsible tourism discussion attracts large crowd at WTM London

Hanoi, 2 December 2009 - The World Travel Market is the largest business to business event for the tourism sector and takes place yearly in London. This was the third year that World Travel Market has dedicated one day to "responsible tourism" encouraging debate, discussion and action, highlighting case studies and best practice and participation by all sectors of the industry. SNV was invited to share our on the ground experiences with responsible tourism development and management.

Often the debate on responsible tourism focuses strongly on the environmental and economic aspects, thus SNV saw opportunity to broaden the agenda by our experiences with the social dimension of responsible tourism, as well as adding knowledge of the economic impacts through local supply development and local employment creation. Upon invitation by the organisers of the Responsible Tourism Day, SNV initiated a panel discussion zooming in on our destination development program of the Mekong Discovery Trail in Cambodia. In particular, our discussion focused on government and private sector experiences with this program. Our session attracted an audience of around 230 tourism industry representatives, including tour operators, governments, development organisations, and press.

The session was opened with the recently developed corporate tourism trailer "Responsible Tourism - Doing Business, Doing Good", which highlights SNV's tourism activities in Nicaragua, Mozambique, Nepal and Cambodia. The trailer can be found here on YouTube.

Harold Goodwin, Professor of Responsible Tourism Management, ICR, Leeds Metropolitan University and one of the initiators of the Responsible Tourism Day, chaired our session. He is well known for his involvement in and initiation of numerous responsible tourism initiatives around the world, and was a main spokesperson at many of the WTM sessions. The discussion panel included Anne-Maria Makela, former tourism sector leader SNV Cambodia, and Anna Spenceley, SNV Rwanda, providing a strong and concise introduction into SNV's experiences with the Mekong Discovery Trail and Inhambane destination development and management. Representatives of the Cambodian Ministry of Tourism and two international tour operators completed the panel.

After brief presentations of our panelists, the opportunity was presented to the audience to raise some questions to the panel. Several critical questions were raised, around topics such as growing visitor numbers, impact measurement, and collaborative advantages for tour operators. His Excellency Tith Chantha, representative of the Cambodian Ministry of Tourism, highlighted that his government has good experiences and continues to pursue strong involvement around this destination development program. Willem Niemijer, CEO and co-founder, Khiri Travel Group, and Hamish Keith, Managing Director of Exotissimo Travel Thailand and Director of Business Development added that the role of SNV has been valuable in the development of activities in the Mekong Discovery Trail region so that new tour packages could be developed. Over the past few years, the topic of responsible tourism has risen to the top of the industry agenda, as more and more governments, businesses, organisations, and tourists recognise its importance. It will continue to be a growing awareness for the tourism industry.

During his closure Taleb Rifai, Secretary General of the UNWTO, spoke highly of SNV's work in the tourism sector. Especially how our organisation has built up expertise by working and being based in many countries. He mentioned that the partnership between UNWTO and SNV is one of the most fulfilling experiences to them and that SNV makes real what UNWTO advocates.