A New Tool For VolunTourism?!?
I was asked recently to organize a voluntourism activity in San Diego, California (my home town) for a group of folks attending a conference the week of March 15th. So I did a little poking around and look at what I found…
http://www.imrivers.com/sandiego
I was absolutely blown away by this technology!
Can you imagine the potential of watersheds, trail alliances, and environmental conservation groups being able to literally map out where travelers could engage in service projects such as debris-cleanups, trail maintenance efforts, or graffiti paint-outs?!?
I hope to interview someone from IMRivers in an upcoming episode of The VolunTourist Webcast; but in the meantime, for those who may have a watershed project or an environmental conservation initiative that is part of a watershed, this tool may very well serve you in telling the story before and after voluntourists come to your destination. If, for example, you work with corporate groups or schools, you may be able to use the technology to put the corporation’s logo or school’s logo in the area where the group conducted its activities. And my guess is that IMRivers could build out this technology for other socio-environmental issues besides watersheds. This could make it very effective for an entire destination.
Here’s where the excitement comes into the picture for the travel & tourism world:
So often the travel & tourism industry are measured by only one contribution - money (what have you done for me economically) - while being lambasted for the detrimental impacts of carbon emissions, additional humans and the waste created by those humans, etc. If destination marketing organizations had a tool that could demonstrate positive socio-environmental impacts through voluntourism (something we have discussed before, of course), just think how this could shift the perception of the entire industry!
NGOs, tour operators, and others could use it as well, especially those that move multiple groups through a region, to track their progress and let stakeholders and former and future voluntourists know what they are doing. If anyone decides to use the technology in this capacity, or is already doing so, please let me know. I would definitely like to share your story with others.
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Hi David,
Your point on how we measure and gauge the impacts of tourism, both in terms of avoided costs and benefits, financial and otherwise is well taken!
We are trying in our projects with tourism ministries and dmo’s etc to make the links between tourism projects and businesses and the environment, or people’s lives, more direct and obvious. It is a huge challenge in the tourism industry at large and in areas like adventure and volunteer tourism especially right now (b/c in order to get investment and build support for these programs we have to demonstrate their effectiveness in terms of delivering social and enviro benefits) and we lack the data, for the most part.
Thanks for sharing the link.
Christina