Tourism Concern is a UK charity which advocates for ethical tourism.
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Tourism Concern is a non-governmental organisation based in the United Kingdom. It was founded in 1989 by Alison Stancliffe as an informal network, linking people around Britain with similar organisations elsewhere in the world. Stancliffe was motivated by her experiences when teaching and travelling in South East Asia,[1] where she became concerned that tourists were contributing to economic exploitation in poor regions of the world.[2]
By 1991 the charity had reached 100 members, and had begun to lobby travel industry groups, initially encountering some resistance. That's when Tricia Barnett,[3] the current Director, joined the organisation, which moved to London. Today, Tourism Concern has about 1,000 members.
Following the 2002 Bali bombings, the group campaigned against travel warnings advising travelers to avoid Indonesia due to the threat from Islamist terrorists, and succeeded in inducing the government of the UK to drop their warning in early 2004.[4] Tourism Concern director Patricia Barnett said "We can no longer just stand aside and watch destinations suffer whilst they have no voice on whether British tourists can visit them or not."[5] Another attack did not occur in Bali until late 2005.
Early campaigns include work in Goa, where Tourism Concern fought to stop much needed water from being diverted from village wells to hotels. The campaign encountered much resistance from the tourism industry, while at the same time, Tourism Concern realised that there was little or no awareness of such issues among holidaymakers at this time, encouraging campaigns to be launched, and important issues of ethics in tourism to be raised.
Major achievements:
Noel Josephides, the Managing Director of tour operator Sunvil, said that Tourism Concern has been "like a small dog snapping at the heels of the industry. After years of throwing money at resorts to build rabbit-hutch hotels, the industry has finally realised that we're running out of carefully managed destinations. Tourism Concern is advising the big companies. It's working and it's worth all their effort."[2]
Since 2007, Tourism Concern has worked to implement a voluntary code of conduct scheme for tour companies offering "gap year" packages to British students. The aim is to increase 'Gap Year' benefits to the recipient countries as well as to the volunteers, while still very profitable for the companies arranging them. Tourism Concern director Tricia Barnett told The Times, "We are at a point where volunteering is dovetailing into tourism. More people want to volunteer abroad and the age group involved is getting bigger".[7]
Since 2004, Tourism Concern campaigns to raise the alarm on unfair tourism development in the areas affected by the Tsunami.[8]
More recently, Tourism Concern has pulled together a think-tank of heavyweight NGOs and organisations, to support its Water Equity in Tourism (WET) campaign.[9]