Destinations need new resources to tackle the "invisible burden" of tourism
A report published today by the Travel Foundation, Cornell University's Centre for Sustainable Global Enterprise and EplerWood International describes how destinations must uncover and account for tourism's hidden costs, referred to as the "invisible burden," to protect and manage vital destination assets worldwide. Failing to do so puts ecosystems, cultural wonders, and community life at increasing risk, and places the tourism industry on a weak foundation that could crack under its own weight.
The range of costs not currently accounted for include those needed to:
upgrade infrastructure beyond resident needs, to meet tourism demand;
manage and protect public spaces, monuments, the environment and natural habitats;
mitigate exposure to climate change risks; and
address the needs of locals affected by rising real estate prices, driven by the demand from tourism.
Either residents are left to pay these costs, or they are simply not paid, increasingly leading to environmental crises, spoiled tourism assets, and growing dissatisfaction among local residents. Destination authorities urgently need access to new resources, systems and expertise to ensure that, as tourism grows, the true costs of every new visitor are fully covered.
Amid increasing concern about "overtourism" and calls from within the travel industry for improved destination management, the report, Destinations at Risk: The Invisible Burden of Tourism, was commissioned by the Travel Foundation to better understand the challenges and constraints that national and municipal authorities face. It provides a thorough review of the risks that destinations face and the solutions urgently needed, including:
New local accounting systems that capture the full range of costs stemming from the growth of tourism, in place of an incomplete set of economic impact measures.
New skills and cross sector collaboration, underpinned by data and technology, to achieve effective spatial planning, manage demand for public utilities and services, and evaluate the availability of vital, local resources.
New valuation and financing mechanisms to redress debilitating underinvestment in infrastructure and local asset management and enable the transition to low-carbon destination economies.
Principal report author, Megan Epler Wood, said: "The Earth's greatest treasures are cracking under the weight of the soaring tourism economy. New data-driven systems to identify the cost of managing tourism's most valued assets are required to stem a growing crisis in global tourism management. With the right leadership, finance and analysis in place, a whole new generation of tourism professionals can move forward and erase the invisible burden while benefiting millions around the globe."
Salli Felton, CEO of the Travel Foundation, said: "The invisible burden goes a long way to explain why we are now witnessing destinations failing to cope with tourism growth, despite the economic benefits it brings. It's not enough to call on governments and municipalities to manage tourism better, if they don't have access to the right skills and resources to do so. Destination managers need support to develop new skills and new ways of working that will enable them to move beyond tourism marketing."
Dr Mark Milstein, co-author of the report, said: "This is a challenge of investing for the long-term health of a critical global economic sector. Future success will require collaboration among business, government, and civil society so that destinations are managed as the valuable, yet vulnerable, assets that they are."
The authors conclude that some destinations are more vulnerable to the invisible burden and should be prioritised. For instance:
Where there is a high risk of climate change impacts (which would disproportionately affect a visitor economy) – for instance, island states.
Where the rise of the global middle class is driving tourism growth at unsustainable levels – for instance, in Southern and Southeast Asia.
Where there is a high percentage of economic dependence on tourism – for instance, in the Caribbean.
Where the ability of local government to manage tourism growth is low, in terms of budgets and human capital – a problem that has been found in both advanced and emerging economies.
The analysis draws upon academic literature, case studies, expert interviews and media reports, and provides a wealth of examples of the invisible burden. Cases are drawn from Thailand, Mexico, and the Maldives, as well as Europe, Africa, and Latin America. The report also gives insights into types of data-driven systems, such as GIS mapping tools and the Smart Cities concept, which can address growth issues and facilitate new forms of investment.
The free report is available at invisibleburden.org.
Filed Under: Press Release Tagged With: and, around the globe, Asia, assets, author, authorities, benefits, better, Breaking Travel News, budgets, Burden, Business, capital, carbon, Caribbean, case, Centre, CEO, challenge, challenges, change, cities, class, climate, Climate Change, collaboration, community, concept, concern, COPE, Cornell, cost, costs, crises, Crisis, critical, cultural, Cultural Travel News, currently, Data, demand, Destination, Destination Management, Destinations, dissatisfaction, Dr, driving, Earth, economic, economic impact, economies, Economy, ecosystems, emerging, emerging economies, enterprise, environment, environmental, estate, Europe, expert, expertise, face, failing, Felton, Finance, financing, forms, Forward, found, foundation, free, full, future, GIS, Global, global economic, global tourism, Globe, government, governments, greatest, Growth, habitats, HEALTH, hidden, hidden costs, high, impact, impacts, improved, in, including, increasing, Industry, infrastructure, Insights, International, Interviews, Investing, Investment, invisible, invisible burden, island, island states, issues, IT, Latin, Latin America, leadership, leading, life, literature, local, local government, locals, low, low-carbon, maldives, Manage, management, managers, Managing, Marketing, measures, media, media reports, meet, Mexico, Middle, middle class, millions, monuments, most, move, municipalities, national, natural, need, needed, needs, New, new data, new generation, News articles, paid, pay, percentage, Place, places, planning, prices, problem, professionals, protect, public, published, range, real, Real Estate, report, reports, require, residents, resources, Responsible Tourism News, review, right, rise, rising, Risk, risks, s, said, sector, services, skills, society, solutions, Southeast, Southeast Asia, Southern, spatial, states, STEM, studies, success, support, sustainable, Technology, term, terms, thailand, the Caribbean, to, TO DO, today, tools, tourism, tourism assets, tourism demand, tourism economy, Tourism growth, Tourism Industry, tourism management, tourism marketing, tourism professionals, transition, Travel, Travel Foundation, Travel Industry, Travelwire News, treasures, university, upgrade, visitor, visitor economy, Vital, vulnerable, way, ways, We, weak, wealth, weight, Why, wonders, working, worldwide
African Tourism Board tackles visitor surety to keep Africa safe for visitors
The official launch of the newly-founded African Tourism Board is only two weeks away, and the U.S.-based interim Chairman Juergen T. Steinmetz explained the organization's commitment to keep Africa safe for visitors.
"Knowing weak points and confronting problems is the best approach."
The African Tourism Board is working with Dr. Peter Tarlow to offer his decades of knowledge and workable approach to African members in the public and private travel and tourism industry.
ATB invited Dr. Tarlow to deliver a keynote address at the upcoming African Tourism Board launch event on April 11 during World Travel Market.
A variety of international speakers are on the impressive list of the launch event. ATB will be introducing an African-based president, while the US-based interim chairman Juergen Steinmetz will stay on as an advisor as he hands over leadership to the new president.
Among the speakers are Dr. Peter Tarlow, head of certified.travel, which had recently merged activities with eTN Corporation.
Dr. Peter Tarlow has been working for over two decades with hotels, tourism-oriented cities and countries, and both public and private security officers and police in the field of tourism security.
Tourism and More international staff includes some of the leading experts in the field. Dr. Peter Tarlow is a world-renowned expert in the field and a highly-published author.
Dr. Peter E. Tarlow is an internationally-recognized speaker and expert specializing in the impact of crime and terrorism on the tourism industry, event and tourism risk management, and tourism and economic development. Since 1990, Dr. Tarlow has been aiding the tourism community with issues such as travel safety and security, economic development, creative marketing, and creative thought.
Dr. Tarlow is currently consulting the travel security team for the Jamaica Ministry of Tourism.
Peter Tarlow has worked with numerous US government agencies including the US Bureau of Reclamation, US Customs, the FBI, the US Park Service, the Department of Justice, the Speakers Bureau of the US Department of State, the Center for Disease, US Supreme Court police, and the US Department of Homeland Security. He has worked with such US iconic locations as the Statue of Liberty, Philadelphia's Independence Hall and Liberty Bell, the Empire State Building, St. Louis' arch, and the Smithsonian's Institution's Office of Protection Services in Washington, DC.
Dr. Tarlow has been a keynote speaker for governors' tourism conferences around the nation including those for Illinois, South Carolina, South Dakota, Washington State, and Wyoming.
He has addresses large-scale US government meetings for such agencies as:
The Bureau of Reclamation
The US Center for Disease Control
The US Park Service
The International Olympic Committee
On the international scene he has addressed conferences such as:
The Organization of American States (Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Panama City, Panama)
The Latin American Hotel Association (Quito Ecuador, San Salvador, El Salvador and Puebla, Mexico)
The Caribbean Chiefs of Police Association (Barbados)
The International Organization for Security and Intelligence – IOSI ((Vancouver, Canada)
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Ottowa
The French Hotel Association CNI-SYNHORCAT (Paris)
Additionally, Dr. Tarlow is a featured speaker for numerous US embassies and with foreign tourism ministries around the world. For example, in his role as an expert in tourism security, he has worked with:
Vancouver's Justice Institute (2010 Olympic games)
The police departments of the state of Rio de Janeiro (2014 World Cup Games)
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police
The United Nation's WTO (World Tourism Organization)
The Panama Canal Authority
Police forces in Aruba, Bolivia, Brazil, Curaçao, Colombia, Croatia, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Serbia, and Trinidad & Tobago
In 2013, the Chancellor of the Texas A&M system named him his Special Envoy. In 2015, the Faculty of Medicine of Texas A&M University asked Dr. Tarlow to "translate" his tourism skills into practical courses for new physicians. As such, he teaches courses in customer service, creative thinking, and medical ethics at the Texas A&M medical school.
In 2016, the international engineering firm Gannet-Fleming appointed Dr. Tarlow its Senior Security and Safety Specialist. Also in 2016, Governor Gregg Abbot of Texas named Peter as the Chairman of the Texas Holocaust and Genocide Commission. As such, he has wide experience in dealing with protest marches and other public events that touch upon that theme.
Dr. Tarlow organizes tourism security conferences around the world, including the International Tourism Safety Conference in Las Vegas along with conferences in St. Kitts, Charleston (South Carolina), Bogota, Colombia, Panama City, Croatia, and Curaçao.
He lectures and trains tourism professionals and security personnel in multiple languages on a wide range of current and future trends in the tourism industry, rural tourism economic development, the gaming industry, issues of crime and terrorism, the role of police departments in urban economic development, and international trade. Some of the other topics about which he speaks are: the sociology of terrorism, its impact on tourism security and risk management, the US government's role in post terrorism recovery, and how communities and businesses must face a major paradigm shift in the way they do business.
Dr. Tarlow publishes extensively in these areas and writes numerous professional reports for US governmental agencies and for businesses throughout the world. He has been asked to be an expert witness in courts throughout the United States on matters concerning tourism security and safety, and issues of risk management.
As a well-known author in the field of tourism security, Dr. Tarlow is a contributing author to multiple books on tourism security, and he publishes numerous academic and applied research articles regarding issues of security including articles published in The Futurist, the Journal of Travel Research, and Security Management. His wide range of professional and scholarly articles include subjects such as: "dark tourism," theories of terrorism, economic development through tourism, and religion and terrorism and cruise tourism. Dr. Tarlow also writes and publishes the popular on-line tourism newsletter Tourism Tidbits read by thousands of tourism and travel professionals around the world in its English, Spanish, and Portuguese language editions.
Among the books that Dr. Tarlow has authored are:
Event Risk Management and Safety(2002).
Twenty Years of Tourism Tidbits: The Book (2011)
Abordagem Multdisciplinar dos Cruzeiros Turísticos (co-written 2014, in Portuguese)
Tourism Security: Strategies for Effective Managing Travel Risk and Safety (2014)
A Segurança: Um desafío para os setores de lazer, viagens e turismo, 2016 published (in Portuguese) and republished in English
Sports Travel Security (2017)
At numerous universities around the world, Dr. Tarlow lectures on security issues, life safety issues, and event risk management. These universities include institutions in the United States, Latin America, Europe, the Pacific Islands, and the Middle East. He earned his Ph.D. in sociology from Texas A&M University and also holds degrees in history, in Spanish and Hebrew literatures, and in psychotherapy.
Dr. Tarlow has appeared on national televised programs such as Dateline: NBC and on CNBC and is a regular guest on radio stations around the US. He is the recipient of the International Chiefs of Police highest civilian honor in recognition for his work in tourism security.
Peter is a founder and president of Tourism & More Inc. (T&M). Tourism & More recently joined forces with the eTN Corporation under certified.travel.
He is a past president of the Texas Chapter of the Travel and Tourism Research Association (TTRA), and Dr. Tarlow is a member of the International Editorial Boards around the world.
For more on the African Tourism Board and the launch event in Cape Town on April 11, visit africantourismboard.com.
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Pilots frantic search for fix while Boeing Max8 went down
Ethiopian Airlines and Lions Air most likely have the same deadly scenario accordsidng to a report Reuters today reported about the 31-year-old Lions' Air captain was at the controls of Lion Air flight JT610 flying the Boeing Max 8 when the nearly new jet took off from Jakarta. The first officer was handling the radio, according to a preliminary report issued in November.
The report said:
The pilots of a doomed Lion Air Boeing 737 MAX scoured a handbook as they struggled to understand why the jet was lurching downwards but ran out of time before it hit the water, three people with knowledge of the cockpit voice recorder contents said.
The investigation into the crash, which killed all 189 people on board in October, has taken on new relevance as the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and other regulators grounded the model last week after a second deadly accident in Ethiopia.
Investigators examining the Indonesian crash are considering how a computer ordered the plane to dive in response to data from a faulty sensor and whether the pilots had enough training to respond appropriately to the emergency, among other factors.
It is the first time the voice recorder contents from the Lion Air flight have been made public. The three sources discussed them on condition of anonymity.
Reuters did not have access to the recording or transcript.
A Lion Air spokesman said all data and information had been given to investigators and declined to comment further.
Just two minutes into the flight, the first officer reported a "flight control problem" to air traffic control and said the pilots intended to maintain an altitude of 5,000 feet, the November report said.
The first officer did not specify the problem, but one source said airspeed was mentioned on the cockpit voice recording, and a second source said an indicator showed a problem on the captain's display but not the first officer's.
The captain asked the first officer to check the quick reference handbook, which contains checklists for abnormal events, the first source said.
For the next nine minutes, the jet warned pilots it was in a stall and pushed the nose down in response, the report showed. A stall is when the airflow over a plane's wings is too weak to generate lift and keep it flying.
The captain fought to climb, but the computer, still incorrectly sensing a stall, continued to push the nose down using the plane's trim system. Normally, trim adjusts an aircraft's control surfaces to ensure it flies straight and level.
"They didn't seem to know the trim was moving down," the third source said. "They thought only about airspeed and altitude. That was the only thing they talked about."
Boeing Co declined to comment on Wednesday because the investigation was ongoing.
The manufacturer has said there is a documented procedure to handle the situation. A different crew on the same plane the evening before encountered the same problem but solved it after running through three checklists, according to the November report.
But they did not pass on all of the information about the problems they encountered to the next crew, the report said.
The pilots of JT610 remained calm for most of the flight, the three sources said. Near the end, the captain asked the first officer to fly while he checked the manual for a solution.
About one minute before the plane disappeared from radar, the captain asked air traffic control to clear other traffic below 3,000 feet and requested an altitude of "five thou", or 5,000 feet, which was approved, the preliminary report said.
As the 31-year-old captain tried in vain to find the right procedure in the handbook, the 41-year-old first officer was unable to control the plane, two of the sources said.
Slideshow (2 Images)
The flight data recorder shows the final control column inputs from the first officer were weaker than the ones made earlier by the captain.
"It is like a test where there are 100 questions and when the time is up you have only answered 75," the third source said. "So you panic. It is a time-out condition."
The Indian-born captain was silent at the end, all three sources said, while the Indonesian first officer said "Allahu Akbar", or "God is greatest", a common Arabic phrase in the majority-Muslim country that can be used to express excitement, shock, praise or distress.
French air accident investigation agency BEA said on Tuesday the flight data recorder in the Ethiopian crash that killed 157 people showed "clear similarities" to the Lion Air disaster. Since the Lion Air crash, Boeing has been pursuing a software upgrade to change how much authority is given to the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, or MCAS, a new anti-stall system developed for the 737 MAX.
The cause of the Lion Air crash has not been determined, but the preliminary report mentioned the Boeing system, a faulty, recently replaced sensor and the airline's maintenance and training.
On the same aircraft the evening before the crash, a captain at Lion Air's full-service sister carrier, Batik Air, was riding along in the cockpit and solved the similar flight control problems, two of the sources said. His presence on that flight, first reported by Bloomberg, was not disclosed in the preliminary report.
The report also did not include data from the cockpit voice recorder, which was not recovered from the ocean floor until January.
Soerjanto Tjahjono, head of Indonesian investigation agency KNKT, said last week the report could be released in July or August as authorities attempted to speed up the inquiry in the wake of the Ethiopian crash.
On Wednesday, he declined to comment on the cockpit voice recorder contents, saying they had not been made public.
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