Countries

Beginner’s Guide

To Sustainable Travel

Where do I begin? What to look for and look out for.

We all hear sustainability mentioned daily and seemingly applied to every aspect of our lives. Indeed, it is easy to feel deluged with so much information. Here, we focus on sustainability in travel, specifically in Asia and the South Pacific. See what countries in Asia and the South Pacific are doing and what they are not doing. Visit About Asia and South Pacific Sustainable Travel to understand why, in the end, you should travel there.

Most countries, including our own, face myriad sustainable issues that often cross categories and boundaries. It would be a massive undertaking well beyond the scope of this site to define all the issues each destination faces. So we focus on the more pervasive and pressing sustainable issue facing each country. Often that will give us a glimpse into how they might approach other issues, more about sustainability in individual destinations. Select from the Asia and South Pacific country list to see how your destination stacks up.

The United Nations Declared 2017 as the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development

 

Below is a breakdown introducing the five basic principles of sustainability that you can use to evaluate a company, hotel, or any business.

 

Countries With Sustainable Travel & Environmentally Friendly
Environmentally Friendly Business Practices
  • Renewable energy accommodations
  • Bio fuel for transportation
  • Rain water collection and purification
  • Reduced image of fragile ecosystems
  • Recycling in all forms
Countries With Sustainable Travel & Cultural Heritage
Support for Cultural Heritage
  • Revenue sharing land grants
  • Preventing commoditization
  • Go to Plymouth Rock, don’t bring Plymouth Rock to you
  • Everyone has a seat at the table
  • Local community sourced employment
Countries With Sustainable Travel & Cross Cultural
Support of cross cultural understanding and discovering lands previously inaccessible
  • Empowering post conflict collaboration
  • Discovering lands previously inaccessible
  • Embracing gender equality through sustainable tourism
  • Promoting sustainable tourism for political stability
  • Tourism as a platform against any form of violence. Vehicle towards peace
Countries With Sustainable Travel & Cultural Heritage
Support for protection of nature and biodiversity
  • Private conservancies with shared fates
  • Community-based preservation patrols
  • Protection of endangered species
  • Reduction in mass tourism/mass cruise presence
  • Replanting indigenous plant species
Countries With Sustainable Travel & Economic Wellness
Support and Economic Well Being of Local People
  • Empowering gender equality
  • Clean drinking water and reduction of harmful carcinogens
  • Shared conservation trust agreements on indigenous lands
  • Opening the door/opportunities for impoverished inner city youth
  • Habitat restoration

Sustainable Travel Tours


For more about sustainability in individual destinations, click on the country below.