Surama Eco-Lodge of Guyana was recognized and honored at the U.S. Educational Travel Conference (ETC), which took place in New Orleans, Louisiana from February 18-21. As the Responsible Tourism Showcase Honoree for 2009, Surama received recognition at the Opening Plenary session as well as press and visibility at the conference. Surama Eco-lodge also received a monetary award and will be recognized and featured on the ETC website and in outreach programs throughout 2009.

There have been many speculations and forecasts about the expected decline in international tourism, leading to concerns about the impact that this may have on ecotourism and sustainable travel. We want to hear from tour operators, lodge owners and others involved in ecotourism businesses and learn about the impact of the current global economy on the industry. What implications will the current global economic downturn have on the roles of ecotourism as a sustainable alternative to more destructive means of income generation?

The Initiative “Peace with Nature”, which gives birth to the National Strategy for Climate Change, and which plans to convert Costa Rica in a C – Neutral country by the year 2021, asks for great changes and reveals big challenges to be overcome. This proposal invites us to redefine and re-invent our creative capacities in order to assume the greatest task human kind has ever faced both as a victimizer and as victim at the same time: to overcome the self imposed threat of climate change and global warming.

Some of the UK and Thailand’s most highly acclaimed responsible tour operators have been working hand-in-hand with local Thai community members to develop new community-based tourism programs. This ground-breaking initiative has given the tour operators and local Thai community members a unique chance to meet each other in person, sit down together to compare their different roles, experiences and needs, and to design new tour programs together.

What started out as a realization has become a new book for Carol Patterson, President of Kalahari Management, a Calgary-based ecotourism consulting company. “It was on the long flight home from Africa that I suddenly realized that I was not the same person I had been when I left Canada,” Carol said. “I had changed. The country, the adventures, the people I met, the places I stayed all changed me; all for the better.” This idea of being changed by travel stuck with her and last year she decided to develop the idea. She began writing and collecting travel stories for what became Reinventure…

Foto Verde Tours, the Costa Rican ecotour company that I started with local ecologist and tourism entrepreneur Paulo Valerio, has grown since its inception three years ago, and this growth is providing a platform for us to expand our own benefits to conservation and local communities.
Foto Verde Tours offers open signup tours and customized photo travel. We run a number of photographic tours with set dates that have a particular theme. Some trips are co-led by other professional photographers…

By Shelley Seale – There’s a trend in traveling that is sweeping the nation – it’s being called voluntourism. Foreign destinations are luring American citizens who want to sightsee, while at the same time engage in community service. The Miracle Foundation, a nonprofit based out of Austin, Texas, has been doing this in a big way for several years. The Miracle Foundation recruits donors and sponsors for children living in orphanages in India. I first went to India in 2005 on a 10-day volunteer trip, and it honestly changed my life.