Supporting Clients' Sustainable Travel: Green Lights and Red Flags

An article for Host Agency Reviews/Host Week highlighting the basics of sustainability for new travel operators, agents, and advisors. (January 2024)

For Visit Lake Charles, DEI is about Building Stronger Communities

Why does diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) matter for destinations and what can DMOs do to better integrate DEI principles into its work? A Southeast United States destination, Visit Lake Charles, shares its story. Contribution to the Destination Stewardship Report. (Fall 2023)

Building a career in sustainable tourism

Contribution to TrainingAid’s Sustainability Journey article series that shares ideas, examples and stories to help inspire more and more tourism industry colleagues to become actively engaged in sustainability. (June 2022)

ATTA and Travelife for Tour Operators Team Up to Promote Sustainability in the Adventure Travel Sector

Announcing an exciting partnership between Adventure Travel Trade Association (ATTA) and Travelife for Tour Operators & Travel Agents (Travelife). (March 2022)

The Happiness Agenda – Happy People Mean Happy Destinations

A massive webinar to mark the International Day of Happiness yielded some serious pointers for destinations seeking a broader measure of successful tourism recovery than counting revenue and arrivals. “Covid has shown us we can’t be happy on an unhappy planet” was one message for destinations around the world, report DSC associates Marta Mills and Chi Lo – the point being that local contentment should be part of the tourism equation: “A good place to live is a good place to visit.”. (March 2021)

BUFFET (Building an Understanding For Food Excess in Tourism) — A PATA Sustainability Report

There is a huge opportunity for the tourism and hospitality industry in the Asia Pacific region to take a bite out of the food waste problem. This award-winning report aims to evaluate the opportunities for the industry and region to step up to the plate and do our part. (May 2019)

Why We Launched the Food Waste Report

Globally, 1.3 billion tonnes of food is lost or wasted. The hospitality and retail food industry contributes to nearly 40% of food waste.

Food that ends up in landfill emits methane, which is roughly 30 times more harmful than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas. In addition, while 842 billion people worldwide go undernourished every year, as much as one third of food produced for human consumption will never reach those who need it most. (May 2019)

The Role of Elephants in Asian Cultures and Communities

Many Asian cultures have been living and working with elephants for centuries. The first reports of elephant domestication were in the Indus Valley civilization in South Asia as early as 2500 BC[1]. Due to their high intelligence, elephants have been able to develop a unique relationship with humans, leading to their use as working animals aiding in tasks such as logging, transportation, and warfare[2]. As such, throughout Asian art and culture, elephants have come to serve as a source of admiration, symbolizing positive attributes including strength and power, royalty, intelligence, longevity, luck and fortune. (May 2017)

Perspective: Animals in Entertainment

Should animals be used for entertainment? What value – from an educational, preservation or scientific perspective – is there to animal attractions in the Asia Pacific? (May 2017)

How to be a Responsible Traveler when Visiting an Elephant Attraction in the Asia Pacific Region

Are you planning a trip to Asia and thinking of visiting an elephant attraction? If so, here are some questions to consider in order to help you make an informed choice. (May 2017)

Issues & Trends: Corporate Social Responsibility in the Visitor Economy – from Semantics to Integrity

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has become more important to businesses. As the tourism industry is covered by many other sectors such as education, transportation and hospitality, it’s easier to spread the responsibility throughout other sectors to be better to our earth.

In this edition of Issues & Trends the subject CSR will be the main focus. How it works, how it is implemented to integration. By using some examples, as well as how PATA preaches CSR, is given throughout this Issues & Trends. (July 2013)