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Accessible Tourism – a hidden corner in the sustainability debate

9th May 2017

Sustainable tourism, SMEs, ERASMUS+, Accessible tourism

With much of the gaze today being cast upon the environmental and economic aspects of sustainability in tourism, concerns around cultural and social issues can often take the back burner when a small business is assessing the direction and tough decisions it has to take in this competitive sector. Amongst those, thoughts about access for all to tourism opportunities can sometimes be dismissed as being best left to specialist operators or tourism providers. 

The United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) define Accessible Tourism as tourism and travel that is accessible to all people, with disabilities or not, including those with mobility, hearing, sight, cognitive, or intellectual and psychosocial disabilities, older persons and those with temporary disabilities

Just a cursory investigation in to the shape of accessible tourism in Europe, reveals that it is a far wider category than at first imagined. According to a recent report by the European Network for Accessible Tourism (ENAT 2012), people with access needs in the EU took approximately 783 million trips, and the demand is anticipated to grow to about 862 million trips per year by 2020, equivalent to an average growth rate of 1.2% annually.

It is therefore a large and growing market that tourism businesses ignore at their peril! The business case for accessible tourism is really quite straight forward - Tourism businesses with improved accessibility, appeal to a wider range of visitors. It is just good business to provide a quality customer service to an important section of your customers.

But what conditions and types of adaptation might a small tourism business have to make in order to become more accessible? And how can this sometimes specialist market be tapped in? These questions and many others are addressed in the EU Erasmus+ funded project called Sustainable MAnageR in TOURism Sector = SMARTOUR.

The project targets the free provision either through its free on-line training package and sustainable management tool, found at: smartour.dcnet.eu , or through short face-to-face bespoke training sessions. These cover a wide range of relevant topics and aim to assist those working in the tourism industry to develop their knowledge and skills in business operations, environment and culture with a view to improving sustainability both in their individual businesses and towards the wider tourism offer in their destination.

The particular module we have developed regarding accessible tourism allows participants to; Recognise the current scope and potential of the market for those with access needs; Understand requirements of this growing market; and Create strategies to ensure that your business is ready and able to provide an appropriate level of service for customers with access needs.

To find out more about this and other modules and topics covered by SMARTOUR, please come along to our free half-day event at SOAS University in central London from 12.45 to 5pm on Tuesday 23rd May. For further information and to register for the event, please visit:

www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/smart-tourism-sustainable-business-management-registration-34107648896

Links:
smartourproject.eu
www.facebook.com/smartourproject

Tags: Accessible tourism, ERASMUS+, SMEs, Sustainable tourism, Research, Training, Project design and delivery

Sustainable Businesses, Sustainable Destinations – Building Local Value Chains

8th May 2017

Sustainable tourism, SMEs, ERASMUS+

It is an exciting time for tourism in Kent. The transformation of the traditional seaside holiday and the growth of cultural tourism create opportunities for a wider range of businesses than ever to be part of the visitor economy. ‘Sense of place’ is now a key ingredient of contemporary experience based tourism, but delivering that sense of place requires a new way of working, connecting with sectors of the local economy and community that may previously have regarded themselves as unrelated.

Kent has its own share of pioneers setting new benchmarks for building sustainable destinations based on networking and collaboration. The Culture Kent project, led by Turner Contemporary and funded by Arts Council England and Visit England, is a cross arts and tourism project which aims to create and support new strategic relationships between the cultural and tourism sectors in order to drive economic growth, and to promote Kent as a national and international cultural destination by building culture and the arts into the Kent tourism offer. And Produced in Kent works to join up food, drink, product and service providers to deliver the authentic taste of Kent to residents and visitors alike. Both these initiatives recognise the importance of ending the ‘silo mentality’ and building strategic relationships across multiple sectors in order to deliver the sense of place that is the hallmark of the sustainable destination. But breaking out of the silo can be a challenge, and many of the SME and micro-enterprises that dominate the tourism and hospitality sectors often struggle in isolation.

The Smartour Erasmus+ Project aims to help by providing a free on-line training package and sustainable management tool, enabling businesses to gain the skills and knowledge they need to run their businesses sustainably and generate long term benefits for the wider community. Our module sustainable supply chains and local connections demonstrates, with examples of good practice from around the country, how to go about building local sourcing and value chains, and how this can help businesses overcome problems of seasonality, reduce costs, retain staff, and raise service quality.

If you’d like to know more, come along to our free half-day event at Canterbury Christ Church University from 12.45 to 5pm on Thursday 1st June.  Contributions to this interactive workshop event will be led by speakers from Visit Kent, Culture Kent, and the Kent Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. National and international participants will also be sharing their experiences of sustainable tourism networking from elsewhere in Britain, and around the world. There will be opportunities to exchange views and experience, and to register for the on-line training.

For further information and to register for the event, please visit:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/smart-tourism-sustainable-businesses-and-destinations-tickets-34063312284

Links:

https://twitter.com/tourismsu & #SMARTOUR

https://www.facebook.com/smartourproject

http://www.producedinkent.co.uk

https://culturekent.net

Tags: ERASMUS+, SMEs, Sustainable tourism, Research, Training, Project design and delivery

SMARTOUR springing into action at showcase events

30th April 2017

SMARTOUR, ERASMUS+, sustainable tourism

Last year Touch TD, along with project partners in the UK, Italy and Finland, conducted a widespread survey amongst tourism managers and staff, visitors and residents in destination communities, to discover the priority training needs identified by the sector.

Based on those findings, we have produced a series of learning materials, workshops and an interactive online training tool, which we are eager to showcase. Touch TD now has two events lined up, one in central London on 23rd May, and another in the heart of the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Canterbury, on 1st June.

These events are designed as a platform to exchange ideas and experiences regarding sustainable tourism management with a network of national and international practitioners, and to give a concise introduction to the SMARTOUR project and its training tools.

For more information, and to register your interest, please click on the following links to the respective Eventbrite pages:

for London event

for Canterbury event

We look forward to seeing you there.

Tags: ERASMUS+, SMEs, Sustainable tourism, Research, Training, Project design and delivery

SMARTOUR newsletter hits the streets

18th April 2016

SMARTOUR, ERASMUS+, sustainable tourism

Touch TD are a busy partner in the ERASMUS+ project called 'Sustainable MAnageR in TOURism Sector' - SMARTOUR. To see what we and our partners have been up to in the opening phase of the project, please read the first edition of our newsletter either online or download the pdf to view at your leisure...

http://smartourproject.eu/news/Newsletter_March_2016.pdf

And don't forget to look through the SMARTOUR webpages www.smartourproject.eu - to find out more on the project and partners, and see what activities are lined up.

Tags: ERASMUS+, SMEs, Sustainable tourism, Research, Training, Project design and delivery

Touch TD seeks participants for sustainable tourism survey

29th February 2016

SMARTOUR project website

Touch TD is a partner in SMARTOUR, a project funded by the European Union which aims to equip managers in the tourism field with the skills to run their businesses sustainably and generate long term benefits for the wider community. As a first step, the project is surveying tourism businesses, visitors, and local residents, in order to identify the training and support required by business owners and workers. Tourism is experiencing growth both locally and nationally. However, the sector is characterized by high rates of staff turnover and drop-out. The SMARTOUR project aims to help combat this by providing the training so that staff can be developed and retained in the industry.

The project will be developing online training to support the industry based on feedback from the survey. The aim is to make tourism more sustainable by providing more customised and supported training. People living in tourist areas as well as people who have taken a holiday in the last year are also invited to take part in the surveys, which will feed into the wider SMARTOUR project involving European partners in Italy, Finland and Greece.

The project is funded under ERASMUS+ Key Action 2 Strategic Partnerships. For further information on the project, and links to all surveys visit: www.smartourproject.eu/surveys

Tags: ERASMUS+, Sustainable tourism, Research, Training, Project design and delivery

When the community is part of the heritage

28th February 2016

Cumalıkızık is the best preserved of one of seven historic ‘Kızık’ villages, of which five are still extant, situated in the northern foothills of Uludağ to the east of Bursa and about 10km from the city centre.  A Waqf village established by Orhan Gazi with its origins in the 14th century C.E., Cumalıkızık serves as an historic example of the model of rural-urban integration under the Ottomans which underpinned the development of Bursa and, subsequently, the Ottoman Empire. The 700 year old village is regarded as one of the best preserved examples of rural architecture from the Ottoman Empire, with traditional houses that have retained their original plans and construction materials and techniques, and, with its water courses and steeply cobbled streets, which give access to wide areas of village garden cultivation, the whole village creates the ‘feel’ of the Early Ottoman Period. A number of successful films and TV series made in the village from the 1970s onward have capitalised on and popularised the historical ambience and authenticity of the village, and contributed to its growing popularity with visitors over the past 15 years, primarily as a day-trip destination for domestic Turkish tourists, and, increasingly, for international visitors from Europe and the Gulf States.

Cumalıkızık’s reputation and attraction as an ‘open air museum’ is based not only on the tangible texture of its buildings, cobbled streets and narrow alleyways, but on the intangible values of its social and cultural fabric. Continuous habitation by five or six extended families has resulted in a dense web of kinship relations and property ownership within the village. Houses and property in the village have been kept in village hands, and, although the area of village land under cultivation has declined over recent years, the villagers’ innate conservatism and continued commitment to maintaining the traditions of forestry and horticultural cultivation and production, on which the village was founded, are credited with having created and sustained a unique balance between urban and rural systems of production and consumption.  Cumalıkızık’s significance was acknowledged in 2014 with the UNESCO World Heritage Site designation of Bursa and Cumalıkızık – The Birth of the Ottoman Empire.

In 2015 the village was selected as one of the pilot destinations for implementing the model of sustainable community based tourism (SCBT) being developed as part of the project Touch TD is working on with UNDP Turkey and the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism. Tourism is becoming an increasingly dominant activity in the life of the village, and is drawing back villagers who left years ago for work and education in nearby Bursa or in Istanbul.  The tourists are providing an important market for the village’s agricultural products, with market stalls selling the home made jams, linden tea, chestnut honey, fruit and dried goods produced from the village gardens and the surrounding forest. But at the same time, tourism is now starting to compete with the village horticulture for scarce resources, including space. Tractors are unable to get out into their gardens because of the crowds of tourists in the streets, and there are complaints of damage and theft of crops. Some of these losses are blamed on the encroaching urban settlement from Bursa, whose expanding industries have been a magnet for rural migrants from all over Turkey, as well as the growing refugee population from Syria. Residents of the nearby settlement, which has grown up on former village land, also look to the tourists visiting the World Heritage Site as a potential income stream, although, so far, they have been unable to capture any of the benefits. Visiting the site, we were confronted with a number of questions: how can Cumalıkızık sustain the values of place and identity, for which it has been listed, in times of such dramatic change? How inclusive is the notion of ‘World Heritage’ – does it extend to the new settlers across the fields? Where does ‘the community’ start and end? And how does it work?

Having at one time apparently been all for the idea of bounded communities and holistic community-based studies, anthropologists now tend to be very cagey about the notion, and quite forensic in deconstructing the basis for claims of ‘community’. On the one hand, it has an atavistic appeal, in the case of Cumalıkızık harking back to the centuries of continuous settlement and the sense of place that has emerged from that. On the other hand, it represents a localised form of informal, grassroots governance, sitting somewhat uneasily with more formal governance structures. In the case of SCBT models, it can easily be confused with a kind of niche tourism product, based on selling a nostalgic idea of the community to outsiders. Finally, policy makers, consultants, and other outside agencies, may be operating with a model of ‘community’ entirely different from the social maps according to which local people live their lives and set their priorities. In connection with tourism, which frequently gives rise to conflicts of interest and resources, the terminology of ‘community’ and ‘cooperation’ may conceal individualised competition and social rifts, and sometimes surprising alliances and convergences of interest across ‘community’ boundaries; whilst the association of ‘community’ with settled places underplays the extent to which large groups of people are increasingly on the move, as evidenced by Europe’s current preoccupation with its ‘refugee crisis’.

Whilst its UNESCO listing references a particular moment in Ottoman civilisation, the tensions in the relationship between urban and rural, mobility and stability, which Cumalıkızık continues to embody, have entirely global and contemporary relevance, at a point in human history where the balance between the urban and the rural has tipped inexorably towards the urban. The idea of ‘community’ continues to exert a fascinating hold, but the pressures of bridging the gap between adaptation to the modern world, and sustaining the heritage values of the past, stretch even this elastic concept close to breaking point.

Tags: Community based tourism, Turkey, UNDP, Research, Project design and delivery

Sharing and caring for heritage around Lake Ohrid

14th February 2016

Management planning workshop Tirana June 2015

A report on a unique EU funded, UNESCO World Heritage Centre coordinated, project supporting mixed heritage in the Central Balkans 2014-2017

The dramatic landscapes around Lake Ohrid, which form the borderlands between Albania and the fromer Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, have long been recognized as holding unique values, both in terms of cultural and natural heritage. Archaeological research has uncovered evidence of layers of human settlement in the region dating back to more than five thousand years. But the Lake’s history stretches deep in to geological time. It is estimated that this freshwater basin has been continuously present for some 2-3 million years, making it amongst the oldest in Europe and one of only a few examples globally that qualify as being termed ‘ancient lakes’. That long isolation from other water sources, has produced a priceless array of endemic biodiversity.

It should come as no surprise therefore, that back in 1979 Lake Ohrid was designated a UNESCO world heritage site, first for its natural qualities and then a year later for its cultural values. However, the geological tectonic forces that created the basin area, were mirrored by political rifts that meant only the Macedonian part of the lake was originally designated as world heritage.

Fortunately the lake has outlasted those political times and the present cordial climate has allowed at last for joint and coordinated efforts between the two countries - which are universally viewed as being crucial to ensure the safeguarding of the rich heritage of the Lake Ohrid region.

Central amongst the initiatives that have now emerged to support both countries in their efforts to protect the area, is the project “Towards strengthened governance of the shared transboundary natural and cultural heritage of the Lake Ohrid region”. This pioneering effort, is amongst a small number of pilot projects that are testing what UNESCO has labeled ‘The Upstream Process’. This is an experimental approach targeted at easing the problems that properties experience during the often challenging process of nomination for inscription on the World Heritage List. 

With Lake Ohrid coming both under mixed cultural and natural world heritage criteria and now seeking to cover a trans-boundary area, the complexity of the project is indeed a substantial challenge that requires the pooling of a wide range of organizations, skills and resources. Within that grouping, Touch TD have been invited by UNESCO advisory body and project partner, ICOMOS, to provide specialist expertise in the area of sustainable tourism development and cultural heritage. This is with the aim of supporting a number of capacity building and promotional activities, as well as coordinate the drafting of a strategy that identifies the main sustainable developmental opportunities in the Lake Ohrid region.

Furthermore, our experience in drawing from an anthropological perspective when engaging with diverse stakeholders and community groups, is particularly valuable in contributing towards the participatory process that is being applied across the project.

The outcome sought is a sustainably embedded process that will lead to the preparation of a dossier by the Albanian authorities to extend the World Heritage property to the Albanian part of the Lake Ohrid region. With a delicate balancing act between conservation and development required, the approach this project views as being most critical, is providing opportunities to accommodate as many voices and perspectives as possible. In so doing when decisions are made, they are set against a backdrop of as wide a consensus and understanding as possible.

Keep an eye out on our website and Twitter (@TouchTD) for more updates on this exciting and unique project.

Tags: ICOMOS, Intangible cultural heritage, IUCN, UNESCO, World Heritage, Training, Project design and delivery

UNESCO + Geoparks - together at last

30th April 2015

Friedrich watches Tambora

After almost a decade of dating, UNESCO and the Global Geoparks Network are engaged, and have finally set the date for their wedding. Here at Touch TD we are really happy about it, and we're going to tell you why.

Earlier in April the UNESCO Executive Board sat for its 196th session where it made the recommendation for the UNESCO General Conference in November 2015, that geoparks should sit within a restructured earth sciences programme. The new structure will be known by the title of the International Geoscience & Geoparks Programme (IGGP). All that’s needed to seal the deal is for the member states to vote through that recommendation. It will still be a nervous few months for the Geoparks family, particularly in the knowledge of past false starts, but the ceremony in November will represent a new and important phase for a remarkable endeavor that first set sail in the late 1990s.

So, what is a Geopark, anyway?

This has long been the challenge for this slightly complex, mulit-pronged effort to place and popularise geological heritage and conservation in the public eye. Rather than add to the growing number of attempts to explain the term in less than 10,000 words, for a full and rigorous explanation as to what geoparks are all about, I’m going to steer you over to the European Geoparks Network pages. There you can relax and mull over the nuances of the concept, its network and if you so wish, the recipe for ‘how to make a geopark'. Or better still, you could visit a geopark and make up your own definition.

In this blog, we present a snap shot of the beasty. Then we'll point in some directions where we think the super brand of UNESCO may take its first new offspring since 1972, and what challenges that could bring.

  • Geoparks are a geological juggling team, keeping conservation – education – sustainable development (especially via geotourism) up in the air all at the same time. Covering an area of roughly several hundreds to several thousands of square kilometers
  • Geoparks begin with inspiring geology and draw together numerous elements of physical, environmental and cultural heritage within a defined territory. Interwoven, these provide a complete perspective of a geopark’s landscapes.  
  • Geoparks should be founded by a grouping that springs from that location’s grassroots. In turn that core is supported by national conservation and heritage organisations, including the respective UNESCO national commission.
  • Geoparks don’t sit in isolation. Each territory is an active partner in a regional and worldwide network of geoparks

In a nutshell, geoparks share a unifying philosophy that guides how to manage the diverse stories that a landscape can tell us. The geoparks network brings together a global anthology of such stories, which together express humankind’s (re)connections with its geological roots.

Looking to the future

Now, let's look to the future and speculate where this marriage to UNESCO might take things for the geopark family?

You don’t need specialized GIS applications to see that geoparks are at present heavily stacked in two corners, Europe and East Asia. That means for the Geoparks Network (GGN) to be truly global, there has to be a lot of awareness and capacity building for Geoparks to maintain significant growth in Latin America, Africa and the Middle East.

Geology & Society

Foremost, there is a need to bring together diverse voices and experiences that reach beyond the earth sciences communities alone. As Geoparks look to present all facets of heritage, I think there is an even greater need for individuals and groups to break outside of their disciplinary bunkers. It is a tale of geology AND society. That means earth and social sciences working together. In turn civil society and governmental structures, bottom up and top down segments, also need to sing from the same sheet and formulate a collective approach.

That’s a big enough ask in strong economies and stable political environments. Drawing those partnerships together in geologically rich corners of Latin America, Africa or the Middle East will be a challenge if geoparks are truly to become global.

A 3-way balance

The ideal position promoted by the Geoparks movement, would be for a territory to find a three-way balance between the core pillars of conservation, education and sustainable development. However, with local circumstances varying dramatically around each geopark territory, it comes as no surprise that a particular preference or bias is often taken by each managing consortium.  

For instance, many geoparks in Japan, which sits on a highly active tectonic foundation, are utilized to convey strongly educational and awareness building messages about geological hazards. The message from Chinese Geoparks is the search for a pathway to sustainable development in rural corners of provinces that have not hitched the whole ride on the Chinese economic boom. They do however possess rich geological and environmental resources.

Nonetheless, as long as the other two remaining components are not totally neglected, then the model does offer a helpful degree of flexibility. After all, the relationship between the earth sciences and society is clearly not one-dimensional.  Rising global populations and climate change impacts, have prompted an ever more urgent push towards addressing disaster risk reduction (DRR). Meanwhile, the demands of existing and newly emerging economies places an enormous strain on the need to sustainably manage the earth’s natural resources. Geoparks sometimes find themselves right on this front line with the extractive industries as they seek to popularise geological science and understanding, whilst simultaneously promote sustainable approaches for development. Building a strategy that can respond to such a range of issues is thus not only advantageous, but essential. 

Geopark consultancy with Touch TD

Here at Touch TD we draw on a diverse skill-set and experience from across the earth and social sciences. Through our web of friends and associates we construct ideas and creative responses that draw on data from inside and outside of the geoparks community. You get the best of both worlds, with a well-worked balance between internal and external perspectives. 

We’d love to hear your views on this blog and the challenges facing geoparks in the coming period (anthropocene?) 

Drop us a line on our contact page or Tweet us a reply @TouchTD

Tags: Cultural Heritage, Geoheritage, geoparks, Intangible cultural heritage, Landscapes, UNESCO, Geoparks, Research

Intangible Cultural Heritage in the UK – promoting and safeguarding our diverse living cultures

3rd November 2014

An ICOMOS-UK Conference, London 20th September 2014

Contemporary re-telling and performance of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, traditional craft skills, such as knife making and woodturning, diaspora community festivals, archives of everyday life, ancient woodlands as places of commercial activity and spiritual power – all these and more featured in the first ever conference on intangible cultural heritage (ICH) in the UK, held in the Museum of London in the Docklands on 20th September. More than 70 delegates, from storytellers to craftspeople, dancers to musicians, and academics to archivists and museum professionals, came together for a day of discussion and debate highlighting the range and diversity of ICH and its practitioners in the UK. Yet the ICH label itself is something with which practitioners are often not familiar, and indeed during the course of the day a number of speakers noted a tendency to ignore a cultural component to what are often regarded as functional activities, such as handicraft production or commercial coppicing. So is there really a need for ‘ICH’ as an umbrella for all these different activities? I suggest two main reasons for embracing ICH as a category:

Firstly, despite the diverse range covered by ICH as a term, it became clear during the course of the day that practitioners face many common issues. In particular, the problem of transmission – how to ensure the survival of knowledge, practices and skills down the generations – is widely experienced, whether it concerns basket making, local dance or oral traditions. These challenges are the product of social changes, such as increased mobility, competition from globalised production, or changing leisure patterns. And even where demand remains high – for many handcrafted items, for example, where craftsmen and women, usually working alone, struggle to keep up with the demand for their products – institutional changes in education and apprenticeship can create obstacles to the transmission of traditional skills. Recognition of a common set of problems may be the starting point for identifying solutions – and the creation of a broadly based ICH network can go some way towards combating the fragmentation and isolation in which many practitioners operate.

Secondly, acknowledging the cultural component of these activities means recognising their strong place associations and close relationships with landscapes and communities in both town and countryside. This in turn opens up all kinds of further possibilities for linking ICH safeguarding practice with sustainable development, community participation and social inclusion agendas, and the experience economy. The Heritage Lottery Fund recognises this potential in its support for community-related ICH projects, as Carole Souter, HLF’s Chief Executive, outlined in the closing sessions of the conference. Whilst community heritage is currently largely understood in terms of oral histories, recognition of ICH as a category with a diverse range of contemporary expressions can be the first step in creating a broader platform for developing more collaborative, mutually sustaining relationships.

Whilst UK ratification of the UNESCO ICH Convention may be some way off yet, the ICOMOS conference showed that ICH has a strong presence in Britain today, a broad base of interest and support, and taps into a number of urgent contemporary issues and currents – from the rediscovery of a culture of ‘making’, to local production and sense of place, the restructuring of employment and the economy, the relationship with technology … watch this space! 

Tags: conferences, intangible cultural heritage, Project design and delivery

Onboard with Seabourn!

7th October 2014

Seabourn Quest at Qaqortoq, Greenland

This year luxury cruise company, Seabourn entered a new partnership with UNESCO to support and promote sustainable tourism principles at the world heritage sites visited by its 5 ships.

As part of the connection, Seabourn invites ‘distinguished speakers and expert guest lecturers’ to provide its passengers with in-depth insights into the sites visited and around the themes touched in those significant heritage locations. In the inaugural year, Touch TD has provided this expertise on 3 separate cruise itineraries:

In May, Julie Scott set sail in the Eastern Mediterranean and brought a closer examination of not only the built heritage, but also the vibrant intangible cultural heritage that animates the spaces between the tangible blocks of brick and stone. Next in July, John Bell travelled around the Western Mediterranean and presented on the ways in which world heritage is sustained in the ports visited on that occasion by the Seabourn Odyssey. Then in August, Jonathan Karkut took in the longest and most Northerly route, following the Viking trail across the North Atlantic from the United Kingdom to Canada. Befitting his geology experience, the world heritage sites Jonathan gave insight in to were mainly natural heritage localities, including the Giant’s Causeway, Surtsey volcanic island, Ilulissat ice fjord, and Gros Mourne world heritage site in Newfoundland. Of course he couldn’t resist explaining to the guests about the UNESCO endorsed geoparks they sailed past, including the infamous Eyjafjallajökull volcano and ice cap within Iceland’s Katla global geopark!

Tags: cruise tourism, UNESCO, world heritage sites, Research

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Latest blog posts

  • Accessible Tourism – a hidden corner in the sustainability debate
  • Sustainable Businesses, Sustainable Destinations – Building Local Value Chains
  • SMARTOUR springing into action at showcase events
  • SMARTOUR newsletter hits the streets
  • Touch TD seeks participants for sustainable tourism survey
  • When the community is part of the heritage
  • Sharing and caring for heritage around Lake Ohrid
  • UNESCO + Geoparks - together at last
  • Intangible Cultural Heritage in the UK – promoting and safeguarding our diverse living cultures
  • Onboard with Seabourn!
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