Regenerative ecotourism: Asking questions is the best place to start
“Asking questions is the best place to start,” Anna Pollock said during the afternoon of the third and final day of the 2020 Global Eco Asia-Pacific Tourism Conference. And she’s right, of course, yet no-one got the opportunity to ask her any!
Ms Pollock may be right about the benefit of questions, but she’s obviously not literally correct when she says the SARS-CoV‑2 virus is a “messenger”. (The more robot-rational among us would even pooh-pooh the figurative notion.) However, it is true that due to COVID-19 a great many people — all at once and all over the world — have been reminded that:
- Uncertainty is a fact of life;
- Our vulnerability and interdependence is real;
- There are limits;
- Other existential challenges persist; and
- We’re not helpless victims.
As founder of Conscious.Travel, Anna Pollock travels around (or did, pre-COVID) doing a lot of talking to tourism audiences about “regeneration”. Yet she would prefer to use the words “flourishing” or “thriving”.
Ms Pollock says there’s a journey we must all embark upon if we are to move from degenerative business-as-usual to regenerative flourishing and thriving. The route is via notions of “green”, “sustainable”, and “restorative” in that order. It’s treacherous, though. Be sure to pack a change of mindset and a new way of thinking, for they are necessary if we are to make it across the gaping chasm between “sustainable” and “restorative” ... Read on at https://goodtourismblog.com/2020/12/regenerative-ecotourism-asking-questions-is-the-best-place-to-start/