Harold Goodwin.


Dr Harold Goodwin has worked on 4 continents with local communities, their governments and the inbound and outbound tourism industry. He is a Professor Emeritus and  Responsible Tourism Director at the Institute of Place Management at Manchester Metropolitan University, Managing Director of the Responsible Tourism Partnership and adviser to the World Travel Market on its Responsible Tourism programme at WTM London, which attracts 4000 participants each year, and WTM Africa and Latin America and Arabian Travel Market. He chairs the panels of judges for the World Responsible Tourism Awards and the other Awards in the family, Africa, India and Latin America. Harold founded the ICRTD series of International Conferences on Responsible Tourism in Destinations in 2002, he co-chairs the conferences with the local host organisation. He is also Founder Director of the International Centre for Responsible Tourism which he founded in 2002 and which promotes the principles of the Cape Town Declaration.

20 September 2023

Postponing action on climate change is a tragic mistake

The UK Prime Minister is apparently considering weakening some of the government’s key commitments in a major policy shift. He is apparently considering a major change, […]
12 September 2023

Are heat waves, droughts, wildfires, storms, floods and earthquakes the new normal?

As I write this, the death toll in Morocco continues to rise, with close to 3,000 dead and over 2,500 injured. Parts of Marrakech have been […]
5 September 2023

Responsibility, convergence and destination management in India

As the 2023 G20 Summit of global leaders approaches, it is worth reflecting on what we can learn from India’s management of tourism. There have been […]
29 August 2023

Tourists arrive with an attitude of entitlement

In 1994, at the British Airways (BA) Travel for Tomorrow Awards launch, Sir Colin Marshall, then chair of BA, let the cat out of the bag […]
22 August 2023

Destination management is a local government function

In 1999 John Swarbrooke wrote the major textbook on Sustainable Tourism Management, it quickly became a mainstay of tourism courses in universities in Europe and around […]
16 August 2023

Are the Hawaii fires a game changer for tourism?

We have seen wildfires affect so many countries and communities around the world over the last couple of years that there is a real danger of […]
10 August 2023

New Zealand shows the way to fight overtourism

Over the last two decades, awareness of the negative impacts of tourism has grown. The sector is no longer seen as a pollution-free industry. In addition […]
2 August 2023

Paris and London’s different approaches to rivers, pollution and tourism

Like many major cities, London and Paris are located on great navigable rivers. The Thames runs for 215 miles, 346 km, through southern England and London […]
26 July 2023

Now we have to adapt to climate change

On Monday, most UK newspapers led on the impact of fires on holidaymakers in Greece with headlines screaming “Rhodes on Fire” (Metro), “Our Terror” (Mirror), “Run […]
18 July 2023

Is the future net positive?

Whilst most of the commentary and certification efforts around travel and tourism have been focused on minimising negative impacts, efforts are underway to reverse today’s catastrophic […]
13 July 2023

Is certification the answer?

The answer, of course, depends on the question. It is a broad question. Will the certification help us to achieve sustainable tourism? I believe it may […]
4 July 2023

It cannot be about us, without us

A couple of years ago I interviewed Keith Henry, President and CEO of the Indigenous Tourism Association of Canada and we talked about the cultural diversity […]
29 June 2023

Can you eat the view?

Clearly, you cannot eat the view. Twenty years ago, the Countryside Agency in the UK  ran a campaign to encourage consumers to purchase fruit, vegetables and […]
21 June 2023

Has climate change become the new normal?

I am in Jyväskylä in the western part of the Finnish Lakeland, about 270 km north of Helsinki. It is the white night season; the days […]
13 June 2023

Family ownership can be a solution to the “tragedy of the commons”

A local family realised the importance of an area of unspoilt nature and purchased it to protect it by developing a tourism use to fund its […]
7 June 2023

Overtourism, parasitism and the tragedy of the commons

Fundamental to Responsible Tourism is the principle that the destination belongs to the people who live there and their descendants. The 2002 Cape Town Declaration on […]