Dr Harold Goodwin has worked on 4 continents with local communities, their governments, accommodation providers 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, Founder of the ICRT.global, Managing Director of the Responsible Tourism Partnership and adviser to WTM Africa on its Responsible Tourism programme. He chairs the panels of judges for the World Responsible Tourism Awards and the other Awards in the family, Africa, Europe, India, Latin America and Southeast Asia. . 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 2002 Cape Town Declaration. In 2022 the Responsible Tourism Charter was signed on Magna Carta Island incorporating two decades of experience in using tourism to make better places for people to live in and to visit.
A Mastercard survey conducted across 28 European countries in February revealed that nearly half of the 27,000 holidaymakers surveyed planned to acquire or improve a skill […]
Research in 2024 revealed that 31% of travellers preferred to rent a house or apartment 50% preferring a hotel. Destinations were able to control the number […]
Back in April, I wrote here about the new methodology that the ICRT global has developed with colleagues in southern Africa to reliably report on the […]
Before the internet, we booked gites and holiday accommodation from small ads in the papers. We arrived in Normandy to find that the British owners of […]
The Green Claims Directive, now apparently abandoned, was used by certification businesses to create additional demand for their services, particularly in countries of the global south. […]
There is mounting concern about the Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition Directive (ECD), which will apply across the EU from September 2026. Certification agencies are […]
Two stories about sustainability and aviation reveal the confusion about how we can reduce the polluting effects of aviation. We are slow to accept that we […]
In a city as visited and photographed as London, it is easy to assume that little remains undiscovered. Yet some of its most meaningful stories are not […]
One of the guiding principles of the 2002 Cape Town Declaration on Responsible Tourism is to “endeavour to make tourism an inclusive social experience and to […]
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Although this quote is widely attributed to Albert Einstein, historians note that it […]
I was asked by John-Likita M Best of the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies in Nigeria to articulate an academic response to a stimulating […]
In this year’s Responsible Tourism Awards, we have for the first time explicitly included “effectively using tourism, consumptive and non-consumptive, to manage and enhance biodiversity … […]
Sandhra Santhosh is the curator of Oorva, pursuing a vision to build the world’s largest trusted network for intangible heritage. For travellers and business partners, they […]
Language evolves, and has virtually evolved from meaning almost a particular thing or quality, as in “he is a virtual prisoner in his own home.” Virtual […]
Over the last few years in the Responsible Tourism Awards, we have seen applicants, many of them winners, who have talked in their applications about regeneration. […]
Before you dismiss as the rantings of a green, I urge you to read the UK’s National Security Risk Assessment on Global biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and […]