A bit more about sustainable tourism

As we all know, the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) is the United Nations agency in charge of promoting responsible, sustainable and accessible tourism for all.
This organization has a Global Code of Ethics for Tourism, ten principles aiming to raise awareness of the need to “approach” tourism in a responsible way.

There is an extensive corpus of documents published by the UNWTO on significant and relevant issues, such as the current situation of tourism in a global way, statistics, macroeconomic data, influence of activity on the markets, etc. But there are also many other documents that tell us about responsibility in tourism. This responsibility is shared by local, national and international administrations and companies. But it is also the responsibility of travellers and tourists. I always refer to a brochure, published some years ago, on good practices for tourists, which is certainly worth reading. In my opinion, the first sentences deserve to be noted.

“Travelling and tourism should be planned and practised as a means of individual and collective fulfilment. When practised with a sufficiently open mind, it is an irreplaceable factor of self-education, mutual tolerance and for learning about the legitimate differences between peoples and cultures and their diversity.”

I think this is essential when we travel. Although it doesn’t always happen, more and more people are trying to “open their minds” to discover and admire cultures, traditions and differences that exist between peoples all over the world.

This is nothing new. As René Descartes (philosopher and French mathematician [1596-1650]) once said: “ Travels serve to learn about the customs of different peoples and to get rid of the prejudice that only in one’s own homeland can one live the way one is used to”.

To divest oneself of prejudices, to open the mind, to observe, to discover… we could say that all these are synonymous with TRAVEL. Let us begin today a new journey, to educate ourselves in mutual tolerance and individual and collective fulfilment. A guided tour with Original Ronda can be a good start for this self-education…