ethicaltravelportal.com - Partners in Norway

As on today, we have started a partnership with www.ethicaltravelportal.com, who are based in Norway.

Ethical Travel Portal organizes learning experiences in responsible travel! Together with their local partners in destinations the trips aim to give a different kind of experience. One can take part in activities as a tourist and at the same time gain knowledge how responsible tourism is making a difference in local communities. They want to share the value of responsible tourism and give clients an eye opener experience to tell their friends and family back home. Feel free to contact them at info@ethicaltravelportal.com.
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From the website, the about us section says:

Ethical Travel Portal was established to meet the growing demand for in-depth knowledge in the field of sustainable and responsible tourism. Passionate about responsible travel, we realized that the best way to close that gap was to bring travellers to the destinations and learn from the local experts.

This unique concept provides a learning experience in responsible travel to various destinations. The trips are tailor made in cooperation with our local partners who are specialists in their communities. They use tourism as a tool to 'create better places for people to live in and visit'. Travellers get an insight on how they have successfully created positive impact in the local community and the surrounding environment.

Our trips focus on giving the traveler a deeper understanding about responsible tourism and ethical issues. Travelers are encouraged to use the achieved knowledge in their future jobs, travels and daily life. Or simply spread the message about responsible tourism and how to be a responsibe tourist. Our destinations and partners are handpicked by Ethical Travel Portal. We are convinced that our travelers will benefit from the trips thanks to our and our partners’ knowledge of each destination.

Linda Veraasdal,
Founder and Director

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socialtours is partnering with them to provide learning experience in responsible travel in Nepal. Currently we have one trip that will go on their website very soon. It involves a lot of cultural interactions, stay in eco-lodges, a small trek through the Chepang Hills, visits in Chitwan of a Tharu project besides jungle activities, and ending it with some responsible shopping with members of the Fair Trade Group Nepal. Of course, the whole trips is peppered with a lot of learning opportunities on responsible tourism.

www.ethicaltravelportal.com also offers similar trips to Gambia, India, Uganda and Norway.

Follow them on twitter here

Comment: the need for professional Adventure Graduates

This is a comment on the article entitled New Zealand nurtures adventure students that appeared on travelmole.com .. read the article here


Finally the industry can get people trained for this purpose, not just interested people who have to be trained from scratch.

In Nepal, where my business is located, there is a big need (as opposed to demand) for professionals in adventure of all types... soft, medium and hard core.

We have tons of trained guides, raft guides, paraglider pilots, mountain bike specialists, etc... but all of them have learnt it on the job (which mind you is not a bad way to learn) but there is the other side of things... customer service, leadership skills, etc. which is greatly lacking. Our guides are excellent in just that... but what is required is leadership.

Hopefully a program such as this can produce future leaders, and not just workers... that is what the industry requires!

This is not a place to advertise, but Nepal would be more than willing to take in a few interns... I know my company would!

Profiling the Eco-Guest

this is a comment made to the article on

Green is the new Luxury on Travel Mole written by Sally Broom, www.yoursafeplanet.com

I was at this interaction too, and it was very interesting. The one thing that really hit me was that no one really knew who the eco-guest was, and I love this fact.

Gone are the days when you can profile a consumer based on how much money he/she has and what the education level is. I used to be in the consumer market research business several years ago, and it will be interesting to see how market research will tackle this new challenge. The difference now is that people are basing their purchases on values and principles (and this is not income or education driven). Its fantastic and exciting.

We are so used to follow an old age approach of divide and rule (basically fit everyone into boxes and then market to them) that we forget that this is a wonderful opportunity to market to everyone. And the challenge to cater to such a vastly different clientele is awesome.

The initiatives mentioned at this interaction were also wonderful, albeit a bit targeted to only the rich customer, whose eco/non eco balance might be a bit skewed, but it was interesting / inspiring to hear this prespective.

The Green Circuit on TravelMole!

TravelMole, the industry's leading newswire, put out a special report on the Fringe Networking of Responsible Tourism that happened at ITB on Friday the 13th (wow, did not realise that was the day).

Read the article on TravelMole here

There were some fantastic pitches, and the "green circuit" was one of the initiatives launched... and it got a mention. Read all about the Green Circuit here

Thanks Velere for putting it in there. Support such as this will help us take this forward. Watch this space for the developments as it happens.

As on now, I am working on working on the feedback we had, finding a better name for the circuit (getting out of the green), documenting it, so that we can report at WTM on how it went forward, tyring to get the players to meet up at SATTE next month, so that we can finalise the product and launch in India too and on our websites...

Lots of work, but so so exciting!

Response: Slum Tourism confusions

This is in response to the article on the Worldhum website. Read the article by Eric Wiener here

Slumming It: Can Slum Tourism Be Done Right?

I think it is very well put Eric, and I appreciate that you have not only written about it from one side, I think though you have a clear opinion, the article is very balanced. It is very difficult to say when tourism starts becoming voyeuristic and unjust and irresponsible and what the borders are.

Using an example from my country, is going through a poor village in the mountains of Nepal and “looking” into their lives irresponsible? Some of these villagers are poorer than the Mumbai slum communities.

I think that we are too quick to draw a line in our minds between good and bad. What is important is that the practice needs to be right. A school for the slum kids can make a big big impact and difference in the lives of the people in the slums. Agreed, that if the tours were going to Tak Mahal and the donations to the slum school, it might have been better, but there are chances of making a bigger impact by taking the tours (responsible practices apply here) through the slums itself. There is a cross-cultural aspect of tourism that cannot be ignored, that understanding each others conditions can help foster a better global thinking between humans!