ETHICAL TRAVELLER:THE IRISH ARE famous for their sense of justice and human rights, as many people have commented on with admiration during my travels. "We love Irish visitors," one conservation company that arranges hiking holidays told me, "as we don't need to explain to them about leaving no trace as they go, or respecting farmers' privacy.
They don’t just barge into the countryside like gatecrashers at a party. They are always sensitive to local needs.”
That makes us the right people to help another ethical- tourism organisation, one that has been striving to stop exploitation for more than 20 years, putting into action the same sense of justice and democracy that Irish tourists so often demonstrate abroad.
Like so many charities at the moment it is struggling to survive; it won’t make it beyond the end of the year unless it gets an injection of funds.
I have often referred to Tourism Concern in this column, because its work is unique. I have seen its director, Tricia Barnett, in action at international conferences, taking on tourism ministers, multinational hotel chains and tour operators to put a stop to unethical practices.
Its Sun, Sand, Sea and Sweatshops campaign has persuaded tour operators to adopt policies on labour conditions for hotels represented in their brochures, and its Trekking Wrongs: Porter’s Rights campaign forced many international trekking companies to improve the lives of hundreds of porters and their families.
It has also created international awareness of breaches of human rights in the name of tourism in Burma, put a hold on bulldozers that are wiping out local communities to build megaresorts and kept up a constant awareness campaign on the horrors of the child sex tourism industry.
Tourism Concern hopes that, under its Tourism Concern 100 fund-raising scheme, 100 travel companies will each donate £1,000 (€1,100) to sustain the charity into the next decade.
The Irish travel to many of the destinations that Tourism Concern strives to protect, and benefit from the ethical framework that it has put in place, so I want to share the appeal with you, too.
I love writing about the ethical companies I come across on my travels, and I am hoping that some of these will now offer a little bit back to the organisation that paved the way for exemplary ethical practice in tourism.
Or perhaps some of the large businesses that have contacted me for advice on how to incorporate travel into their corporate-social- responsibility policies can offer support. They could tell their employees about Tourism Concern’s campaigns, make a donation or consider getting annual membership (only £24/€26) for each employee who travels regularly for work.
If you are planning any international travel over the next year or so, check out Tourism Concern’s website or buy its superbly informative Ethical Travel guidebook, which lists audited eco-accommodation in many destinations, as well as ethical tour operators to guide you when you are there.
If you can also afford annual membership, then you will be doing your bit and flying the Irish flag of support for good ethical work in the way that we are so often proud to do.
tourismconcern.org.uk, ethicaltraveller.net, twitter.com/catherinemack