Tourism and Peace

In recognition of this year’s World Tourism Day theme “Tourism and Peace”, there have been many reflections on the potential of tourism for building bridges, promoting tolerance and understanding, and supporting peace and stability.  

Peace is a prerequisite for a thriving travel and tourism industry. So promoting and investing in peace-building and -sustaining efforts should be seen as an imperative for the sector, rather than a “nice to have” when the theme happens to be trending.  

In addition to spreading the word about the Tourism Day call to becoming a “peace-sensitive sector”, what can each one of us do to help make travel and tourism a more positive force for good?

Start with Ourselves

Considering the needs and rights of local communities is a key condition for tourism to fulfill its promise of being a positive force for good. And if we want to become the kind of visitor that promotes and amplifies fair and equitable practices, we need to first do the hard work of reflecting on our own habits, perceptions and values.

In many countries around the world, the lifestyle focused on consuming things is not only negatively impacting the environment through waste and unsustainable use of resources, but also perpetuating the mentality of thinking of travel as a way to "escape" the stressful daily grind, which is not conducive to responsible ways of visiting people and places with respect and an open mind.

So before we start thinking about how we can be responsible travelers, we need to reevaluate our own daily habits and choices that lead to forming our attitude towards travel, and what it means.

The antidote to traveling as an entitled consumer is to strengthen our connections to who and where we are. Taking time to learn about our own culture and history, and to connect with our own communities, is a great way of becoming “peace-sensitive” in our daily lives.

Take Care of Our Own Well-Being

Travel - especially slow and local travel experiences that offer memorable and educational encounters - can be good for our soul. Spending time in nature and immersing ourselves in enriching cultural experiences - unsurprisingly - support our mental and physical health.

But we shouldn't wait until our hard-earned holiday to start taking care of our own well-being. If we see traveling as a rare opportunity to escape the stress of our daily routines and to finally relax and take care of ourselves, we risk being self-centered tourists prioritizing our own “needs” for unwinding.

Rather than procrastinating until you go on vacation, make it a regular part of your everyday routines to be more proactive in addressing mental health and well-being, both for yourself and your communities.

Challenge Ourselves to Expand Our Perspectives

Broadening our horizon. Opening our eyes. Enriching our minds.

We often describe travel experiences as educational, inspiring and even life-changing. We live in a beautiful world full of traditions, stories, relationships and evolving experiences of nature and culture. It’s no wonder that the privilege of experiencing places unfamiliar to us offers an incredible eye-opening experience.

Again, we don’t need to wait until we have the chance to travel to another country to challenge ourselves to broaden our horizons.

We can actively seek opportunities in our daily lives and through our personal and professional networks to learn about and from people and places, culture and history, and what it means to be an open-minded conscious global citizen.

Here are just a few ideas on places and resources that can help with our learning journeys:

• Planeterra - Global Community Tourism Network
• Resonate.travel
• Sustainable Cities
• Tourism Cares - Meaningful Travel Map
• Tourism Lens - Stories of meaningful travel in destinations around the world
• Tourism for Good podcast
• The RISE Traveler podcast

Connect All Kinds of Dots

To be a traveler who actively supports tourism’s potential as a force for good, we need to actively work on being a kind of person who mindfully chooses not just where but also how and why to travel.

And for that, our learning journeys should also focus on what we can do to be better, more engaged citizens. For example, how can cities and countries promote social inclusion and create equal opportunities for everyone? How can communities build resilience in the face of increasing climate-related disasters? What can individuals and organizations do to help those who are most vulnerable to social, economic and environmental challenges?

And we can connect various dots by bringing lessons from our travel experiences to our daily lives, and taking what we learn in our daily lives with us when we travel. And share some of those insights within our circles, for example:

• Talk to family and friends about a different way of thinking about travel
• Talk to our desk neighbor / office-mate about a positive climate action
• Or even host a talk in our community about being a responsible global citizen

None of these ideas and tips are about what we do as a traveler while traveling. And that may be the most important point of this; travel as a force for good that supports bridge-building and promotes mutual understanding should start with each of us working on our own mindsets and attitudes, and working on being a positive force every day.