Responsible Tourism Week
Fall in love with responsible travel February 13-17, 2012 as Planeta.com hosts Responsible Tourism Week, our annual, week-long online unconference. 2012 is the fourth year for Responsible Tourism Week and we expect our conversations to take a great leap forward thanks to inspired participation and Planeta.com's 12th year of online conferencing.
Responsible Tourism Week is a free, five-day unconference exploring down-to-earth applications of noble concepts including responsible tourism,
conscious travel, the local travel movement and ecotourism with effective and inexpensive social media. Details: http://planeta.wikispaces.com/rtweek2012
Who should participate?
For travelers, this is an opportunity to see where to go, how to travel and who to meet. For travel businesses and local tourism leaders, this is free advertising and an opportunity to learn good practices from around the globe. For journalists and other media pros, this is an opportunity to scan beyond the horizon for new stories. Another plus: admission is free and there's no jet lag!
What is Responsible Tourism?
Responsible tourism is treating others the way they wish to be treated. It's a variation on the Platinum Rule ... it's also good manners. Put another way courtesy of the 2002 Cape Town Declaration on Responsible Tourism: responsible tourism creates better places for people to live and better places to visit. Responsible travel is a must-have in the growing movement that connects visitors and locals.
What's New in 2012?
Contests! We are preparing contests for travel companies and language schools featured on Planeta.com. Another contest -- with rules being sorted out -- acknowledges the collaboration within countries. We will conduct a public survey to choose the winners.
Responsible Tourism Week 2012 previews upcoming tourism and conservation events, including the IUCN World Conservation Congress in Korea, the eleventh Conference of Parties (COP) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in India and the the 20th anniversary of the Rio Earth Summit in Brazil. 2012 is also the 10th anniversary of the International Year of Ecotourism and we are conducting a survey asking what has been accomplished in the past decade.
Why an unconference?
Simply put, we think participants can organize themselves and the unconference is the ideal approach. Traditional conferences are overly scripted without opportunities to engage one another. We created the Responsible Tourism Week as an inexpensive way to broaden and deepen conversations about travel and tourism.