Can Quechua survive?

Endangered Languages, Endangered Lives

by Anna Saroli

Quechua has been spoken in Perú since it became the unifying language of the Inca Empire 600 years ago. As the most widely spoken autochthonous language of Perú, it is considered to be an official language along with Spanish. Statistics vary, but the number of Quechua speakers in Perú is estimated at four and a half million, approximately 19 percent of the total population.

(Instituto Nacional de Estadística e Informática: Censos Nacionales 1993) Some regions are predominantly Quechua speaking. In the Department of Cusco,(1) for example, Quechua speakers comprise almost 64 percent of the population: 39 percent in urban centers and 86 percent in rural areas.

In spite of the prevalence and the antiquity of the Quechua language, however, Spanish is the language of power in all regions of Perú, even those in which there are more Quechua speakers than Spanish speakers. Many Quechua-speaking Peruvians need to learn Spanish in order to function in their own country, as the latter is the language of commerce, education, and government.

The negative attitude many Spanish-speaking Peruvians have toward the Quechua language and those who speak it makes matters worse. Many view Quechua, an oral language generally considered to be difficult if not impossible to write, as an archaic language spoken by Indians.

There exists a strange dichotomy between the pride in the history and culture of the Inca Empire (promoted by government and tourist sectors) and the disdain with which the living descendants of this empire are regarded. The unfortunate result of these attitudes is that many Quechua speakers hide their linguistic roots.

Speaking a fractured Spanish with their children, who learn to speak neither Quechua nor Spanish well, they prefer to pass as Spanish speakers.
In the city of Cusco, once the capital of the Inca Empire and now the departmental capital, Quechua is rarely seen in the media. Not a single newspaper or magazine is published in Quechua; the only written Quechua to be found is in academic works on linguistic or literary topics, or in songbooks for musicians.

The national university in Cusco offers only two courses in Quechua, for degrees in medicine and pedagogy. Quechua is taught in only one private school in Cusco. The Academy of the Quechua Language languishes for lack of government support; its members, mostly retirees, give of their time for love of the language.

A few radio stations do broadcast music, news, or personal announcements for people in isolated communities; all of these stations, however, are either private or partially financed by NGOs; they are not protected in any way by the government.

Unless steps are taken to promote the Quechua language in the public sectors, the real possibility exists that it will decline in importance to the point that it is no longer used with any frequency, as has been the fate of minority languages in many countries.

Governmental Policies Then and Now

The Peruvian government has not been unsympathetic, but its efforts to promote and protect Quechua have been sporadic and superficial at best. In 1975, the idealistic military government of General Velasco made Quechua an official language in areas with high numbers of Quechua speakers.

For a few years, the language was taught in public schools, but this was a second-language program aimed at Spanish speakers; its purpose was to raise the profile of Quechua rather than to implement true bilingual education. This program disappeared with successive changes in government.

Now, 25 years later, the Ministry of Education in the city of Cusco is laying the groundwork for another program in primary education. Optimistically called "bilingual and bicultural," it appears on close examination to be neither bilingual nor bicultural. Its stated goals are: (1) the introduction of Quechua as the language of instruction for Quechua-speaking children in rural areas, and (2) the maintenance and preservation of the Quechua culture.

Yet policy-makers have adopted a program of transition for the children involved, with no consideration of the possibility of implementing a truly bilingual program of maintenance. (With reference to bilingual education, a program of transition is one in which children learn in their native language for as long as it will take them to become fluent in the dominant language, which then becomes the language of instruction.

A maintenance program uses both languages concurrently.) All instruction in grades one and two is to be in Quechua, but from grade three, Spanish will be phased in. At no point is the desired result -- the hispanicization of these children and their absorption into mainstream Spanish-speaking culture -- questioned.

The common experience for a child from a Quechua-speaking background is to be plunged into a Spanish-speaking school environment at the age of five or six. By grade four or five, most are able to speak Spanish, but many never learn to read well and few go on to secondary school. By implementing a program that addresses the number of children, especially in rural areas, who face the difficulties of learning in what is for them a foreign language, the government is taking a step in the right direction.

The policy as it stands has many limitations, however. Since the program's main goal appears to be to incorporate minority children as quickly as possible into the Spanish-speaking mainstream, it will do little to effect real change in the prevailing perception of Quechua as a second-class language. In practical terms, too, the program may not be well conceived. Although the Ministry states, for instance, that its strategies include the elaboration of materials and workshops in Quechua for teachers, the only materials developed to date have been didactic manuals. There are no readers or other materials for students and no signs as yet of training or support for teachers.

The Peruvian government has always been prone to implementing "top-down" policies that may be misunderstood and resisted by those who should benefit from them. It is clear that there will need to be increased and sensitive consultation with government officials, and real input and participation from the Quechua-speaking communities, for any such program to be effective.

Community Attitudes

In interviews in Cusco and in surrounding rural communities, Quechua speakers and teachers commented on: (1) their personal experience of the Quechua language, and (2) whether Quechua should indeed be promoted in their schools or the communities they lived in.

Teachers

Thirty-four teachers working in schools ranging from reasonably well-appointed urban schools through semi-urban to impoverished rural schools were interviewed. All of the teachers were either native Quechua speakers or had learned Quechua as their only means of communicating with their students.

When asked for a wish list, the teachers' requests were for didactic materials for classroom use and for training courses in the Quechua language, two basic needs not being met by the government. Almost without exception, the teachers firmly believed that the best way to teach Quechua-speaking children is in their own language, at least throughout primary education (though a significant number also support programs of maintenance through secondary school).

Their experiences with the academic problems suffered by minority-language children in a majority-language system support current pedagogical research showing that these children progress significantly more slowly than majority-language children and tend to drop out of school more frequently.(2)

Teachers working with Quechua-speaking children in a Spanish-language framework face many additional challenges. Most of them are young women, often poorly trained and badly paid. Those who work in rural areas feel a great sense of isolation and a need for improved communication with government departments, whose staff tend to be urbanites with no real understanding of these isolated and often monolingual Communities.

The teachers frequently make heroic efforts to cope with the difficult situation in which they work; many of them use their own money to create teaching aids. They are, however, often overwhelmed by lack of support, few teaching aids, isolation, and poor remuneration; frustration and burnout are common results.

Parents in Rural Communities

There are enormous differences in terms of literacy and general sophistication between Quechua speakers living in traditional agricultural communities (comuneros) and those who were born in or have migrated to urban areas. Not one of the comuneros interviewed had studied beyond primary school, and many of the women were illiterate.

Six had some Spanish, while the others were monoglots. People living in rural areas often have little contact with the Spanish-speaking world, and they tend to compartmentalize uses of Spanish and Quechua: Spanish is used for traveling to Cusco, in schools, with the government, at hospitals, or in other areas of perceived authority.

Quechua is the language of daily communication with family and community. A mistrust of most government officials exists among monolingual Quechua-speakers as a result of a long history of repression and exploitation.

Many of the comuneros have had unpleasant experiences with those in positions of authority, and they tend to believe the idea that if those authorities want Quechua to be used in schools, they must intend to keep the children ignorant and backward. This belief may result in resistance to the use of Quechua in schools on the part of parents who want their children to be taught only in Spanish, the language of progress and of power.

Teachers did comment that parents are opposed to the implementation of bilingual education. Clearly, however, it is important to examine closely the reasons behind this resistance. During discussions with the comuneros about the pedagogic reasons for teaching a child in his or her native language (using examples from countries where bilingual education has been successfully implemented), the idea of using Quechua as well as and not instead of Spanish became more reasonable. The thought that they themselves might also learn to read in their own language took root.

Migrants and Urbanites

Although the government is taking some steps toward implementing a bilingual program in rural areas, the linguistic needs of a sizeable population of Quechua speakers who have migrated from rural to urban areas are not being met (see also Oliveira, this issue).

A group of ten newly-urbanized Quechua-speakers -- all women and parents who spend part or all of their time in Cusco working in small, family-run businesses or selling their products in the markets or to tourists -- were interviewed. Quechua speakers by birth, these women are now bilingual, and in comparison with rural dwellers, sophisticated in their interactions with modern society.

Though their children are generally enrolled in schools in the city, some may spend part of the year in their home communities; their education is thus fragmented. The children often have to work from a young age in order to help support the family (city schools now recognize this reality and some offer evening classes for working children).

All of these entrepreneurs are aware of the benefits of education. They support the idea of bilingual education in the schools, even through secondary school, and would like to see greater exposure of Quechua in the media.(3) With the pragmatism that enables them to survive, they do not dispute the need for Spanish, but they still value Quechua for its historicity and because it is "theirs."

In spite of this positive outlook, however, signs of language death are present.(4) Urban residents all claimed to speak Quechua at home with their children, but in some cases they admitted that the children do not speak the language well.

Many of the children were uncomfortable in Quechua; some did not speak the language or preferred to use Spanish, a preference probably due to the common perception of Quechua speakers as uneducated and inferior to Spanish speakers. Approximately half of the parents commented that their relatives no longer wish to speak Quechua; that they consider it "ugly," or "are ashamed," or do not want to appear to be "from the country."

More than half said that people in the rural communities from which they had migrated do not use Quechua as much as they used to. If these women and children are representative of those from other urban and semi-urban areas, it would appear that the use of Quechua is declining. The increasing migration to and contact with urban areas in the past decades bode ill for the active survival of the language.

The linguistic pattern evidenced among these migrants in Cusco illustrates a process especially common among migrants to urban areas from traditional agricultural societies and typical of areas where language decline and death have taken place. The pattern operates in the following way: grandparents speak only the traditional language; parents speak both the native language and the language of assimilation, and their children become monolingual in the assimilated language.

Future Direction

In order for Quechua to be strengthened and promoted in Perú, negative attitudes toward the language, ingrained over centuries by the Spanish-speaking elite, must be reversed; initiatives to reinforce the daily use of Quechua and, as a consequence, its presence as a living entity in Peruvian society should be implemented.

The Ministry of Education's bilingual program needs improved planning and implementation. It is of prime importance to promote the use of Quechua in schools, albeit in maintenance rather than in transition programs (as is current policy). For these programs to be successful, however, certain other steps must be taken.

The most important is to win parental support for bilingual language programs. To this end, consultation and sensitization sessions for both parents and teachers should be held. This policy must not be seen as another idea imposed by authorities that will result in greater separation of Quechua-speakers from modern Perú.

Rather, it must be viewed as a joint effort to make the educational experience a positive one for every child, with the full consultation and participation of parents, teachers, and government.
To ensure the effectiveness of this new teaching program, teachers must be supported with teaching materials and workshops.

Quechua in its written form for the use of adult speakers should also be promoted. The perception currently exists that Quechua is a difficult if not impossible language to write. Academics waste much time and energy debating the value of three versus five vowels in written Quechua.

This kind of debate is ultimately counterproductive, as it diverts attention from truly urgent issues. If literacy equals power, Quechua must be available not just in academic contexts in its written form, but integrated into daily life and made accessible to everyone in the form of newspapers, magazines, and informative government pamphlets.(5) Adult literacy classes, especially for women, Could be productively integrated into this type of initiative.

The broadcast media is another area in which the government could be supportive, by funding television and especially radio programs in Quechua. The radio has long been used for the dissemination of information to outlying villages. Without government funding, however, radio stations broadcasting in Quechua are vulnerable to market pressures.(6)

Negative attitudes toward Quechua cannot easily be banished by government edict. Nevertheless, directing government resources toward raising the profile of Quechua in a sensitive way, with constant consultation with Quechua-speakers, is a crucial first step in renewing and reinforcing people's pride in their own language.

Conclusion

It has been estimated that half of the languages extant today will disappear during the next century. Although a superficial glance gives the impression that Quechua is not in imminent danger, a closer look reveals that within the Peruvian context, Quechua plays a secondary role to Spanish. What support it receives from the government is mainly theoretical. As we move into the twenty-first century -- with increasing internal migration to urban centers, and with technology playing an ever-growing role in the homogenization of cultures -- the Quechua language will in all likelihood continue to lose ground. A real danger is that people, mollified by current government efforts to institute "bilingual" education in some primary schools, will assume that these efforts are sufficient. If Quechua is to play a true role as an official language of Perú, only the first steps on a long journey have been taken.

(1). Departments, further divided into provinces, are the administrative divisions of Perú.
(2). See, for example, Hornberger, 1989.
(3). All of the women say they listen daily to one of the few radio programs in Quechua, Warmikuna rimanchis (Women speaking).
(4). For a discussion of language death, see Edwards, 1985.
(5). A strong case is made for the importance of publishing as a tool for language preservation in Bernard, 1996.
(6). The media can, unfortunately, be a two-edged sword. If the government does become involved in Quechua radio and television, it will likely aim programming at the much larger Spanish-speaking audience, which would result in more slick television programs of Andean music and dance, almost all broadcast from Lima.
References & further reading:
Bernard, H.R. (1996). Language Preservation and Publishing. In Indigenous Literacies in the Americas. N.H. Hornberger, Ed. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Pp 139-156.
Edwards, J. (1985). Language, Society and Identity. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, Ltd.
Grenoble, L.A. & Whaley, L.J., Eds. (1998). Endangered Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hornberger, N. (1989). Haku yachaywasiman: la educación bilingüe y el futuro del quechua en Puno. Lima-Puno: Programa de Educación Bilingüe en Puno.
Nettle, D. & Romaine, S.P. (2000). Vanishing Voices: The Extinction of the World's Languages. New York: USA Oxford University Press.
Article copyright Cultural Survival, Inc.

What is sustainable tourism Mr. Tour Guide?

By the Colca Specialist

This is a question that most of the tour guides are not able to answer. Not even our authorities who are thinking just about how to win the next elections.
Disgracefully Peru is one of the countries whose budget for education is very low and now we are seeing the effects of this chaotic type of politics well-known as centralism.

Sustainable tourism is not a trend but a need in these days especially in Arequipa where tourism is the second most important activity. Wikipedia offers a very concise article that can be very useful for everybody especially for the travel agencies, tour guides and authorities from Arequipa who maybe think that sustainable is just another “word” in the lexicon of tourism.

I chose it because The Colca Specialist loves education and as a teacher I love education. I think that the future of our country depends on our people especially on the new generations.
Our country´s economy is much dependant on natural resources so that is why mining is literally the activity which is moving the economy of Peru. But what will happen to Peru and to us when we run out of natural resources?

We have to invest in education and in our people. Ignorance is the enemy of the peoples.
If you check in Trip Advisor and in many other travelers forums you can find a lot of complaints coming from tourists from different countries around the world, all of them complaining from the bad service received in Colca Canyon, complaining from the tour guides commissions which are increasing each time more, but inside the complaints we can realize that part of the problem are TOURISTS too. Specially the very cheap ones who want to travel in all Peru with 500 bucks taking poor quality services, eating in places whose collection of bacteria would break a record Guiness and afterwards they write a complaint in Trip Advisor forum.

If there are many complaints in Trip Advisor against several travel agencies from Arequipa why I have to travel with those bad travel agencies? Very simple because I want something very cheap. Come on guys be reasonable. It is like eating in a restaurant.

In Travel and Living TV program I saw that in LAS VEGAS when you take a tour the guide charges 20 dollars per hour. A hamburguer in a exclusive place can cost 700 hundred US! In Chile the entrance fee to the hot springs in an exclusive place cost more than 30 dollars and here the "gringos" are complaining because the tour to the Colca Canyon costs 20 dollars! Come on guys be reasonable.

Economy here is different. The standards of quality are different but let me tell you something. Peruvian standards of quality are improving each time more and the prices for the next years are not going to be the same as in the past.

If I buy that 20 US tour I should not expect to have the best. 20 dollars for a tour with guide, hotel, transportation, etc it sounds a little bit strange.I would NOT like to sleep in the hotel or hostal offered in those tours. As we know those hotels are not classified and those beds should be terrible. I don´t want to think about the toilet. Those cheap hotels don´t even have a name. The same happens with those cheap 95 soles 2 day trekking tours inside Colca Canyon.

If I see that in Trip Advisor there are several complaints against a travel agency, it would be very stupid if I buy a tour in that travel agency and I would feel very ashamed of myself if my complaint appears with my name in Trip Advisor forum.

If there are hundred complaints about that bad travel agency I don´t have to be idiot hundred one in the same list! Tourists should be responsible, smart and SUSTAINABLE too.

According to the Hindi wise men, the most intelligent are those who learned from the others experience by reading, hearing or seeing. The foolest are the ones who don´t hear the advice and they suffer the consequences of their headstrong attitude.

Those are the ones who continue writing complaints about the same bad service travel agencies.Why? Because they are the cheapest. The problem are not the bad travel agencies who are already identified. The problem is tourists attitude. Are we looking for trouble in our HOLIDAYS?

We don´t recommend tourists to buy tours in the hotels. All of them end traveling with those bad travel agencies.

So what is sustainable tourism?

Sustainable tourism is tourism attempting to make a low impact on the environment and local culture, while helping to generate future employment for local people. The aim of sustainable tourism is to ensure that development brings a positive experience for local people, tourism companies and the tourists themselves. Sustainable tourism is not the same as ecotourism.

Overview

Global economists forecast continuing international tourism growth, ranging between 3 and 6 percent annually, depending on the location. As one of the world's largest and fastest growing industries, this continuous growth will place great stress on remaining biologically diverse habitats and indigenous cultures, which are often used to support mass tourism. Tourists who promote sustainable tourism are sensitive to these dangers and seek to protect tourist destinations, and to protect tourism as an industry. Sustainable tourists can reduce the impact of tourism in many ways, including:

· informing themselves of the culture, politics, and economy of the communities visited
· anticipating and respecting local cultures, expectations and assumptions
· contributing to intercultural understanding and tolerance
· supporting the integrity of local cultures by favoring businesses which conserve cultural heritage and traditional values
· supporting local economies by purchasing local goods and participating with small, local businesses
· conserving resources by seeking out businesses that are environmentally conscious, and by using the least possible amount of non-renewable resources

Increasingly, destinations and tourism operations are endorsing and following "responsible tourism" as a pathway towards sustainable tourism. Responsible tourism and sustainable tourism have an identical goal, that of sustainable development.

The pillars of responsible tourism are therefore the same as those of sustainable tourism – environmental integrity, social justice and economic development. The major difference between the two is that, in responsible tourism, individuals, organisations and businesses are asked to take responsibility for their actions and the impacts of their actions.

This shift in emphasis has taken place because some stakeholders feel that insufficient progress towards realising sustainable tourism has been made since the Earth Summit in Rio. This is partly because everyone has been expecting others to behave in a sustainable manner.

The emphasis on responsibility in responsible tourism means that everyone involved in tourism – government, product owners and operators, transport operators, community services, NGO’s and CBO’s, tourists, local communities, industry associations – are responsible for achieving the goals of responsible tourism.

Responsible Tourism

Responsible Tourism can be regarded as a behaviour. It is more than a form of tourism as it represents an approach to engaging with tourism, be that as a tourist, a business, locals at a destination or any other tourism stakeholder.

It emphasises that all stakeholders are responsible for the kind of tourism they develop or engage in. Whilst different groups will see responsibility in different ways, the shared understanding is that responsible tourism should entail an improvement in tourism. Tourism should become ‘better’ as a result of the responsible tourism approach.

Within the notion of betterment resides the acknowledgement that conflicting interests need to be balanced. However, the objective is to create better places for people to live in and to visit. Importantly, there is no blueprint for responsible tourism: what is deemed responsible may differ depending on places and cultures. Responsible Tourism is an aspiration that can be realised in different ways in different originating markets and in the diverse destinations of the world .

Focusing in particular on businesses, according to the Cape Town Declaration on Responsible Tourism, it will have the following characteristics:

· minimises negative economic, environmental, and social impacts
· generates greater economic benefits for local people and enhances the well-being of host communities, improves working conditions and access to the industry
· involves local people in decisions that affect their lives and life chances
· makes positive contributions to the conservation of natural and cultural heritage, to the maintenance of the world’s diversity
· provides more enjoyable experiences for tourists through more meaningful connections with local people, and a greater understanding of local cultural, social and environmental issues
· provides access for people with disabilities and
· is culturally sensitive, engenders respect between tourists and hosts, and builds local pride and confidence.

Sustainable tourism is where tourists can enjoy their holiday and at the same time respect the culture of people and also respect the environment. It also means that local people (such as the Masaai) get a fair say about tourism and also receive some money from the profit which the game reserve make. The environment is being damaged quite a lot by tourists and part of Sustainable tourism is to make sure that the damaging does not carry on.

There are many private companies who are working into embracing the principles and aspects of Responsible Tourism, some for the purpose of Corporate Social Responsibility activities, and others such WorldHotel-Link, which was originally a project of the International Finance Corporation, have built their entire business model around responsible tourism, local capacity building and increasing market access for small and medium tourism enterprises.

Responsible Hospitality

As with the view of Responsible Tourism, Responsible Hospitality is essentially about creating better places for people to live in, and better places for people to visit. This does not mean all forms of hospitality are also forms of tourism although hospitality is the largest sector of the tourism industry. As such we should not be surprised at overlaps between Responsible Hospitality and Responsible Tourism.

In the instance where place of permanent residence is also the place where the hospitality service is consumed, if for example a meal is consumed in a local restaurant, this does not obviate the requirement to improve the place of residence. As such, the essence of Responsible Hospitality is not contingent upon touristic forms of hospitality.

While Friedman (1962) famously argued that, admittedly within legal parameters, the sole responsibility of business was to generate profit for shareholders the idea that businesses’ responsibility extends beyond this has existed for decades and is most frequently encountered in the concept of corporate social responsibility.

There are numerous ways businesses can and do engage in activities that are not intended to benefit shareholders and management, at least not in the short term. However, often acts of corporate social responsibility are undertaken because of the perceived benefit to business. Usually in hospitality this relates to the cost reductions associated with improved energy efficiency (Pizam, 2009) but may also relate to, for example, the rise in ethical consumerism and the view that being seen to be a responsible business is beneficial to revenue growth.

As per the Cape Town Declaration on Responsible Tourism, Responsible Hospitality is culturally sensitive. Instead of then calling for the unachievable, Responsible Hospitality simply makes the case for more responsible forms of hospitality, hospitality that benefits locals first, and visitors second. Certainly, all forms of hospitality can be improved and managed so that negative impacts are minimised whilst striving for a maximisation of positive impacts.

Coastal tourism

Many coastal areas are experiencing particular pressure from growth in lifestyles and growing numbers of tourists. Coastal environments are limited in extent consisting of only a narrow strip along the edge of the ocean. Coastal areas are often the first environments to experience the detrimental impacts of tourism. A detailed study of the impact on coastal areas, with reference to western India can be an example.

The inevitable change is on the horizon as holiday destinations put more effort into sustainable tourism.[3] Planning and management controls can reduce the impact on coastal environments[4] and ensure that investment into tourism products supports sustainable coastal tourism.

Some Conceptual models in Coastal tourism

Some of the recent studies have led to some interesting conceptual models applicable for coastal tourism. The 'inverted funnel model' and the 'embedded model' can be good metaphors for understanding the interplay of different stake-holders like government, local community, tourists and business community in developing tourist destinations.

Community-based management

There has been the promotion of sustainable tourism practices surrounding the management of tourist locations by locals or more concisely, the community.

This form of tourism is based on the premise that the people living next to a resource are the ones best suited to protecting it. This means that the tourism activities and businesses are developed and operated by local community members, and certainly with their consent and support.

Sustainable tourism typically involves the conservation of resources that are capitalized upon for tourism purposes, such as coral reefs and pristine forests. Locals run the businesses and are responsible for promoting the conservation messages to protect their environment.

Community-based sustainable tourism (CBST) associates the success of the sustainability of the ecotourism location to the management practices of the communities who are directly or indirectly dependent on the location for their livelihoods.

A salient feature of CBST is that local knowledge is usually utilised alongside wide general frameworks of ecotourism business models. This allows the participation of locals at the management level and typically allows a more intimate understanding of the environment. The use of local knowledge also means an easier entry level into a tourism industry for locals whose jobs or livelihoods are affected by the use of their environment as tourism locations.

The involvement of locals restores the ownership of the environment to the local community and allows an alternative sustainable form of development for communities and their environments that are typically unable to support other forms of development.[citation needed]. However, recent research has found that economic linkages generated by CBST may only be sporadic, and that the linkages with agriculture are negatively affected by seasonality and by the small scale of the cultivated areas. This means that CBST may only have small-scale positive effects for these communities.

Stakeholders

Stakeholders of sustainable tourism play a role in continuing this form of tourism. This can include organizations as well as individuals.

Non-governmental organizations

Non-governmental organizations are one of the stakeholders in advocating sustainable tourism. Their roles can range from spearheading sustainable tourism practices to simply doing research. University research teams and scientists can be tapped to aid in the process of planning. Such solicitation of research can be observed in the planning of Cat Ba National Park in Vietnam.

Dive resort operators in Bunaken National Park, Indonesia, play a crucial role by developing exclusive zones for diving and fishing respectively, such that both tourists and locals can benefit from the venture.

Large conventions, meetings and other major organized events drive the travel, tourism and hospitality industry. Cities and convention centers compete to attract such commerce, commerce which has heavy impacts on resource use and the environment. Major sporting events, such as the Olympic Games, present special problems regarding environmental burdens and degradation. But burdens imposed by the regular convention industry can be vastly more significant.

Green conventions and events are a new but growing sector and marketing point within the convention and hospitality industry. More environmentally aware organizations, corporations and government agencies are now seeking more sustainable event practices, greener hotels, restaurants and convention venues, and more energy efficient or climate neutral travel and ground transportation.

Additionally, some convention centers have begun to take direct action in reducing the impact of the conventions they host. One example is the Moscone Center in San Francisco, California, which has a very aggressive recycling program, a large solar power system, and other programs aimed at reducing impact and increasing efficiency.

Tourists

With the advent of the internet, some traditional conventions are being replaced with virtual conventions, where the attendees remain in their home physical location and "attend" the convention by use of a web-based interface programmed for the task. This sort of "virtual" meeting eliminates all of the impacts associated with travel, accommodation, food wastage, and other necessary impacts of traditional, physical conventions.

Travel over long distances requires a large amount of time and/or energy. Generally this involves burning fossil fuels, a largely unsustainable practice and one that contributes to climate change, via CO2 emissions.

Air travel is perhaps the worst offender in this regard, contributing to between 2 and 3% of global carbon emissions.[8] Given a business-as-usual approach, this could be expected to rise to 5% by 2015 and 10% by 2050. Car travel is the next worst offender.

Mass transport is the most climate friendly method of travel, and generally the rule is "the bigger the better" - compared to cars, buses are relatively more sustainable, and trains and ships are even more so. Human energy and renewable energy are the most efficient, and hence, sustainable. Travel by bicycle, solar powered car, or sailing boat produces no carbon emissions (although the embodied energy in these vehicles generally comes at the expense of carbon emission).

Humane tourism

Humane tourism is part of the movement of responsible tourism. The idea is to empower local communities through travel related businesses around the world, first and foremost in developing countries.

The idea of humane travel or humane tourism is to connect travelers from Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand seeking new adventures and authentic experiences directly, to local businesses in the specific locations they wish to visit – thus, giving economic advantages to local businesses and giving travelers authentic and truly unique travel experiences.

Humane travel or humane tourism focuses on the people, the local community. The idea is to enable travelers to experience the world through the eyes of its local people while contributing directly to those people, ensuring that tourist dollars benefit the local community directly.
Humane tourism is about giving opportunity to the local people, empower them, enable them to enjoy the fruits of tourism directly.

The Internet is changing tourism. More and more travelers are planning their travels and vacations via the net. The Internet enables people to cut off commissions. The traveler can search for new destinations to visit, talk or read about other people experience, and buy the services directly.

The Internet platform can encourage local people to start new businesses and that already existing small businesses will begin to promote themselves through the net and receive the economic advantages of this directly in their communities. The world is now in a new tourism age, with globalization and the Internet playing a key role.

The new travelers have traveled the world, they have seen the classic sites. Staying at a Western hotel is not attractive enough, and they are excited by the prospect of experiencing the authentic local way of life: to go fishing with a local fisherman, to eat the fish with his family, to sleep in a typical village house.

These tourists or travellers, are happy to know that while doing so they promote the economic wellbeing of those same people they spend time with.

Humane tourism is part of Responsible tourism. The concept of Responsible Tourism originated in the work of Jost Krippendorf in The Holiday Makers[9] called for “rebellious tourists and rebellious locals” to create new forms of tourism.

His vision was “to develop and promote new forms of tourism, which will bring the greatest possible benefit to all the participants – travellers, the host population and the tourist business, without causing intolerable ecological and social damage.” As one can see he already talked, back in the 80s about benefits for the host population and used the term human tourism. Humane travel focuses on that host local population.

The South African national tourism policy (1996) [10] used the term "responsible tourism" and mentioned the wellbeing of the local community as a main factor.

The Cape Town Declaration on Responsible Tourism in Destinations,[12] agreed in 2002, that Responsible Tourism is about “making better places for people to live in and better places for people to visit.” The decleration focused on "places" but did nention the local population.

From the Rio summit or earth summit on 1992 [13] until the UN Commission on Sustainable Development in 1999,[14] the main focus of the tourism industry was the earth, the planet, the places, "green" or "eco" tourism. Now there is a trend to include the local population. This trend or branch of responsible tourism is called humane tourism or humane travel.