Harold Goodwin is organising a series of symposiums on tourism, local economic development and livelihoods in preparation for the International Conference on Responsible Tourism in Destinations planned for Brazil in May 2012.

For further information about this series email Harold@haroldgoodwin.info

Kerala May 31st - June 2nd Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India
Partners: Kerala Tourism, the Kerala Institute of Travel and Tourism Studies and ICRT India.
The symposium was opened in the presence of the Ministers for Tourism and Social Welfare and Panchayats. During the two day symposium seven of the 100 odd initiatives in Kerala were discussed in some detail, the intention being to learn from the experience in the four laboratories of Responsible Tourism in Kerala: Kumarakom, Kovalam, Kumily and Wayanad. For more on Responsible Tourism in Kerala read
The Responsible Tourism laboratories in Kerala have been established with a degree of transparent monitoring and reporting which is sadly rare – as I said at the inauguration the evolving effective working relationship between the ministries and local government “is a rare phenomenon and should serve as a beacon for other counties.” Read more about the symposium

Report on the outcomes of the symposium
Goodwin H & Venu V (2011) Meeting Challenges. Saving Lives Kerala Institute of Travel and Tourism Studies download

Dr Venu explains the background to the Responsible Tourism initiatives in Kerala YouTube

Kumarakom Village Experiences YouTube

Field Visit Johannesburg and Cape Town, South Africa 18-19 July 2011
Partners: ICRT South Africa

Caribbean dates and venue to be determined.
Partners: Commonwealth Secretariat and University of West Indies

The Gambia 18-22nd April 2012
Partners: ICRT West Africa and The University of The Gambia
Like Kerala, The Gambia has been an important laboratory for Responsible Tourism. This symposium, or high level workshop, will bring together policy makers, development partners, practitioners and academics to share what has been learnt over the last 15 years in The Gambia about how tourism can be used to benefit local communities.

There is a wide range of initiatives to learn from and you can expect to hear about the successes and the failures, the challenges and the surprises and you will meet with those who took the initiatives, the people they worked with and the beneficiaries. You will get the whole story, only in this way can we learn about how to harness tourism to benefit local communities. The symposium will place under the microscope:

1. Initiatives to benefit craft workers & sellers and self-employed guides
2. Agricultural supply chain linkages and the Gambia is Good (GiG) initiative
3. Cultural Heritage activities and festivals
4. ASSET a trade association for small scale enterprises in tourism
5. Interventions to reduce hassle and increase earnings in craft markets (Senegambia and Kotu) and villages (Jufureh)
6. Building multi-stakeholder partnerships: The Responsible Tourism Partnership

An invitation from Adama Bah to come to The Gambia to participate in the symposium video