Season 3, Episode 105 : Vicky Smith

00:29
Vicki, welcome to the green on podcast. Thank you so much for joining us today. I guess. Before we start, you run Earth changes and probably your best fit to describe what Earth changes is, what a great name.

00:46
Thank you. And Earth changes is a curated collection of some of the world's best positive impact tourism. So, we find help people find life-changing places normally run by world-changing people extraordinary experiences with purpose, you're looking for a holiday, but you really want to be very sustainable. And you really want to have a positive impact, then the types of places we work with, they might be combinations, or they might be top companies. And I have a limited number on my sight at the moment, we're developing that. And so anyone is welcome to get in touch if they're looking for that sort of thing, even if it's not on the site, to say, right, I'd like to go to, for example, Chile, what have you got? So, I've been working in sustainable tourism for 15 years now. So, I'm quite well known quite well connected around. So, it's about bringing those types of operations to the fore.

01:42
Okay. And is it all over the world that you work in?

01:47
Yes. And so, what's interesting is, I probably say what we focus on is maximum positive impact. So largely operations which by their very purpose on nature and core feed into Sustainable Development Goals worldwide. So that might be it could be education, it could be conservation, it could be marine conservation, any of those things. So inevitably, where that occurs is often areas of less equality. So greater inequality. So often that might be Africa, Asia, Latin America, and there's probably less of that sort of thing in Europe other than say, conservation. But in actual fact, then there are operations in Europe around things like conservation. Yeah.

02:33
Okay. And so, if I was to, I'm just trying to nail down exactly what it is that you do, I would come on to your website or talk to you by some form of communication. And I want to go on holiday. Yeah, I would. I'm wanting to have a holiday. That is not a Costa, I don't know, something that will impact them something that will lessen the impact on the environment. And you will help me down that route and choose the path that has less of an environmental impact.

03:17
Yeah, less of a negative impact, but will have a positive impact. So, it might sometimes trip or just literally from the money that is generated by tourism. The money goes into, for example, a foundation that then runs projects in destinations, health, education, whatever. And other trips that are a little bit more involved in actually seeing sustainability in action. Other trips are even more involved where it's more system science. So, it just very much depends on the exact supply we'll work with and the destination

03:49
because I was a travel agent and travel back years ago, I really, and I'm trying to liken it to what we did there where people would phone up there. Get the flights and then we book. All the itineraries.

04:04
Yeah, right. In actual fact, I'm not as a model, I'm not a tour operator or a travel agent, I'm more like a marketing platform. So, when people book and the reason, I do that is when people book and I want the bookings to be made directly, so that the money goes into destinations directly. And the destination jobs are empowered with that kind of creative, you know, making itinerary work, etc. And I do get a commission as a result, but it's probably a lesser commission than if I was being an agent. Because what's happened with tourism, industry, and sector as a whole, and the way it's been set up, certainly, historically is. And, you know, for example, if you're in the UK, and you book with the UK tour operator, the vast majority of the money stays in this country, and the vast majority of the sort of potential impact therefore positive impact doesn't occur in destination and I want to turn that around and say You know, they're the people that know the places best. They're the ones who should be empowered with the jobs and the money. Yes, give me a referral fee for marketing and for making people, you know, connecting people through etc. And for those sorts of, what would I call it the curation of these places because I've got to check obviously, that what fits and what doesn't. And, and really where it's coming from where you know, where people would have come to you as a travel agent, because they need help to know what to book, same thing for me. But people are sort of saying, okay, I want a more sustainable holiday, but I really don't understand how, how, what is and what isn't, and how that's determined and how that's chosen. So, I help basically people define and decipher that sort of thing, what they're looking for. And yeah, fit that gap.

05:48
And how do you choose? What's your criteria for choosing because do you visit every single person, I've

05:58
I've been to Sandy, most of them so far. I don't think that's necessarily going to be possible in advance in the future because there's a lot of places to add. And but in actual fact is not necessary. I talked to them all definitely before. And I, I interview them, I don't work on a tick box type criterion. I don't work. So in tourism, in which we're talking about sort of accreditation certification schemes for green operations. There are more than 150 different schemes worldwide. And that's because you get destination-specific ones like Costa Rica or Kenya, you get travel type-specific ones. So, it might be I don't know, and glamping, for example, or something like that. And so, there's this huge proliferation of schemes but in actual fact, there's only probably a handful or two that really any relevance or that you know, really strong enough and hold their own. And, but, as you'll know, with all accreditation schemes, there are Pay for service. So, you get very, very good operations that don't have any certification. And then you get operations that have certification that aren't necessarily that good. And I've done it as a checkbook exercise. So, I don't make the certification part of my criteria. And literally what I look for, on a very loose basis is the world-changing places. And sorry, life-changing places world-changing people, extraordinary experiences. And so, I look at, I will talk to them and I will ask them for their impact reports. So, it has to be evidence-based, I have to see that they are using tourism as a vehicle for sustainable development in some way, shape, or form. The extent of that can be very different because, you know, I work with a fireplace in Kenya, where they have a community of 16,000 Massey that they support through a foundation. And they've done they've built schools, they help them with health projects, they, you know, Medical Center, they bought an ambulance, all these kinds of things. And then I work with a really tiny village, in Nicaragua, where they put in a water system that supports 200 people. So, it's not about the actual scale, you know, it's about the importance locally. And to some extent, obviously, then also the consumer experiences, you know, is it a nice place to stay? And are people going to have an amazing time as well as, you know, be able to positively impact the place they're going to? So that doesn't have to be five stars, some are five stars. Some quite rule. So I work on also on a sort of my backpack level, if you like, sort of volunteering and a couple of places they're not, not many, in terms of volunteer tourism, and because you've got to be quite careful of volunteer tourism. But certainly, I work with a charity out in Madagascar who have conservation volunteers come out, and that's really quite rural in Madagascar bush. Mm-hmm.

08:55
And with the Sustainable Development Goals, the SDGs Yeah. Do How is it you that puts people into which impact they have within the SDGs the different goals or is

09:13
They will tend out. Yeah, they will, they will tend to have projects and they will tend to talk about it. Right now, they would have had projects historically before the SDGs were sort of clarified, I suppose, when, you know, when, when Millennium Development Goals, they use it now more as a structure and as a format to talk about their work. But a lot of these places actually don't talk as public about their work, which is one of the reasons I set up birth changes. For them, it's often very behind the scenes and they're not sort of promoting on that basis. They're just doing it. That's why they exist. It's their reason, you know, reason for being quite often, but it's not necessarily on their main tourism website. And the reason for that is historically is alienated customers to start talking about water issues, or food, food security issues or whatever it happens to be. So, and I thought there was a gap missing for people who are geared to sustainability who want to know all that behind the scenes information, and to actually provide that. And so, yeah, so that's a lot. I mean, I write up really quiet in-depth on my site, what they will do and how it you know, how it fits into the SDGs. And is also on my site, there's a purpose section, which explains almost quite a, you know, it's a big blog for each stroke essay, almost how each Sustainable Development Goal fits for tourism, and how tourism can actually be beneficial to all of them in different ways. So people really understand but then with links out to some of the partners I work with, and so you can very much go Okay, well, that's the theory behind it, but actually, I can go see and experience it at that place.

10:52
And do let's pick on the little backpacking place and Madagascar did they know about the SDGs? Out of curiosity? Oh, they did?

11:05
Yes. But they weren't using it. They weren't using it as a structure at that point in time, but they later have come to do that.

11:11
So, do you find this quite well recognized? SDGs around the world? Yes. Because it's becoming more and more recognized in the UK. So, I'm just curious. I'm just literally curious about how, you know, we can be our little bubble. Um,

11:24
I think. I think it's more recognized than in the UK. It's recognized. Yeah, I think it's recognized in less developed countries more because of NGO links, and NGOs have been a bit more attuned to it.

11:36
That's really interesting. That's really good. Yeah, that's really good.

11:41
And yeah.

11:45
So

11:47
So, I'll give you a moment background if you like, why, why did I do this? Yeah,

11:51
yeah. Well, that's where I was just about to start going on too.

11:56
I am, so I went and travel previously vast Market tourism, so I studied French in international business and took a year out of uni, to work in a ski resort for six months and then travel for six months. And not very much the dumb thing at the time mid-90s to go work in a ski resort, my professors told me I was wasting my career and all this kind of stuff. Very much intended it to be any that year and then realized I love working and travel of the people loved. I mean, the reason I did it, I was a scare and I love mountains and I'm an outdoor person. I'm an I'm a wildlife and wilderness type person. So, I did it for that reason. And so, I ended up working in tourism. And I carried on because actually I learned more than friends into the graduate recruitment programs. As a result, manager for a tour operator I was in charge when in fact a small business unit and off you go, you make it a profitable unit over the course of six months, whatever. And so, I carried on and when I came back from living in the mountains, so I worked summers and winters this thing called the internet had arrived at that point in time in the late 90s. My stepfather was very geared up for it at home where most people weren't because he was a network engineer and I was fascinated because literally not even pages of worked up mountains. So, I was just like, what is this thing and then I saw I got a job it with London's first conference company that we're dealing with internet tech and creating internet tech conferences. So, I ended up working for them for a couple of years. And developing conferences around the world in difficult but different vertical industries including tourism. So how internet technology was coming into the travel industry, and so became quite savvy about the use of internet tech. And then I was sort of pushed back into travel to set up eCommerce systems and web marketing and that sort of thing. So originally fatality tax, which at the time, it was analog TV version, and it was my I was in a small team of four people initially that we had to move that all to digital, and which was brilliant. So, I was in charge of ski initially, and then overseas package holidays. And it was actually through that, that I went on a friend to a friend's wedding in Kenya, and got a cheapy deal through work, and stayed at this all-inclusive. And, and was really presented with the first time. We had a real penny drop moment that this sort of mass industrial model of tourism that really was quite exploitative and was back in front of my face. And oh, this was what I was working. And this is what I was hoping this is what I was creating, in fact, and literally for I mean, it was, I mean, remember the first thing even coming from the airport, the streets were littered with plastic and just realizing Oh, these people don't have anyway. They don't have public services to get rid of this stuff. There's no refuse collection. Got to the hotel, a hotel is very much telling people not to go outside the walls not to talk to local people. And I was there, obviously for a wedding. But I was going on safari while I was there. And I was excited about going to speak to people and go to local bars and all that kind of stuff. And most people just didn't. And most people stayed around the pool, and they were there to eat as much as they couldn't drink as much, they couldn't tan as much as they could, and literally did not know or even care where they were. And for me, that was really shocking. It was the first time I'd really come across it. And this was the world I worked in. And it was the difference between working into the mountain resorts and actually working in the mass package market if you like. And I literally went around and asked everyone why they were there and where they booked all that kind of stuff and turned out most of them are booked for who I was working for. And I thought, Oh my gosh, it's all my fault. This isn't what to me, this was not what travel was about. So that was 2001 2002. And I at that point in time, I mean, it didn't even really have a name, but I would what became known as responsible tourism is ensuring you know, local communities are and the priority for tourism basically. And then the decision-makers and how it develops and how it works. And so, I got more interested in being involved working in that rather than the market I was in. But the big jobs in the sort of tech side of things e-commerce side of things and marketing side of things weren't in responsible tourism. So, for many years, I worked in more mass-market stuff and juggled it with work and sort of pro bono type work on the side. And, and then I went to Africa. I got fed up of commuting and job and all that kind of stuff and thought I want to go back to Africa, did that six months and six months volunteering in conservation out there and also community development and traveling around, really trying to understand what tourism could help with and where it was and where it wasn't. And you know, Southern Africa is amazing for that because there are loads of opportunities but you know, it is sort of the tourism wealth side by side with incredible poverty and health issues and all that kind of stuff. And I just thought this is just so wrong. This is where tourism should happen isn't generally and what's the point of tourism? If it's not going to do that, you know, surely it should be supporting the destinations it's going to because if it's not supporting the destinations, it's going to it's having a negative impact on the destinations and people it's going to, well, it's just destroying itself. Tourism, I think, in my opinion, is probably one of the most suicidal industries I mean, we look at what it's doing. So, I came back from that trip very much committed to only working in sustainable tourism going forward and responsible tourism. And I drunk again with paying the mortgage and doing things like that. But I worked in volunteer tourism for a while and, and I did a master's in responsible Tourism Management. And then I worked in tours and activities for a while and then I worked freelance responsible tourism, but working in and volunteer tourism as well that's a great eye-opener because that really grew a fret, in particular Hurricane Katrina and the tsunami, where people had ultimately there had an emotional attachment to destinations, either because they've been there or they've had family who've been there. And they wanted to help. And so, you had this huge sort of growth in the number of, you know, unskilled volunteers going to places to want to help out. And out of that came various issues in volunteer tourism, which you think are going to be positive, and then they turn out they're actually a negative impact ultimately. So, we now know, you know, there's a lot around animal welfare and sort of being in human contact with animals, but also things like orphanage volunteer tourism. So, in effect, what volunteer tourism has created in orphanages is actually a demand for orphans, and child trafficking. And that's happened in places like Nepal and Cambodia and gone so yeah. Volunteer tourism the demand for wanting to help suddenly created in effective demand for orphanage volunteering, and therefore demand for orphans. And so what, in effect unscrupulous and you know, people in destinations did was in order to get more orphans into dilapidated buildings as they might go out to outlying villages, and they promised parents a better life for their kids, and they literally hand them over and they sign them over for money sometimes. And so, you end up with dilapidated buildings, kids there who've already been separated from their parents that more often than not, not orphans. And, you know, they're literally a sort of tourism entertainment, and but the kids end up with very severe sort of psychosocial issues. And you know, they're just abandoned and might end up on the streets later because they might never be reunited with families, all this kind of thing. So, you know, tourism is a pretty gritty demand for things like that at times and people don't realize, you know, customers, consumers don't realize that you are very good intentions can be creating really, really negative impacts. And people really take advantage and tourism as an industry globally has been very, very exploitative of people in destinations, the resources and destinations, the places, and it's an extractive industry. So and all it does is go to those places and take out and what we've got to do in responsible and sustainable tourism and Sustainable Development Goals, tourism through, you know, that, that sports those are about creating that positive contribution to those places we go to.

20:36
I remember learning I did a tourism degree. Yeah, I remember learning was in the late 90s. That life cycles. I'm the backpacker that goes in and explores and no one's ever been there before and then more and more people start to be going then the hotel starts to build and then more and more hotels start to build. Yeah and mass holiday He's in loads and loads of people, and then people stop going there because they don't like anymore. And he just said this.

21:07
And what's happened now is when, when the British clientele has done that then stops going, it goes to the Chinese and the Russian markets these days, right? And they sort of develop even more, they sit on their own cycle, and they develop even more. And, and then eventually, yeah, places just become, you know, a shadow of the form itself. And we're seeing this with over-tourism now. And it's, you know, over-tourism, really, it was really the first responsible tourism issue, if you like that hit the mainstream travel issues as well. Because before that responsible tourism was kind of seen as a bit of a niche thing. And it obviously isn't, it's about how destinations are impacted. And because it's not a travel time, it is a responsible tourism as a decision-making process, how you run your organization, and making that on a triple line basis rather than just a for-profit basis and the for-profit Decision-Making has resulted in over-tourism, places like Venice, Barcelona, Reykjavik, Iceland, you know, they all suffer from having no-frills flights plus cruise ports Plus, you know the various brands of homestay networks, and it's unregulated. And so, what's happened particularly solo with the homestay networks, is people realize they can rent out properties. And they end up moving out themselves in order to rent out the city center ones because they can get a decent income. And, and then obviously, other times investors come in and buy properties purely for that basis. So, you end up with centers, you know, let's say Venice, beautiful cultural-historic centers, but no local people living there. And what that does is take the whole culture and soul out of the place really, and you just got streets that are absolutely rammed, and an unpleasant experience and you know, safety issues. There's been with Venice and with cruise ships and stuff, because they're, they've been to many boats, they're obviously massive environmental impacts both in terms of the lagoon but also the air pollution, things like that. So, you know, it's a big problem that people are starting to wise up that what responsible tourism really means and what irresponsible tourism it's, you know, it's created, actually it's largely created many, many times by destination governments who have targets on the number of tourists they want in their country. And rather it is about quality of experience or even profitability. It's about they want X number of tourists this year. So, they just drive for volume. And we've got a you know; responsible tourism is about quality rather than quantity. It's about value rather than volume.

23:49
And we fly to these destinations and one of I remember quite early on do you remember the Prime Minister of Mauritius having a round table underwater? Yes, it was quite a long time ago now. And he, and I guess it was quiet, it was very poignant for him to be doing it. Because lorisha says, say, is a destination that a lot of people go, Yeah, I would hazard a guess that their GDP is largely tourism.

24:29
Yeah, exactly.

24:30
Now, sea levels are rising because of climate change. Climate change is happening because of co2 being pumped into the atmosphere. And the aviation industry is probably one of the biggest impacts in that cycle. So where do you see that with tourism because I, I don't know the answer to this, I'm starting to come to conclusions. And I'm listening to the travel industry. And I think that there is a Morph that's going on. And I think we can, I'm just curious to know your thoughts.

25:15
So, the first thing would be to look at the real top line, like you say impacts of what causes the emissions, right? land is the big one, energy use, da, da, da. Tourism, the latest research and to be fair, a lot of this is still quite new, they didn't even have the stats. Tourism used to be thought to be 5% of global emissions. Now they've understood it to be 8% of global emissions. That's tourism as a whole. So that's all transport all accommodation, all tours and activities, etc. Aviation within that as leisure leisure flying, or other flying is about as a total percentage of current global emissions is about two and a half 3%. So Often that's a lot less than people think it's going to be people I think at the moment think it's going to be 50%. And it's not. But the danger we've got with aviation is the demand for aviation is growing is outpacing world economies is outpacing other industries. So, we are if it carries on its trajectory and at the moment it's increasing in its rate of demand growth. We're looking at aviation potentially representing something like 20 you know, potentially 25% of global emissions by 2050 if they got that far. So, you know, what we do is have to look at measures which are, you know, with the UK is just called a 2050 net-zero target, both as a whole but also aviation, and that's looking at how you can change the fuel so it isn't the jet fuel how you can use other technology to be more efficient to not consume so much jet fuel. It's looking at, you know, electric options and things like that they're in development, but they're quite a long way away. But other measures, obviously are looking at sort of fiscal measures to try and reduce some of that demand. And the interesting thing is that consumers are now waking up and you know, there's been the flight free 2020 movement. I think the most important thing to remember is that, as you said, so tourism represents 10% of jobs and 10% of GDP worldwide, somewhere like no islands that are heavy on tourism dependency. Maldives is another good example. They will have 40, 50, 60 up to even I think a maximum of 70, 80% of their income is tourism. So if you stop find some of these destinations, you literally cut off the lifeline of those communities and secondly, conservation in those areas, and it's really I mean, the hard thing for me and you know, is to see places like Madagascar who are absolutely battered by the consequences of climate change. But they've done none of that consumption to cause that problem. The consumption is all by sort of the Western world who are carrying on behaving as they want to behave. So, the answer for me is that we have to reduce our unnecessary flying. I think it's really only in the last decade or two people have really taken flying for granted. And even the last 10 years, it's just grown exponentially, so yeah, we have to look at cutting what's unnecessary flying. We don't need to fly to Geneva and back in a day for a business meeting, if we can do it on Digital tech these days, we don't need to go multiple times, for long weekends to various European cities, just because it's cheap, you know, what we can do is ensure that the places we do go, we are choosing more sustainable options and preferably positive impact options that support communities and conservation. So, it's about a balance. And you don't want to I mean, I've got a concern that those people who do choose to no flights 2020 is that that just means they end up going four or five times six times next year, which is unnecessary. In actual fact, many people who work in sustainable tourism, we've probably been the most conflict to the wall, because it's our livelihood, too. And we know we know the impact it's having, but we also know the positive impact it's having. So, it's very much making sure that you do things that are the positive things and you don't do the things that are the negative things. So, I fly minimally for work, to be honest, and if I fly somewhere, I really want to spend significant time in that destination as long as you possibly can on a holiday. And you know, there are I've got a blog on my website that people can look up. I mean, I do, we didn't talk about that we're do a lot of blogs to sort of help people understand sustainable tourism or with a lot of these stats. And a lot of actions that you can take to be more responsible reduce your carbon, and different you know, the efficiency of airlines differs, the time you fly actually has an impact on your emissions, and the weight of the luggage you carry all these sorts of things. So, you know, people can wise up but ultimately a lot of those things only incremental. And what we really need to do is it's not about massively say, trying to reduce that two and a half 3% of global aviation emissions now. There's big, big problems and fish to fry right now. But actually, it's preventing the growth and it becomes 25%.

31:01
Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. That makes absolute sense. I realized when I said it was the Maldives as soon as you said the Maldives. Yeah, yeah.

31:13
Absolutely. But you know, all of these small island states, they're really suffering. Yeah. And, you know, we've seen sort of world's first climate refugees and things like that. So, it's, yeah, it's tough just working with destinations. It's tough to see that going.

31:28
was saying close to home, there's a village in Wales, that they've been given a certain amount of time, I think it's 2030 or 2050. That they've got to leave their houses. Oh, well, though the Council has already said, you’re not allowed to live here on this date, because you will be underwater, you need to start thinking about where you're going to move to. So, they've suddenly lost all the value in their house. We're seeing it in the UK and where I read a report last night that we're going to be one of the hardest hit, I think from a flooding point of view us in Japan because of North Norfolk, Suffolk and Arizona, just yeah. being brought in, I think probably because we're quite highly populated as well.

32:13
Yeah. And yeah, I mean, I was going to say, what was I going to say? There was a very well-known amazing lodge in Mozambique, and Kobuleti Beach, who I would have loved to have got on my website, but unfortunately, they had, you know, extreme weather last year storms, tornadoes, etc. And the whole lodge was utterly destroyed and the villages it's supported. And they've not been as a result able to rebuild anything. And they're actually setting up a different organization to look at these sorts of climate impacts and things and tourism and to and, you know, potentially fund startups that the creating solutions and trying to help create solutions. So, there's a lot of work going on, but probably not enough or not enough funding in it for sure. And I've actually just recently joined with basically because those of us who are concerned about these things and about managing it properly, you can't manage something properly unless you're open and honest about it and you start talking about the real facts and figures and that hasn't been done really until the last year or two. I mean, I started talking about it three years ago on my website for a travel website to talk about climate change was like the key Matt, it's like no, but this is there it, this is what we've got to address. And so there has been created a movement of travel companies and travel organizations and individuals who are frustrated by the lack of government sort of involvement or any positive moves in that way, have come together to cause create a movement called tourism Declassee and climate emergency We all sign up to a declaration to say, Yes, we care about this. Yes, we're going to be open and honest about this. Yes, we're going to work together. And we're all looking at how can we measure monitor reduce our carbon, and it's up to us, each of us individually to determine what are, you know, promises will be and what we want to do within our own businesses to honor those things. But you know, definitely worth looking at that because they're the forward-thinking companies, there's about 50 at the moment have joined something like that.

34:33
We started off with about five or six of them, didn't it?

34:35
Yes, I was. I was on the first original day. And maybe we even had 10 at that point, but yeah, and people all joining in.

34:46
will come.

34:49
Well, they're so small.

Second Part

36:24
Vicky, thank you so much. And welcome back to the green element podcast. A lot happened since we spoke well, back in February.

36:35
It was Valentine's Day so yeah,

36:37
Everything for free. So yeah, a lot has happened since then. And we decided to put the podcast on hold for obvious reasons. Wow. Um, what are your thoughts on what's happened?

36:50
Gosh, what six months has been! And unfair is not to say it's been a very busy time in the travel industry and a lot of people who outside of travel work don't necessarily appreciate how much works probably had to go on. But initially, everyone was dealing with cancellations postponement rebooking and that's just been going on a rolling basis all year on seeing when you realize actually people can't go next month, not so much for me but certainly for big companies has been a huge thing. And secondly, there's been a load of new protocols written by the world travel and tourism Council. So whether you're a tour operator or an airport or a hotel, they've created protocols which can be you know, followed to help for spatial distancing handwashing, all the various operational issues, and how those translate to any tourism business. The standard operating procedures, so staff have had to learn all those. And obviously now we're starting to see tourism businesses open up and, but It is with obviously, with all those new rules, special distancing, we've got sort of reduced capacity. So, it's been a really challenging time. And tourism certainly being kept on its toes. What we're sort of saying I've written a big blog on that is, you know, so much is dependent on which destination you're coming from and where you're trying to go to as to whether you can do that or not yet, and so much also is dependent on whether you're covered on insurance if you've got bookings, etc. So, it's quite complex what's going on actually, and, and that's unsurprisingly had a huge impact obviously, on sales and on income into destinations on jobs. So, you know, as an industry, and this year is looking, originally the forecast was 60 to 80%. down I think it's more likely to be 80 Plus, and next year, they're looking at probably it's going to be maybe a 50% reduction, or not on previous years, and we're not looking at a sort of recovery until 2022.

37:30
So, now, looking at the way that you traveled, or the people that you took abroad before and the way that we were talking about with people going to specific areas and say, Kenya and working with local communities? Do you think that's going to change somewhat? Or do you think we're going to see more of an input on more of a capacity increase on that and people changing the way that they decide to go on holiday?

39:40
And when I think what we're saying obviously short term is, you know, so much is down to national regulations right now. So we've all internationally seen a massive rise in local regional domestic bookings, if possible, right once those places opened up So, you know, based in the UK here, and we saw sites that, you know, camping, for example, has had an exponential growth this summer, because that's literally what most people could do. Summer was booked out largely because, you know, easements didn't come into play until I think was it early July. So, some of that wasn't already booked got booked up pretty quickly. So, it's an awful lot of people have put on hold travel plans because they weren't able to book anything. And then they thought they'll wait till next summer. And when easements for this country started for Europe, you know, inevitably there's a level of pent up demand and inevitably, that goes to the sort of high popular destination demand places like France, Spain, Italy, Greece, and Portugal. But we've since seen quarantines coming in and even when people you know once they're abroad and then quarantines brought in and they Are learning how to do quarantine when they return. So that has really caused a problem with consumer confidence. So, between what are bookable and what's not bookable and between consumers being really hit with consumer confidence now issues. And I think there's a lot of people waiting on next year to see what they can do. And but inevitably, the rise in demand for future of short, short to medium term is more local, regional, continental, where possible. And in terms of sort of international tourism, it's really very much dependent on national regulations and what happens with regards to a vaccine ultimately. And so, it's interesting because somewhere like the US, you know, you can drive for a very long time in the US before you hit a national border. So, there's probably more movement going on there than there is in continental Europe. And looking at the actual stats of what's been hit in terms of the reduction if you break the overall numbers down into sort of continents, and it's actually Asia, which has been hit greatest, followed by Europe, and the two, the two biggest areas are sort of Northeast Asia, and Mediterranean Europe. And, you know, for us in responsible tourism, that that has quite an impact. And so, for example, even if we were hit, equally in terms of decline, the impact of that decline is greater in some places than others. So, in Western Europe, you know, we are generally developed nations in Northeast Asia. It's caused, I mean, enormous problems there. We think, oh, we can't have our holiday, you know, which is obviously a huge shame. But the real problems in Asia, for example, are literally about tourism, supporting whole communities and jobs and people not being able to feed their families. Now. You know, It's very, very stark. So, you know, I was on a digital conference and with a load within Asia based in Bangkok, and you had the government ministers sort of speaking about what they're planning to do in two, three years’ time, but you've got people on the zoom chat going, Yeah, but what about now we're desperate now and you could feel the desperation. So, it's a real issue. I mean, here in Western Europe, we're very lucky that we have government to offer levels of financial support, if you're lucky enough to be able to get it. And lots of tourism isn't because lots of tourism is SMEs. And, you know, a lot of support hasn't covered that. But I mean, in Asian countries, they haven't got anything like that. So I think, you know, this whole pandemic is actually, I think, highlighted to the whole tourism sector, the importance of responsible tourism, and sustainable tourism, and the whole pandemic creep, and it basically brings us back to ask questions about resilience, and about recovery. And those things are about sustainability. So, you know, sustainable tourism. Now, there's probably an elevated interest in it both from a sector point of view, but also consumers. And consumers realize, I think, I think maybe they are they valued the holidays more, because they've not been able to have one. They valued the importance of travel to destinations. And so, they realize that people haven't got jobs and that they want to go back and support communities. And, and you know, the more we see in the news, which really has only just begun, it's going to continue a lot is both whatever travel company is going bust, and it makes people realize just how much people are dependent on tourism for their livelihoods around the world. And it's huge. So yeah, yeah.

44:48
Did that answer the question?

44:49
I would have thought it would have just been. No, no it did. I think we're just exploring the effects it has had and what where we will go back and you've highlighted some important points with which I hadn't taken into consideration in that it's easier to travel to say France from the UK because of travel restrictions and quarantine measures that are coming in and out. And potentially the flights cost for change as well. I'm flight cost full stop. I guess I'm interested to know that we know that communities are very much dependent on tourism. And you've mentioned Asia, I mean, African countries and the Caribbean and other areas must be also dependent on like that. Yeah. industry because we've seen the welcome stamp in Barbados and other countries as well actually have done a similar kind of nomadic stamp as it were for different types of tourists to come in because they know the normal tourist isn't coming.

45:42
Yeah, yeah. And you know, as a share of exports, and I was looking at this earlier the greatest that has been hit in terms of their decline in export numbers is Turks and Caicos, Macau Palouse and Lucia Cook Islands, Maldives, you know, these are places which might have, I don't know, up to 80% sort of dependence on exports to the tourism and, and as a share of GDP very similar destinations, but also in there is Jordan and Spain and Croatia and Montenegro. So, it's the, you know, tourism is very important to those places, and responsible tourism and sustainability is obviously key and that's what I talked about. But it's also very important those places learn from this and aren't over-dependent on tourism because, you know, that is where it causes real problems. We've never imagined something like this will happen. You know, what I didn't say at the start should have done is 100% of travel destinations according to the UN World Tourism Organization had restrictions and that was in April, that has never before happened in the history of ever, you know, there have been issues before where we've had SARS or Ebola, or, you know, 911 financial crisis. And those issues have impacted particular regions more, but never all at once have we had the whole globe affected by one issue, and, of course, the shutdown of everything. And it's very interesting, because obviously, tourism or other travel a little bit like its relationship with climate change is both a contributor and impacted by it. So, you know, COVID wouldn't have spread so much had it not been for people traveling, you know, and it's the popular travel routes that it's spread through. And, and so, you know, there's a responsibility within that and therefore, we have to shut down. But there's also a responsibility to try and help those destinations which have now been absolutely annihilated by having the shut off of tourism basically. And what we've seen during the pandemic is that responsible organizations in tourism, they're the ones who step up. So regardless of not having a business running, regardless of not having an income, they are still out there helping their communities and supporting conservation. So, they might not be getting tourists income, but they will be, you know, spending out of their own coffers to keep Rangers in jobs to keep anti-poaching units going. There'll be out there with soup kitchens, trying to feed thousands of people in the community who not only might have suffered before, but a suffering who now because they might not have the income that they previously had. So, you know, I've been writing a blog on what some of my partners have done over the Coronavirus time, and, and the level of enterprise and initiative and charity that's shown is incredible to help communities and conservation. You know, So I think it's a real you know, it's a really challenging time, but it's also a real filter, you can really see it, you know, it really separates the men from the boys in his a responsible organization and his not and what they're doing.

49:19
Well, I that's Yeah, I think that Only time will also tell us on what carries on Montez and, and thank you so much for coming back and helping us understand where we see it going. And during these tricky times, I think that it's it is really hard for so many industries and we have to be aware that there are so many and as you point quite rightly pointed out, there are lots of communities out there have been so badly hit and it is a ha if any of our listeners, you know, how can we help What can we do? Have a think about it, talk to people and think responsibly, I guess is what the message we should be giving out.

50:10
Yeah. And you know, if you watch the David Attenborough documentary on extinction, which aired last Sunday from when we're recording, and his final point, which was thankfully a positive one, because it was quite a harsh program, although that's all absolutely the facts was that what has seen a resurgence in species with the mountain gorilla he was talking about is proper, sustainable ecotourism. So, you know, travel and tourism can support the world and contribute, but it has to be done sustainably. And you know, that's my bag.

50:48
So how do we find out more about you? And um, yeah, learn more about you.

50:49
Oh, so, oh, I've got my whole big, long life story on my website. If anyone wants to read and how I came in, because we've missed all sorts of things. I mean, I've ended up working in Africa as arranger various things as well. So exciting life. And the website is www.earth-changers.com. And the name as you kindly commented is about not just the people in destinations that create these places and the projects they work on with their destinations. But actually, consumers by taking these holidays are becoming the earth changes themselves too, because they are contributing through their tourism to actually positive impacts abroad. And social media Facebook is Earth changes travel, Twitter is Earth underscore changes underscore and all of these on their website, Instagram on as well as changes say yes, on you know, talk on a pretty much daily basis about you know, different aspects of positive impact tourism where you can go, you know, some is Yeah, might be talking about conservation one day might be talking about water issues might be talking about food security or waste. So, I do a lot of general awareness-raising and educating, if you like about what sustainable tourism is and how to make it better. Brilliant, and blog.

51:48
Brilliant. Thank you, Vicki, thank you very much for coming back on. And yeah, thank you very much for all your inputs.