Travelers' Philanthropy Handbook - Center for Responsible Travel

The attendance figures from our two travelers’ philanthropy conferences provide a quick gaugeof the growth in interest in this movement. The 2004 conference had 80 participants, while thesecond in Tanzania had 225 participants from 20-plus countries, and was co-sponsored by 31companies, NGOs, and UN and development agencies. Today it is fair to say that there arethousands of tourism companies involved in ‘give back’ projects.As travelers’ philanthropy has grown, discussions about it have become richer and deeper. The2008 conference examined, for instance, moving from charity and handout philanthropy modelsto selecting projects that promote social empowerment and entrepreneurship; using travelers’philanthropy to address two critical global issues, HIV AIDS and climate change; and bestpractices and bad practices for engaging travelers. “The success of this conference was that itwas not an academic jamboree. Instead, it was a place where actions/experiences were sharedand debated,” commented Gopinath Parayil, founder of The Blue Yonder, an Indian tourcompany.CREST and the Monteverde Institute areorganizing and hosting the 3 rd InternationalTravelers’ Philanthropy Conference in July 2011,in Costa Rica. On the agenda is a new approach- destination-wide travelers’ philanthropyprograms supported with a common fund.Previously, travelers’ philanthropy typicallyinvolved individual hotels or other tourismbusinesses providing support to communityprojects through corporate and visitor donations.While it is clear that these initiatives arecollectively generating tens of millions of dollarsannually, they are uncoordinated andunmeasured in terms of contributions or impacts.Technical High School Farm helps rural youth, EcuadorCredit: Yachana LodgeIn late 2010, CREST began pilot projects with the Monteverde Institute and FundaciónCorcovado in Costa Rica to build destination-wide travelers’ philanthropy programs inMonteverde and the Osa Peninsula. These pilot projects move travelers’ philanthropy to a newstrategic level: one that creates a fund through destination-wide traveler donations that willsupport a suite of carefully selected projects identified as meeting local development andconservation priorities.• Travelers’ Philanthropy and Trends in Travel and Development AssistanceTravelers’ philanthropy is being propelled not only by the growth in individual giving but also bythe growth in travel and shifts in traveler preferences, as well as by shortfalls in internationalgovernment assistance to developing countries. Individuals all over the world are travelingmore, making them a powerful economic force by virtue of sheer numbers. International tourismincreased nearly 28-fold between 1950 and 2000, and is projected to double again, reaching 1.6billion international tourist arrivals by 2020, according to the United Nations World TourismOrganization. 13 Travel and tourism represented the largest single sector of the world economy,contributing, in 2009, 9.2% of global GDP and employing 8.2% of the people around the world13 United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), Tourism 2020 Vision,http://markkit.net/untrusted/unwto.org_facts_eng_vision.htm.html.7