09/07/2014Have you ever heard of sustainable tourism? Maybe you had. But what’s also possible is that you aren’t really sure of what it is. A quick search on the Internet can give you lots of definitions of what sustainable tourism is, but all of them agree on one thing: it has little to do with the usual way of travelling.
Let’s start from the beginning. Sustainable tourism appears because of an array of events such as: growing awareness about environmental issues; tourists’ own worry about their impact on each travel; environmental action groups’ pressure on touristic themes; and the tourists themselves are starting to be willing of paying more for products and services of organizations socially committed.
These are worrisome issues, no doubt about it. But to answer the question of “what’s sustainable tourism?” let’s say that it has the goal of establish specific models of tourism for each destination, taking into account each place’s social peculiarities, economic and environmental situation. Moreover, it denounces negative impacts of tourism on the host countries and the fake image that travellers may form of its reality; they reclaim the joint responsibility of tourists, travel agencies, hosts and public institutions supporting these sustainable models. We find ourselves before a new way of understanding business.
At Open Eyes, we believe on the added value of sustainable tourism and the positive outcome it has on the communities we work with. With our ethical fashion project, we’re creating new decent jobs for women in India, thus improving their quality of life and the economic stability of their families. Furthermore, any incomes we receive are equally distributed between our collaborators and us, securing both sides’ sustainable development.
That’s why, at Open Eyes, we carry this philosophy with us for showing India to people that, like you, want to invest in an alternative way of travelling.
