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It’s a common dilemma: a traveler planning a vacation wants to be one too responsiblestay at a locally owned hotel rather than a big chain and hire local guides who can take them off the typical tourist route. But how?
Mark Olsen, CEO of Tourism Tropical North Queensland, has a name for these types of travellers: ‘conservation curious’. He describes them as ‘people who are interested in nature conservation, but don’t know how to go on holiday conservation can come together.”
Enter Guardian of the reefa website where people visit the Great Barrier Reef can watch informative videos to get 10-20 percent discounts on hotels or book custom experiences not available anywhere else.
The platform, developed in collaboration with online booking company Expedia, is aimed at travelers who want to spend their money productively, but don’t want to spend weeks online researching every hotel and tour operator.
According to data from Expedia, 90 percent of users say they are interested in sustainable options when traveling.
Some of the bookable Guardian of the Reef experiences include traditional tourism activities such as snorkeling trips and whale watching cruises led by certified, licensed eco-guides.
Others are specifically about conservation: visitors can help restore seagrass, an important habitat for sea turtles, or place “baby” corals on reefs where they can grow.
Yet there are limits to what the site can offer.
“It doesn’t book your flights,” says Olsen, who adds that travelers must also purchase carbon offsets.
Balance between tourism and ecology
Australia has long struggled to find a happy medium between supporting tourists who want to visit and spend money on the UNESCO World Heritage site, and caring for the reef, which has suffered massive coral bleaching events amid global climate change.
According to Statistics Australia, tourism generated $57 billion in the 2022-23 financial year, about 2.5% of the country’s total economy.
Many of the travelers who come to Australia go to the Great Barrier Reef, which at 133,000 square kilometers is about the size of California. It alone is responsible for approximately $6 billion AUD of the country’s total tourism revenue. An estimated 64,000 people have jobs dependent on reef tourism.
Guardian of the Reef tackles some of these environmental issues head-on and recognizes that climate change is the biggest challenge facing the Reef. However, Olsen believes that tourism is an advantage and not a disadvantage.
“There are so many things consumers can actively do on the Great Barrier Reef, but we say the most important thing you can do is see it. We know you’ll fall in love with it, and you’ll be part of it preserving it for the future,” says Olsen.
More and more destinations are asking – or in some cases requiring – that travelers comply with certain environmental regulations during their visit.
One of the best known examples is the “Palau promise,” where the South Pacific nation asked all visitors to pledge in writing to the children of Palau to “preserve and protect your beautiful island home”. The pledge is mandatory for visitors and those who break the rules can be fined. launched in 2017.
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