País: United States

Organization: Context Travel

Year the initiative began: 2007

Project Website: www.contexttravel.com

Desafío de Geoturismo en el que trabaja el participante:

Quality of tourist experience and educational benefit to tourists, Quality of benefit to residents for the destination, Quality of tourism management by destination leadership, Quality of stewardship of the destination

Indica el tamaño de tu organización:

Small (1 to 100 employees)

Indicate sector in which you principally work:
Industria del turismo

Indica la actividad principal en la que trabajas:

• History
• Architecture
• Living culture
• Destination aesthetics
• Culinary or agritourism
• Education
• General tourism

¿Cuál es el objetivo de tu innovación? Por favor describe en una oración el tipo de impacto, cambio o reforma que tu enfoque quiere lograr.

Our Sustainable Travel Initiated looks for ways to mitigate the negative impact of tourism on the social, economic, and cultural life of key cities in Europe and the U.S. and educate travelers.

Escribe un resumen de tu proyecto. Incluye cómo tu enfoque apoya o representa al concepto de geoturismo o turismo sustentable. Este texto aparecerá cuando la gente se pare con el mouse sobre el ícono para tu presentación en el mapa localizado en la página de inicio del desafío.

Our walking seminars are designed to include discussion of the impacts of tourism on monuments and the character of the city. Docents (our guides) are trained to advise our customers on the most sustainable way to visit the city after the tour, including patronizing small, locally-owned businesses and using alternative transport. Part of the proceeds from our walks and additional donations are routed through the Context Foundation for Sustainable Travel to cultural preservation projects in these cities, which materially benefit them. The project are often focused on sustaining the character of the city and its local residents rather than museums or monuments. Lastly, the Foundation also runs a travel scholarship for disadvantaged youths, broadening the reach of travel (and its ameliorative, educational effects) to a population that has little access to it.

Describe en detalle porqué tu enfoque es innovador.

Firstly, we operate in cities, which often get overlooked in discussions of sustainable tourism. But large destination cities like Rome, Paris, and New York face serious issues with crowding, tourism management, and the stripping of character through mass tourism. Secondly, because we only work with small groups (our walks are capped at 6 people) we're able to use the power of dialogue and discussion to allow our customers to critically engage with the issues of sustainability and geotourism. Thirdly, our foundation's travel scholarship is completely innovative. It turns the focus of sustainable tourism around on itself. How sustainable is tourism if only the well-off are able to visit far-off lands and cultures? Are we bifurcating our societies into the travel haves and the travel have-nots, and if so does this mean that we're only empowering part of our population with an appreciation and knowledge of other cultures? The travel scholarship seeks to address this and, in so doing, makes travel a truly sustainable (in a whole society sense) endeavor.

¿Cuál es el origen de tu organización? ¿Qué fue lo que motivó el desarrollo de esta innovación?

We began Context in 2002. Years previously I had written several articles about ecotourism for National Geographic Adventure, Landscape Architecture, and other magazines. Some of this work landed me on NG's sustainable destinations panel. One day I woke up and realized that in addition to writing about sustainable travel and working on the topic for NG I was also running my own travel business. So, in 2006-7 we began to look critically at what we do and searching for ways to do it better.
We began with an internal discussion among the docents who lead our walks (nearly 200 scholars, at this point) and held a series of workshops on the issues facing our cities. Drawing on some outside research on the destinations and combining this with the expertise of our scholars—many of whom are preservationists, conservators, and others with specialized knowledge—and the institutional knowledge Context had of its programs and clients, we laid the groundwork for transforming ourselves into a more sustainable organization. Part of this entailed redesigning our programs. Part of it entailed establishing programs, mostly through a nonprofit foundation, to preserve the character of our cities.

Provee una biografía personal. Esta puede ser utilizada por Changemakers para su material de marketing.

I (Paul Bennett) have been a journalist for over ten years for a variety of magazines, including National Geographic. I also co-founded (with my wife, Lani) and manage Context Travel (www.contexttravel.com), a network of 170+ scholars and specialists who lead "walking seminars" of major world cities. We have branches in Paris, London, New York, Rome, Florence, Venice, Naples, and Istanbul. Travel + Leisure magazine has named us one of the top tour operators in Europe.

Describe qué tipos de experiencias turísticas únicas provee tu enfoque. Sé específico e ilustrativo con tus ejemplos.

We believe that our sustainable travel initiative enhances our customer experiences. For example, in Florence, we run a walking seminar of the Oltrarno neighborhood that looks at the history and role of artisans living and working there. A couple of years ago, in the wake of several of these centuries-old workshops closing we held a public meeting with a number of artisans and learned that a variety of pressures—mostly all originating in the acceleration of the tourism economy in Florence—were acting on the artisans and threatening their existence. We asked what we could do, and learned that the biggest problem was that they were losing their apprentices, and thus their long-term sustainability, to other economic opportunities (mostly in tourism). So, the Context Foundation launched a scholarship work-experience program at a local trade school that funnels students in jewelry and other metalcrafts into some of these workshops. Part of the ticket price for our Oltrarno Artisans Seminar goes to support the program. Participants are aware of this, and in the course of the walk they have a chance to meet the recipient of the scholarship and the artisan (the true recipient in many respects). There is also a portion of the walk in which our docents discuss the issues facing the artisans and the efforts being made (by us, and others) to offset this.

¿Qué tipos de alianzas o desarrollo profesional serían más beneficiosos para difundir tu innovación?

We could really use some good consulting and strategic planning from an experienced person in the sustainable travel industry to take this program to the next level. We have local partnerships in each of our cities, from which we derive our projects. But we could benefit from some international partnerships on the business development, fund-raising, and marketing side. We've innovated. Now we need to scale.

Describe el grado de éxito de tu modelo hasta la fecha: Explica claramente cómo mides en forma cualitativa y cuantitativa el impacto en términos del aporte de tu modelo al sostenimiento y enaltecimiento de la cultura local, su medio ambiente, herencia y estética? ¿Cómo tu enfoque ha contribuido a hacer de tu destino turístico un lugar único? ¿Cómo has contribuido al desarrollo del turismo sustentable? ¿Cómo es que tu modelo minimiza el impacto negativo?

Through interviews with our docents and customers we've learned that our geotourism principles have deepened the experience of our walks. In terms of effect, the results have been mixed. Some projects have been very successful. The artisan project in Florence, for example, has been a successful. The student has learned a lot. The artisan was able to train and rely on an apprentice. In Venice, where we underwrote a study of the effects of tourism on the lagoon, the results have also been measurably favorable. That report is finished and is affecting policy in Venice and abroad. The scholarship for the U.S. students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds has also been a success, as measured from reports made by the school and the students.

¿De qué manera los residentes del lugar son integrados activamente a tu trabajo, incluyendo la participación y opinión de la comunidad? ¿Cómo es que la comunidad ha respondido o se ha beneficiado con tu modelo?

I described an example of this above for Florence. There are other cases of direct material benefit on the local level. In London, for example, we partnered with Thames 21 to have some of our customers participate in their clean up programs along the river as part of our Tides of Time walking seminar. In Rome, we've underwritten an important study of the ruins at Ostia Antica, which is leading to further digs, measurements, and changes at that monument, and which has also resulted in bringing attention to what we consider a sustainable alternative to touring Pompeii.

¿Cómo es que tu programa promueve el entusiasmo de los visitantes, su satisfacción e involucramiento con la población local?

This is a key component of our initiative as it relates to what happens during a walk. All of our docents are trained through workshops to respond critically to such mundane questions as "where can I get lunch after this walk" or "how do I get to ...." In each case, we've established guidelines that attempt to steer the clients away from international chains and polluting forms of transport, and towards locally-owned businesses that not only sustain the local economy and character but also offer a more substantial cultural experience. Our customers are all handed National Geographic's Geotourism Principles when they book with us, so that they are thinking in this mode when they arrive.

Describe cómo tu innovación ayuda a los viajeros y a los residentes locales a entender mejor el valor del patrimonio cultural y natural del área, y cómo los educa en cuestiones de medio ambiente local.

In most of our cities, knowledge and appreciation for the cultural heritage among locals is already pretty high. We're more focused on helping them think of new ways of approaching preservation. For example, in Paris, where we held an event at the Ecole de Beaux Arts to raise funds for preserving a chapel there, this was considered extraordinary. On the traveler side, as I mentioned before, this goal of educating the customers about cultural heritage is really the core of our business.

¿Cómo se financia tu iniciativa en este momento? Si lo sabes, provee información sobre tus finanzas y organización: Presupuesto anual, Ingreso anual generado, Numero de empleados (full-time, part-time, voluntarios).

We are a commercial company with about $2m in annual sales. We have three full-time employees, two part-time employees, and two founders (working a lot). We have over 170 scholars and experts who lead our walks.

¿Tu iniciativa es financieramente sostenible? De no ser así, ¿qué necesitarías para que lo fuese? ¿Cuál es la demanda potencial para tu innovación?

Yes, although we're at a critical stage in our development where we need to scale our business.

¿Cuáles son las barreras a las que te enfrentas en el manejo, implementación o replicación de tu innovación?¿Qué barreras impiden a tu programa tener un mayor impacto.

As we grow our sustainable travel initiative will need to grow in tandem. We will reach a point in the not distant future when we will need a single person dedicated to managing and scaling the program. This will be a critical moment. We will need enough revenue to finance it.

¿Cuál es tu plan para expandir este proyecto? Indica cómo harías para hacer crecer o mejorar tu innovación o pedirles a otros que lo hagan.

We would like to have a significant project in each of our cities, so this means expanding from our current three projects to nine. We would also like to expand our internal education program and look for new ways to work with our customers. Since our business is cultural tourism we feel that there are a lot of opportunities for weaving geotourism into our core activities.

Información de contacto
Mr. Paul Bennett
co-founder
Context Travel
2222 Lombard Street
paul@contexttravel.com