Responsible Tourism in Cape Town and the world

Guest-blogger, Gerhard Buttner, on responsible tourism in his original home city and web 2.0:

After the rapid massive rise of international tourism in the 1990's, Cape Town is successfully positioning itself as a leader for “Responsible Tourism in Cities” in the 21st century. More on the website: http://www.responsiblecapetown.co.za/

As born Capetonian (though presently living away from my home city) I am very pleased to see Cape Town take this role seriously by focusing on economic, social and environmental aspects of responsible and sustainable tourism. Appropriately Cape Town was the host of the Responsible Tourism in Destinations Conference in 2002 which led to the Cape Town Declaration on sustainable and responsible tourism striving towards creating “better places for people to live in and for people to visit” and a lot has happened since then.

Cape Town will again be in the responsible tourism limelight 14 to 18 February at the 3^rd Responsible Tourism Week organized by planeta.com (the global journal of practical ecotourism ) with worldwide participation - including Capetonians - on web 2.0: #rtweek2011.

Capetonian responsible tourism pioneers, leading thinkers and innovators are also specifically invited to share their stories.

Follow the action at the above links and also watch this blog for follow-up posts.

Green Jobs at micro level in Africa

As occasional guest blogger (after a bit of a break), I wish to share a few links I have come across recently about Green Jobs in Africa on a micro level, triggered by coming across this interesting company merging green jobs with low-impact design and living: touchingtheearthlightly.com

and a pre-announcement for the Green Economics Conference in Cape Town in January 2011.

While at a macro level the topic of Green Jobs is widely debated (see previous entries on Sustainable Options and some information from UNEP), others simply get on with the job of creating green jobs at the micro or local level.

Some interesting examples of creating local green jobs in Africa, include:

• an innovative take on clean energy in Kenya,
• a drinking water solution from South Africa,
• recycling for job creation in Ghana
• and revisiting tourism as a natural, yet often under-performing green job creator.

Gerhard Buttner

H/T planeta.com video, Afrika Tourism

From responsible and sustainable tourism to sports tourism

Looking further into the topic of tourism and development in Africa, Kurt Ackermann looks at some interesting ideas on how to move towards being responsible and sustainable in tourism saying:

"Being green and responsible is good for business, but getting there - and being able to prove it - can be daunting."

Sports tourism - especially in the form of major events - can be another interesting way that tourism can benefit a national economy, but there are negative environmental externalities. How can we deal with them for the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa? How about with a "Green Goal" (as FIFA started promoting in Germany 2006)?

"Topics included Green Goal principles, stadium greening, biodiversity, landscaping and green procurement, green ratings for the hospitality industry, carbon offset, integrated waste management, the Green Point Park and communication."

Photo: Kurt Ackermann from the Ecotourism Africa flickr group
H/T: Afrikatourism