TOFS-19 Dr. HIRAM TING - Responsible Tourism Management and Community Orientation
Okay. Good afternoon, colleagues and friends, and welcome to the number 19 Tourism Online Forum in June 2023. And this series is hosted by the Center for Advance Tourism Research, which called (CATS) at Hokkaido University. This is your host, Mo. Today, we are very honored to have Associate Professor Hiram To share his recent research titled Responsible Tourism, Tourism Management and a Community or Institution. So from the previous lecture in the early of this week, we invited Professor Joseph to talk about sustainable tourism after the pandemic.
So this follow up lecture is actually talk of the more detailed about the new concept of responsible tourism, especially in the focus of the regional community. So Dr. Hiram is a chairman of Sarawak Research Society, also the director of the Center for Responsible Borneo and founder of Southeast Asian Research Academy, also Associate Professor, the Faculty of Hospitality and Tourism Management. UCSI University in Malaysia also Adjunct Associate Professor, School of Tourism, Ming Chuan University (MCU) in Taiwan, and also Professor Chair at the Polytechnic University of the Philippines and a Philippine adjunct professor. University Bandung (UNISBA) I hope I pronounce it right. in Indonesia Basically you are covers the entire Southeast Asia.
Also the ambassador at the Emerald Publishing (East Asia) is Asia and editor in chief of Young Consumers, as well as editor in chief of the Journal of Responsible Tourism Management and also a Panama member of UNWTO panel of tourism experts. So I think today he will mainly talk about the case in in Southeast Asia. Right. And especially with the topic of community engage responsible tourism.
I think according his of track, I think his a really focus on the how to benefit the tourism, you know really more responsible way especially we have to hear obtain the local support and the knowledge and also hearing the local voices. Therefore, we can have a better successful tourism management. And he also summarized six very important key points a single later.
We would like to have heard this from him. And if you have any comment and questions, please put your coming in and in the chat box of the zone. And please note that this online lecture is a record in an will uploaded to the first call me YouTube channel. And so letting Dr. Hiram to share his lecture.
You have the floor. Thank you. Thank you. More sensei.
Good afternoon. Konichiwa. To all of you. Of the listening. It's my privilege to share something which is close to my heart with all of you. It is not only my work, it is also my passion.
So when I do research on responsible tourism, when I and my colleagues do things related to responsible tourism, it is the passion that drives us to persist, to persevere, to see it through. So this is not an expert talk. I don't think this is a lecture as well. Rather, it is more like a sharing session.
I hope you'll find my sharing useful and I will be more than happy to receive any questions, even comments and feedback from you so that we can learn from one another. All right. So I will start sharing my slides. I hope you can see my slides.
All right. So this presentation or sharing is based on a paper which I coauthored with my colleagues. One of them is from Malaysia. Another person is from Indonesia. Even though the paper is published in a journal, it doesn't mean the work is done.
In fact, the work only just began or it is still in the process. Again, I appreciate the introduction from Moses. So basically I'm a person who is, how should I put it? I'm everywhere in in the past. Yes, I was fully in academia, but after some time I began to realize that I need to learn things from the industry.
I need to learn things from the community. Even though I publish papers. I also become aware that we need to be able to translate knowledge into practice. We need to be able to mobilize knowledge into practice. So this is why on one hand I'm in academia. On the other hand, I'm also involved in some local, regional or international organizations.
So I relate. When we talk about research, we are three journalists, which I edit directly, one of them as more since they introduced earlier. It's called the Journal of Responsible Tourism Management. It is a three year old journal. It is a relatively new journal this year.
Early this year we submitted the Journal to Scopus for evaluation. Fingers crossed, we hope it will be evaluated in a favorable way. Another journal is called Young Consumers. It is also a Scopus, a journal. It is rank Q1. Now, even young consumers might not be directly related to responsible tourism, cultural tourism.
Yet it welcomes papers, manuscripts related to tourism. As long as our target the respondents, the population's concern related to young generation. So it is a journal that welcomes papers from various disciplines. As long as the focus is on young generation, including children and teenagers. The next journal is called Asian Journal of Business Research.
It is in Scopus Rank, Q2. Similarly, tourism and hospitality are part of business ecosystem. So these are the journals which I did.
I have more say. So if you have any papers related to responsible tourism, related to young people related to business as an ecosystem, do consider these journals. All right. I'm conscious of my time, so I better start sharing what I prepared for all of you.
I'd like to begin with this. We talk about sustainability all the time. It becomes a buzzword, nothing, you know. This is a really important issue. UNWTO sorry, United Nation came up with a SDGs.
I believe it was 2015 as a global movement for us to practice sustainability in the local context. Now when we look at what is happening now, especially after COVID 19, traveling remains a very important activity. So when you think about tourism and hospitality is not just a discipline for tourism and hospitality students and scholars.
In fact, everyone experiences tourism. Everyone experience experiences traveling and hospitality services. We need to go to restaurants. We need to eat. We need to stay at a hotel when we travel.
So if you look at the screen, traveling often creates a huge amount of waste due to a sink due to single use disposable items. I think we all know that consumers are becoming increasingly aware of this issue and want to find ways to reduce the environmental impact during travel. So this is also a trend. Consumers are becoming more aware of the environmental issues.
Sustainable travel products allow customers to feel confident that they make informed decisions with regard to the environment. So many destinations, hotels, they begin to provide more information so that customers can make informed decision. How many, How much carbon emission wood would they be? What you can do in order to preserve the conserve the nature. So these are things that many businesses practice to inform customers and some customers or more and more customers, they begin to read about the destinations before they go. Because information is available online, they can read about the place to learn about the culture, so they can make informed decision when to trouble. However, I think this is something, again familiar with all of you.
We are aware of the misuse of the word sustainability in many, many cases. That's why, as I said earlier, it becomes a buzz word to portray or to present the organizations in a favorable manner. We used to want greenwashing, so that becomes a problem. So not every business that adopts the word sustainable, sustainable, or green is practicing sustainability.
If you look at the statistics, 70% of travel less. They want to travel sustainably. Again, this happened during COVID 19, but only 10% of them say that they know how to do this. So yes, in general, we all agree that we should travel sustainably. We should not waste, we should not use single use. This is disposable item, but we should reduce using them.
The issue is only 10% actually know how they could practice sustainability when they travel. So it's difficult for consumers to know which business are truly taking the required steps to be more eco friendly, to practice eco friendly measures. So my last point is, is something that I would like to present to all of you because towards the end of the slides you will feel that my sharing gives you more questions than answers. This is that's why earlier I mentioned I'm no tourism expert.
I may share with you some experiences. It doesn't mean what is useful in sidewalk is applicable to where you are Hokkaido or any part of the world. So all this sustainability issue, lack of awareness, lack of know how becomes a concern.
At the same time, it also presents opportunities for research just for us to do more. As I mentioned earlier, how can we mobilize knowledge into practice? Our work does not stop at publication. It actually goes further than publication. So that is what we like to do. This is what I like to impress all of you. Now, during COVID 19, we talk about crisis.
My question is, was tourism in crisis before or during the COVID 19 pandemic? Most people would say tourism was in crisis because of COVID 19 pandemic. You know, nothing wrong with it. But if you look deeper, if you go deeper, I would like to argue that tourism was already in crisis even before COVID 19 transpired, because COVID 19 exposed our situation. COVID 19 exposed our problems, and COVID 19 taught us many lessons. For example, no one is safe until everyone is safe.
Why? Because on one hand, we need all the health measures. We need all the safety protocols in order to, you know, address, navigate the concerns of COVID 19. However, if no one complies all these particles and measures, they will be useless.
And the challenge is, if one person fails to comply, it will become a problem. That's the lesson we learned from COVID 19. Everyone is safe, not sorry. You know, when when when no one is left alone, when everyone is safe, then only we will be safe. And it only takes one person to be responsible to cause another outbreak of COVID 19.
I think, if I remember correctly, there are cases in Vietnam. There are cases in India where people, you know, they they relaxed too soon. Their so-called COVID was over. There was no local transmission. Not long after that statement, it only took one person or a few people to cause another outbreak. My second question What were the predominant perceptions towards tourism recovery? So when people talk about tourism recovery, for many tourists, maybe they are they were referring to what they can do, which they can do during COVID.
You know, in the past, we travel to so many places due to COVID, we can't do it anymore. Therefore, tourism recovery means when COVID is over, I can start doing what I did before. If that is the case, God forbid, there will be no surprise that there will be another crisis because again, like I said, health measures, safety protocols, all these are still necessary. But the bottom line is people must comply.
Everyone must learn to comply. Compliance is a matter of action. Compliance is a matter of behavior. And this gives rise to the need of responsibility. So to explain responsibility in simple words. Responsibility is about taking action.
Responsibility is about behavioral change. We have law leaders coming together. They talk about all issues, including climate change, including, let's say, human trafficking issues, woman empowerment issues. They shake hands, the tech guru photos, all these are wonderful.
At the end of the day, what matters is whether they assume responsibility to make things happen. That is the core question. So when we look at what responsible practices are, you can find a lot of answers, a lot of guidelines, a lot of best practices from online.
So I will not go through all this. Like example, if you look at this like responsible travel industry practices, know what are the responsible practices you can do? What about travel business? Two months ago, my apology because I caught a flu yesterday, so my voice is a little hoarse. This is not my usual voice.
Two months ago, I was in India. That picture was in India. It was an invitation by the Indian government to talk about responsible tourism and sitting with me.
All of them are business. Please accept me. I'm from academia. But of course, I begin to work with businesses and communities, but I'm not really into business. So this is something that they come up with. Of course they are more than that. What business can do to promote responsible tourism.
The person who's who, who are standing, who is standing in the picture is Professor Harold Goodwin, my friend. He is the person who, for us, who was instrumental to declare responsible tourism in 2002 in Cape Town. So this is a serious conference. What we can do and how we can advance responsible tourism. So responsibility is not only about tourists, it's not only about visitors.
It's easy for us to point fingers at the visitors. You know what they should do? What they should not do. Do's and don'ts. What about businesses? Businesses or business entities also have an important role to play to promote responsible tourism. And this is also the reason why, if you look at my title, it is about responsible tourism management. So it's not just a topic for. For us to do research on.
I mean, research is important. Responsible tourism is also about management. How do we manage? For example, we talk about over tourism. We talk about must tourism. Should we point fingers at the tourists? Should we point fingers at the visitors? Or should we instead ask, Why must tourism happens? Why overtourism happens? It could be due to management. It's not the fault of the tourists.
It's because of the management. So things have to be done in such a way that you promote responsible tourism, you encourage responsible tourism. And if you look at the last point, there must be guidelines how responsible tourism can be practices.
Now, when I keep saying responsible tourism, tourism, tourism, a lot of people were saying that, you know, these are all tourism activities. But what about all this? If you look at the pictures, animal abuse, you look at another picture, land few, another one, climate change, another one, children, abuse or manipulation. Now, these four things, for example, seemingly have nothing to do with tourism.
Okay? When we are when we talk about tourism activities, we don't really talk about all these issues. But when we talk about responsible tourism, tourism is no longer a goal. It is not just a goal.
It becomes a social movement, a process whereby we can manage tourism in such a way that it can reduce, it can reduce negative effects. It can also maximize benefits for the society, for the community. Okay. So later on, I will use a case in Sarawak to explain why responsible tourism is something that all of us have to be mindful of. It is not just for scholars, for practitioners in tourism, it is for every person, because we are all involved in tourism and hospitality industry. This these are some research done in the past related to responsible behavior.
Feel free to, you know, have my slides if you find them useful. So I will I will not go to everything. But research in the past shows when we talk about responsible behavior, it could be they are many facets. It could be something individual, it could be something organizational, it could be something general, it could be something specific, it could be something intentional, it could be something unintentional.
And lastly, it could be something in the public sphere. It could also be in something in the private sphere. What I to impress you here is responsible tourism can be seen at a micro level.
It can also be seen at a macro level. Micro level. It means that all of us individually can do something in a responsible way. At a macro level, it means we need to work together as a unit in order to make a greater impact on others.
So it is not just something that world leaders talk about in in Congress in Summit. It is also something that you can discuss with your children, you can discuss with your parents, you can discuss with your neighbors what we can do to contribute to our society through tourism as a means. So like I said, you can look at the article, what this is all about to, you know, put everything into perspective.
Professor Harold Goodwin came up with this short statement. Responsible tourism is about making better places for people to live in and better places for people to visit. This simple statement shows that responsibility is not only with visitors, customers, it is with every stakeholder in the tourism industry. And another point. It is about taking responsibility. Taking action to make tourism more sustainable.
Not the last. The second statement is important. Responsible tourism is not another tourism label. It is not another tourism product.
Responsible tourism is not competing with sustainable tourism. Green tourism. Regenerative tourism. It is not. I am not sure. But others who do research on responsible tourism, as far as I'm concerned, it is not even. It is not just a label.
It is not a product. Responsible tourism is a message. It is a call to action. You can talk about eco tourism. How do we manage our ecological environment in a responsible way? We can talk about gastronomy, tourism. We can talk about cultural tourism.
Heritage tourism is the same thing. How do we preserve our cultural heritage in a responsible way? So it's not a competition. It's not a replacement.
This is why I don't really like articles that argue you. You know which one is better, which one is superior. For me, this is not really the essence.
The essence here is it is a call to action. We it requires behavior change individually. It requires collective actions at the corporate level. And because responsible tourism concerns, behavior change and collective actions, we need to know what are the priorities. For example, we talk about SDGs, sustainable development, goals, all 17 goals are important.
But in your place, which one is more important than the others? The reason is because our resources are limited. We don't have all the all the resources in the world to do everything. So we need to consider the context of our destination. And we need to consider what are the priorities.
And when we talk about collective action, if you look at the second point, it revolves around ideas of trust and respect. We may have the political will to cooperate. We mesh hence. But at the fundamental level, do we really trust one another? Do we really respect our differences? That would be the fundamental thing to our long term collaboration. And when we talk about sustainable tourism more often, we emphasize more on how negative effects could be reduced.
But what about positive benefits? For example, I have a friend. His name is Jaideep Biswal, the CEO of Global Himalaya Expedition in India, in Himalayan area. So what they do is for those who like to explore for Himalaya, they encourage them to adopt some responsible practices, for example, that can bring some supply to the community who live in Himalaya. When they explore Himalaya upon returning, they can bring some rubbish, some waste. So during the expedition they can actually bring benefits to the local people. So it's not just about minimizing negative effects, it's also about how you use responsive tourism as a means to maximize benefits.
I hope you get the point. So this is why businesses play a big role to design the business activities in such a way that not only it reduces negative impacts, it also maximum positive benefits. All right. Now, this brings me to the last point, which is the focal point of this presentation. It concerns taking pragmatic approaches that as stakeholders. What it means is everyone needs everyone has a role to play.
And because of the responsibility, everyone, including community members, becomes equal partner. Now, when we collaborate, it doesn't mean that everyone is equal partner. Someone plays a bigger role, someone play a lesser role. But when we talk about responsible tourism as a means, everyone becomes equal partner. Government has its role. Private sectors have their roles.
Universities. Researchers have their role. Community has its role.
And it is a process where we can work together not only to address negative issues, but also to create values to benefit the wider audience. I hope you are still with me so far. Now, this is a simple diagram which we are still developing. It is still ongoing, but I can show you our results. This is what I mentioned earlier.
If you look at it, three words in red. What is important and secondly, which is urgent. And thirdly, how significant it is. The reason is because while there are so many important things, not everything is urgent. And if this is important, if this is urgent, we also need to ask whether it is significant in long term. Okay.
So typically, when we talk about important, we used to what? How much? When we talk about urgency, it is about how soon? When we talk about significance, it is about how long. And that's where sustainability is lacking. This is also why many of us, including myself, are concerned that we adopt the word sustainability in a very loose way. It is an abstract. It is. It is still an abstract thing.
Without clear steps, how to actually achieve it. So and if you look at the blue part, we need to identify who other stakeholders. Who is responsible for what? So everyone has a role to play.
What role they assume. And like I said, what are the priorities? Because we have limited resources. And finally, we have to look at the context. What is important in Sarawak may not be important in Hokkaido. What is important in in Barbados, for example, climate change is not necessarily important.
Another place. Now, it doesn't mean climate change is not important. It simply means when it comes to action, we need to plan in a pragmatic way because we need to consider the resources that we have so that we can play a role to country build to a greater cost. Okay, so my apologies.
Naomi tweeted. So if you have any questions or feedback, just let me know what and why of responsible tourism. So this is a paper I wrote with my colleagues some time ago.
Nothing fancy, but it emphasizes why it is about taking responsibility, taking actions, and it concerns every stakeholder. And this might also help explain. Why? I said earlier that responsible tourism is not just about the goal that we achieve. It is about the process that we go through. So responsible tourism or tourism can be used as an effective vehicle to drive social change to to elevate economic growth, to sustain environment.
When tourism becomes a vehicle, this is where every person becomes relevant. This is where every person becomes an equal partner. You may you know, I have friends, engineers. I have friends who are doctors. I have friends who are teachers, not tourism teachers, but let's say history teachers when tourism is used as a vehicle to drive social change.
All of them become relevant because they travel, because they stay somewhere, because they eat food. They have children. They need to make sure the next generation learns the lessons. So if you look at the last statement, it's not only about growth, it's the process.
If not more irresponsibility is more than often the costs. As I said earlier, this is one thing that we learned from the the outbreak of COVID 19. What about SDGs 2030? In all honesty, do you think we could achieve SDGs by 2030? Some say, well, not, some, many say we want. And they argue we won't even achieve by 2050 at the rate things are going, we are improving. There are many positive things happen, but the pace of achieving all this is not what we expected in the beginning. Some even say by 2070, some even say I read somewhere by 2090.
I don't think, well, I won't be around to witness all this. So the last sentence. Responsibility is what sustains tourism and future proofs its development. Okay, So again, responsible tourism is not a is not just a label, It's not a tourist is not another tourism product.
It's not something that I like to do to make myself different from others. No. As I said earlier, it is more about passion that drives me to do this because I see this as a way, an alternative to bring different people together for common good, for a greater cost. Everyone is equally important.
These are pictures in a place in Sarawak. In Borneo Island. This place is called Boat. So if you go to this place, if you look at the scenery, is all beautiful or nice. But if you take a closer look, you see all this? You see all this.
Ironically, even the same boat put up by the authority is vandalized, is vandalized. No, this is a place about it's a place which is well-known because of its mining activities in the past. Gold mining. Now, even though mining activities are restricted, it is prohibited.
It is a function that they are many illegal miners doing all this, and they are very clever. When we were there, there were nowhere to be seen. When we left, they appeared. If you go into the caves, you see many holes.
These holes are where they put some explode explosive in order to, you know, extract minerals from all these places. I often told my friends these illegal miners are so creative they could be the descendants of Egyptians when the pyramid. Because if you went in, if you go into the hole, you are just amazed how they could dig all the tunnels.
Layer upon layer. One time when I brought two geologists to these caves, one of them told me at the mouth of the cave that he does not want to go in because looking at how the cave is, he said, this cave, this one particular cave can collapse anytime. Now, what can we do? This is also an area protected by the Forestry department. This is this is an area populated by community members. But community members cannot enter the place. Why?
It is a protected area. Can you see the dilemma? And when community members are empowered to safeguard the place, this place becomes the paradise of illegal miners. The enforcement officers, You can say whatever you want.
If you don't stay there, you know you will not be able to address these issues. Like I said earlier, when we are there, they disappear. When we where we live, when we left, they appear and they do all these activities every week when not recently, but in the past. When we visited this place on a weekly basis, we could see the difference in the cave, meaning the activities were rampant, were rampant.
Now, what has this got to do to tourism? This is exactly my point, and this is why we look at responsible tourism. Why? Because in order to address this issue, we use tourism as a means to address this issue. Now, if the authority cannot address this issue, who am I to address all these issues? I don't live there as well. The illegal miners are very smart. They know where to hide, what to do. And let me make things more complicated.
If there is supply, there must be demand. Right. And this is why this issue is very complex, because of the demand side. Demand side. I better not elaborate on this. So is something very sensitive, very controversial.
If you deal with this matter directly, it will be a big challenge. Now we use tourism as a means. What it means is let us develop this place as a tourism destination. Let us work together with the enforcement officers, with the community members, the enforcement officers.
We still need them to enforce laws and we bring community members to meet the enforcement officers. Why not? We allow, the community members, to take care of this place at the same time? And why not? We develop this place as a tourism destination. Now, it does not solve the issues immediately, but what happens is it begins to reduce illegal mining activities. So enforcement officers do their job. Community members, they become the custodians of their own backyard, even though it is a protected area.
At the same time, it becomes a tourism destination. Visitors can visit without permission. So I hope you see the picture. Why? Early on, when I talk about human trafficking, animal abuse, land, few something that may not concern tourism directly, but when tourism is seen as a process and when we manage tourism in a responsible way, not only it reduces negatives, it also brings benefits to the people. So So these are the things that we do, and all these points are in the paper, which I will share with you briefly later.
This is a project we proposed to the government some years ago. The proposal, the project was eventually approved and we received some funding for this project. But what happened next is we put the site. The objectives of the project. When we went to this place, the first thing that we do, we wanted to make friends with the local people. So even though we have a project approved by the government, we decided to put all these objectives aside.
First, we wanted to be we wanted to make friends with the community leaders. The community members, and we spend more time listening to the voices. If we when they telling them that, look, this is a project by the government, these are the objectives and therefore let's do it.
All of you must listen. I will not say that this is incorrect. I could only comment on what we do. What we did.
And that is when we started the project with communication with the community leaders, the community members, it makes the whole process a lot easier and it makes the whole process a lot more satisfying. When we approached them, one of them asked me this question Are you coming here because of Grant? You know, indirectly he's or she is already hinting me you may disappear when the grant finishes so that they they on one hand appreciate our work. On the other hand, they are wondering whether we are genuinely caring for them. So this this would be my first point. Effective communication. How we communicate with the community, in particular community leaders.
Because they are not just they affect community members and not only one time communication. We visit them again and again and again and again to ensure that we earn the right for them to trust us. Okay. How how did we know? After several visits, they began to tell us things which are not written. They began to take us to places which are not explored, which are less explored. That shows they begin to trust us, and that communication becomes the foundation for us to do the project funded by the government.
So if you know, if you need more detail, I can share with you later. But in general, this would be the first thing. And number two, we approach the local authority and we want to form partnership with them.
When we do that, we do it with the support from the community members. If we go there as researchers, they respect us as research because we are someone from university. But when we go there with the support from the community leaders and community members, it will be more prevailing. It will be more probably. So it is a collaboration between researchers and the community leaders.
Community members. We have the voice and the voice is channeled through us as academics in a scholarly manner, in a more convincing manner. So this is how partnership is for we don't tell our story. We tell the stories from the communities. Yet the communities have problems, or I should say, problem Sometimes they are limited in expressing those stories, uttering those terms.
So we do it with them for them in order to make it more presentable to the government. Next point, we develop it to interrupt. You have ten more minutes as FIFA already audience raise up their hand. But please wait for 10 minutes to to ask the question.
Okay, so thank you both and say, okay. So next point is community capacity building program, communal activities, training. If you look at the pictures meetings with the community leaders to build the capacity, how they do business, how they develop the place, this one particular place, not in the picture, it's called Baku Maize Garden, is a place which was not at all, but where we explore this place together with the community leaders, community members. This place now becomes one of the very popular sites in San BLOCK. No entrance fee, but the donation that they receive from the visitors exceeds the entrance fee, which we initially planned because people are willing to donate when they see the place and when they realized that this is a place developed by the community members voluntarily not only enjoy the place now they can promote responsible tourism.
At the same time, so they receive donation to maintain the facilities to improve the place. Another point is elderly consultation. This might surprise many people. I believe this is the phenomenon in Japan as well. Of course, in Sarawak is less serious but is becoming more and more serious and that is in rural areas, in villages.
The aging issue. Young people don't stay in villages and elderly. They do nothing. They just do a bit of gardening because, you know, they are old, they can't do much. When we went to this place, we we approached these elderly people and we told them, all of you are our national treasure because your age, because of you, you represent what this place is about. So we spent time with them, interviewing them in order to document all the stories from them.
One elderly, he was almost moved to tears because no one cares about me. Suddenly, this group of researchers, they wanted to know everything about me and my experience in this place. So that become a life. They represent the identity of these villages. So that's why we used the national Treasure.
National Treasure Woman Empowerment in businesses, housewives. This is something that we are more familiar with. And last but not least, school engagement. So we engage schools because young people have to be empowered in order to safeguard their own place. One day they may go elsewhere to study, but we want to instill that values into them with the hope that one day they see opportunities in their hometown.
They see opportunity. These they have the sense of mission to return to where they are from in order to make a contribution to their own place. So I could only tell you so much. So this is the paper that I wrote and we came up with the model, but this is a paper for responsible tourism in Southeast Asia. Sorry, this is the paper.
I would like to highlight. So if you find this presentation useful, maybe you like to read more, get more details from from this paper, and we come up with a diagram for peace process, partnership platforms and people. Elderly woman and school. These three belong to people. That's why you have a bigger pie platform is the program.
The activities that we create and partnership how we partner with the local people and also local authorities. Why anti-clockwise? Because of how the earth rotates. This is the way we can move faster. How it is by involving community in our decision making process.
Community has to be in the frame of truism of development so that the cultural heritage is conserved. The elderly, the woman are empowered, the children that young people are engaged. Again, this is the way how we involve every person as equal partner. And this is also a way for us to manage tourism development in a responsible way. I hope I could use the last few minutes to introduce a few things to you. Number one, this is a journal which it is called Journal Responsible Tourism Management.
Professor Hara is one, the advisory board members. So if you have any journal, so if you have any paper related to sustainability, green issues, regenerative tourism, perhaps this is an avenue for your publication. Let know. Let us know if you need more information.
Like I said, young customers is another avenue. Asian Journal Business Research is another avenue. I have I, I have a few special issues. One of them is with Dr.
Aron and others. I checked with him. Unfortunately, this special issue will end by June. End of June. It is a special issue with June of heritage tourism. If you have a paper looking paper which is about ready, you might want to consider this special issue for your publication.
We also write a lot of papers which are nonacademic. But again, because of the mission that we have, we let more people to read our work. So we also published in newspapers, magazines. All these do not contribute to my KPI, but in which the message reaches to the wider audience. Some events that we do to empower the young people.
So this is one of them about youth talent, responsible tourism in culture and nature. If you look at the blue boxes, more and more students participated. This is a conference which will happen in Bogor, 21st or 25th of August. I hope more sensei can join. I also give you the map where Japan is and where this venue is and where you fly to Indonesia.
You will pass by sidewalk where I stay. So let me know if you need more information about this conference, because this is a conference not only for Academy. You we invite academy, we invite industry, we invite government officials. And also we invite community members. All of us come together, use this as a platform to harness partnership, to learn from one another. And whatever we discuss, not only we shake hands, not only we take group photos, we hope it builds connection for things to happen, to let things happen.
This is another platform in Southeast Asia. This is where we call on people and showcase short stories about responsible tourism in Southeast Asia. The reason is because many people of the Dong region articles too long, too complex. What about short stories? 300 to 500 words in different places in Southeast Asia to inspire people, to motivate people and hopefully to connect people, including all of you in Japan. So this is another innovative approach that we do to connect. I believe this is my last slide things to ponder and discuss.
Therefore, I rest questions instead of giving you solutions. So these are things that we can sing and we can always discuss for that, number one. How do we design strategies which are actionable individually and collectively? It is responsible.
Tourism is something at a micro level. It is also something at the macro level, something which all leaders talk about, something which students can talk about and can practice immediately. Partnership between public and private sectors. Partnership between academia and industry. Decision making involving community in the frame.
Do we look for them all? We work with them many times. Public or private sectors may argue we do it for them, but we actually don't involve them in the decision making process. If we treat them as equal partners, we should be working with them.
Number five, seeing tourism as a driver, a vehicle, a process, a social movement for greater costs. Therefore, everyone is important. Everyone becomes an equal partner. The last two points after sharing on this, I hope it is clear that responsible tourism is about management. How we manage tourism is a responsible way to sustain tourism, to future proof our tourism development. Last but not least, responsible tourism is about behavior.
Change is about taking actions. Therefore, human values play a big part. We trust one another. We respect one another.
Even though we are different. Outwardly, our differences should become our strength to work together, to utilize to capitalize on our differences for a greater cost. Respecting the elders respecting the nature. Working with people with diverse background. Yes, we can argue, but we don't. You know, we don't hold any grudges against one another.
So these are the values that we need to hold onto. We are concerned, especially when we are moving into deeper into digital era, technological era. A.I. What about human touch? What about human values? Sometimes I look at my kids. They are on their phone all the time, watching hand phone less social activities.
So these are things that all of us should look into. So I think I will stop my presentation here. My apology. I did not bite my time too well, but I'm happy to listen to any comment, any feedback from you over to you.
But the more you have around, since I thank you very much and especially one you asked, your throat is not very comfortable. So there is a one participant arise out of the hand. Should I allow you to talk? If you know the question, please also leave the question in the crunchy box. Okay. Maybe I will start a question first. If other people are not ready thinking before I think back to two or three years ago, there is the book about responsible tourism and it's kind of summarize a lot of the case study in Southeast Asia.
Also, your journal is about responsible tourism. I'm quite wondering, is this term very popular in developing regions, especially in in the Asian Pacific, or is it quite a global kind of tourism moment? Also cover the global north country, but this term is not very popular yet. Yeah. Yeah. I'd like to know your comments about this.
Yeah. Yeah. Responsible tourism research is not new. It has been around for two or three decades. But like what you said, it is not a popular term. And also it is something that put more emphasis on action.
So you can do all the research that you need, which is necessary. Like I said, at the end of the day, it's about putting words into action. And this is also why it is less popular in a sense. Sustainable tourism or sustainability is a is a big word. Is a big word. It is something very popular in everywhere but in Southeast Asia, less people talk about responsible tourism.
But I like to say more and more people are becoming become aware of it again, not just because it is a research topic. Instead, it is a social movement that all of us should be involved. So this is my response to you. In terms of research, I'm not sure what how it would develop over time.
Of course, one thing that I did three years ago, as you mentioned earlier, we started the Journal of Responsible Tourism Management. I'm aware that at the last year of Journal of Hospitality Tourism Research, Jetstar also has a special issue on responsible tourism. So it seems that more and more people are becoming aware of it.
And my early argument is that for me and my colleagues, we are not really into the nomenclature. The the debate over responsible tourism is rather it's more about translating knowledge into practice. Hmm. Yeah. Okay. I have another follow up question. Is actually in Japan, there is also new cases of what they call themselves responsible tourism after COVID 19. I also find one case study from Hiroshima that tried to allow tourists who visit those less visited areas now reevaluate the local shrine story and developing a hiking course, especially, they try to raise some fun with tourism and people and also involve community members.
So I think it's quite a global phenomenon. It's not limited in some region, especially not everybody talk about our stages, but no, not a people's thing about what is the more responsible. Like you said, it's not just about visitors. It's also about people who live in there, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right. If you look at response, people travel as an isolated or individual topic, then you will find a lot of information online. So people have been talking about responsibility, responsible travel, What you do, what you should not do.
If you Google using these keywords, if you use activity using these keywords, I'm very sure what your response, what responsible practice practices are in hotel in Western you you have you have a list of all these practices. Like I said, all these are related to actions and these are things that you can do now rather than goals that you want to achieve. So SDGs goals, of course, it also implies what you need to do now. So yeah, so it's not new in a sense, but to look at responsible tourism in a holistic manner beyond on travel activities, as I mentioned earlier, I link it to human trafficking, I link it to children abuse, child abuse, then this is something that requires more research and we also need more stakeholders who can take the lead to show that tourism can be used as a means for greater costs. Okay.
Thank you very much, Esther, which our faculty members and students could rise up. Some questions. I think it's very, very interesting topic and also quite fresh data from both research as well as industry. So is there any questions? Please raise up your hand. But is there a question? Any Q&A? Let me check thoughts on how to thank you for your excitement, the lectures.
Thank you. The COVID through COVID crisis, we see how tourism is vulnerable to natural disaster. You are absolutely right. So now I wonder.
Promoting tourism is a good way not to develop our economy or stop social issues. I would like your opinion. Thank you for the question or comment, because this is something that I and my colleagues strongly advocate as well. For example, in Sarawak, we promote culture, we promote events, we promote food, we promote festivals. What we should do now is let us promote all these products through the lens of responsible tourism.
So yes, you can still promote tourism, but right now our mission becomes more noble because what we promote all these products, we also deliver the message about our responsibility. So not only people visit the place because of promotion, people also know what they can do for the community when they visit a place. Last week, 50 lecturers and students from India visited The place that I show You just know about. Initially, the program was designed by a travel agency, so they just visit all these places.
When I have itinerary. I told my faculty members, I told the travel agent, Let's change a bit before the visit. This cave and that place. Let them meet, the community leaders and community members. So when they visit the leaders, when they visit the members, then you know that communication and that connection makes the visit a lot more meaningful and memorable. If I want to visit another place again, Japan has many nice places.
What makes me more memorable is not just the scenery, it is the connection I have with the nature, culture and the people there and the people there. So let us use tourism development as an opportunity for us to promote, educate, instill the sense of responsibility among our stakeholders. That would be my response to you.
I hope you helps. Okay. Thank you. Come on us ask questions. I have one more question. After the statue also mentioned education activity and other activity in your presentation.
I would like to know instead of university level education on the local level, what kind of activity from your experiences is where a suitable in your case is? How do you conduct active educational activity? In your case, with local stakeholders? That's my question with the students or local stakeholders, both, both from the universities as well as a community side. I would like to know a little bit. Thank You. All right. General response. Actually, it was in my earlier like I did not elaborate with students responsibility can be taught, but it should not be meant as a doctrine or rhetoric.
So what we can do is we design assignment projects in such a way that students can have first hand experience. So in the process, not only they learn the concepts, but they also develop the values, the habits, the qualities needed to exercise the leadership, the responsibility. You know, we can teach what responsible practices are. You know, it's not that difficult, but lecturers, educators have a big role to play. How to design the program in such a way that students have first hand experience.
So it is more skill based, including our curriculum, our internship programs, how we design all these in such a way that the students not only learn things from the textbooks, but they can actually put them into practice. So that would be that would be my first response. Now, for local stakeholders in our work, when we start that promoting this, you don't we don't get green light everywhere. There will be resistance.
There will be people arguing why are we, you know, reinventing the wheel? We already have the sustainable tourism. Why do we need new measure? You know, so on, so forth. Our approach for rural areas. Let's begin with those which are willing for local businesses. We are not expecting a, you know, whole you know, we don't expect the change immediately.
But we begin with one or two or three first. So when we work with them and when they work with us, you know, it's easier for us to implement our initiatives and it's easier for them to learn from us, to work with us. As time goes by, we have more and more successful stories. Again, this is why I mentioned about short stories just now and that we showcase these short stories. We use our conferences, we use our seminars, we use our webinars, we invite them to share their stories. We use testimonies, stories to inspire them.
They don't need me to give another lecture. They will be brought this. But when they listen stories and they listen these stories from those in the same industry, they begin to see how their business can be identified to do stories, and it slowly convinces more and more people.
Another thing I like to mention here again, it is easier said than done. Another thing we are doing now, that's what I show. I think the last three or four slide at the policymaking level, we also presented this to the ministry because in order to ensure that it could be in the whole state or even in the whole Southeast Asia later, we also have to work with the policymakers to come up with blueprint road maps and guidelines.
So it is not just a top down approach. It is also a bottom up approach. And let me say this. It is also an approach where we broker the top down and bottom up.
If you just rely on top down, we know it may not work effectively, but it may. But the community voice is not here. It is bottom up. They may not have the resources.
And when these two things happen, our experience tells us we still need people, especially all of us here, researchers who are in academy, who are also involved in consultancy project. We need someone in middle to broker this relationship in order to make it work. Sometimes we understand they do things in short term because of their tenure. But when you do things with passion as a society association, then you see something long term. So I hope I respond to you in the way that you expect it. Thank you.
We have to. Yeah. We have one more question from CASTELE. How can government and tourism organizations encourage businesses to adopt responsible tourism practices? I think is an excellent question after this one. Yeah.
Yeah. This is, again, easier said than done. I am thinking how should I respond to these questions? Because so many things happened in the last few years.
And then we we strategize our moves, our tactics. But like what Sensei said, this is a valid question. There are people who accept. There are people who resist. So again, I we this as an ecosystem where we need to developed strategies in order to make things work.
Like I said earlier, we propose, you know, a proposal to the policymaker why this concerns the the the future development of tourism. At the same time, we engage with organizations, communities Not everyone agrees, but we begin with those who accept in order to create more and more success stories and the way we approach. As I mentioned earlier, when we approach to community members, we don't go and tell them what they should do. We make friends them.
This is why I highlighted human values in my last present, in my last slide. You see, this is a value co-creation process. You see this as a process where you create partnership with trust and respect. If You see this just as a project.
Then you, you know, challenges are bound to happen anywhere. Challenges are part of the process. So I dare not say that way. I am. We are already there. We are still in the process.
The struggle continues, but we begin to see some positive signs. And I'm glad that you N.w.t. all sort of saw our work last year. And this is why when we invited them to join our conference, they accepted and they attend in person. This year they will attend again.
So these are things that we do. I know I did not really answer this question. Perhaps we can discuss more about it in greater detail. Yeah. Okay.
If there is no further question, and I probably should let you rest your strokes I'm very worried about because almost 90 minutes and and thank you very much for all kind of information. Three journals, also special issues and the first coming conference. I hope if people who research Southeast Asia or South Asia as well, or where the topic of a responsible tourism management, you should definitely follow up those informations.
And thank you again, Iram says. And I really appreciate that you shared your recent publication and the research. And if there is no more question, I think we can finish today's session and let you rest as soon as possible. Okay. Thank you. My apologies for my deficiency. Those two or three questions.
If more elaboration is needed. More censei. You can share my email address with them. Yes. I'll be more than happy.
Yes Yes. To elaborate and maybe to know them in person. Okay. Next week we'll upload this video to the Cats YouTube channel now announced with your email address to the students. And again, thank you very much for joining today's online service and see you next time.
And next speaker will be our senator from Australia. Oh, right after you. So it's a small world. Interesting. Okay. Welcome back to much. Yes. Okay. Have a great rest.
Have a good day. Goodbye. To invite you again in future. Thank you. My pleasure. Bye bye. Bye. A.
2023-06-10 23:18
