“Asking questions is the best place to start,” Anna Pollock said during the afternoon of the third and final day of the 2020 Global Eco Asia-Pacific Tourism Conference. And she’s right, of course, yet no-one got the opportunity to ask her any!
Ms Pollock may be right about the benefit of questions, but she’s obviously not literally correct when she says the SARS-CoV‑2 virus is a “messenger”. (The more robot-rational among us would even pooh-pooh the figurative notion.) However, it is true that due to COVID-19 a great many people — all at once and all over the world — have been reminded that:
- Uncertainty is a fact of life;
- Our vulnerability and interdependence is real;
- There are limits;
- Other existential challenges persist; and
- We’re not helpless victims.
As founder of Conscious.Travel, Anna Pollock travels around (or did, pre-COVID) doing a lot of talking to tourism audiences about “regeneration”. Yet she would prefer to use the words “flourishing” or “thriving”.
Ms Pollock says there’s a journey we must all embark upon if we are to move from degenerative business-as-usual to regenerative flourishing and thriving. The route is via notions of “green”, “sustainable”, and “restorative” in that order. It’s treacherous, though. Be sure to pack a change of mindset and a new way of thinking, for they are necessary if we are to make it across the gaping chasm between “sustainable” and “restorative” ... Read on at https://goodtourismblog.com/2020/12/regenerative-ecotourism-asking-questions-is-the-best-place-to-start/