The International Centre for Responsible Tourism global, or ICRT global, has been founded by emeritus professor Harold Goodwin, managing director of the Responsible Tourism Partnership.
It will launch two online training courses during the first half of 2025 focusing on responsible tourism and managing overtourism, with a third on the subject of creating shared value to follow.
Besides the online courses, ICRT global will offer bespoke training for organisations, as well as manuals and guidance to support universities interested in creating their own responsible tourism courses.
ICRT global said it was "on a mission to amplify the 2002 Cape Town Declaration on Responsible Tourism and the 2022 Responsible Tourism Charter".
It will act as a hub for the independent regional ICRTs around the world and as an "open source of knowledge for anyone looking for ways to make tourism better".
There are already regional ICRTs operating in southern and western Africa, the Indian sub-continent, Latin America and southeast Asia.
ICRT global will hold a half-day conference in London next month (4 November) to formally launch the endeavour and to reveal the winners of the annual Global Responsible Tourism Awards, real-world experience and feedback from whom will be fed back into ICRT global’s training programmes.
’Making sustainable holidays mainstream’
Debbie Hindle, who will chair the organisation, said: "Our courses are designed to help people from any part of the tourism sector who want to understand the issues and opportunities for tourism to make a positive impact.
"This could be the head of a national park wanting to understand how to combine conservation and tourism through to a city planner wanting to harness tourism for the benefit rather than [to] the detriment of their city. Our courses will be at postgraduate level but are accessible to anyone to attend."
Matt Callaghan, easyJet holidays’ chief operating officer, said: “We have an ambition to make more sustainable holidays mainstream, but we know this journey is complex and to succeed we need to learn from one another within the industry.
"That’s why we’re delighted to be a founding partner of ICRT global, supporting their goal to provide effective education on responsible tourism, available to all."
’Levers for change’
Goodwin added: "Responsible tourism is what we do to make tourism more sustainable, in a way which benefits communities and destinations. It requires people working in tourism and hospitality to say what they are doing to make tourism better and to be transparent about what they achieve.
"But, to do that, they need to understand the issues and the possible levers for change. So, our mission is to spread the word about what can be achieve and we appreciate the backing of our founding partners easyJet Holidays to support the creation of our new courses."
ICRT global is backed by a board and panel of special advisors from industry and academia. They include former Abta chair Martin Brackenbury, VisitScotland’s Caroline Warburton and Adama Bah, chair of the Institute of Travel and Tourism of Gambia.
Special advisors include Inntravel founder Richard Hearn, a former chair of Aito, and University of Surrey professor of sustainability marketing Dr Xavier Font.
