Transcend & the importance of Community Based Tourism

I recently participated in the Transcend event hosted by the Transformational Travel Council in Slovenia.  Fully immersing in the whole experience, I came away with new insights, having transformed a little further myself.

What is Community Based Tourism?

Woven throughout the event was the notion of community based tourism.  This is where travel experiences are led by local communities which in turn directly benefit from the income generated and where all activities are sustainable and responsible. In simple terms it is tourism led by the local people, for the local people.

What's great about this, is that not only are the experiences offered to travellers truly authentic, it also means communities have the chance to become self-sufficient. and protect and preserve traditions and cultures, sharing them with the world. Companies in the travel sector can then partner with these local communities to empower them to transform their localities. True authenticity is hard to find and so many of us are seeking it, perhaps more now than ever before.

But what makes CBT (or Responsible travel) so appealing?

For the traveller it is the chance to properly immerse in local cultures, ways of life, traditions - song, dance, food, you name it, knowing that these are the people who actually live and work there and that they are going to directly benefit from you being there.

For the community it is the chance to set up their own small scale, self managed business, and for society it is finally a chance to achieve sustainable social, cultural, environmental and economic development in order to improve the living conditions of local people without damaging the environment. 

The benefits that community-based tourism offers communities are diverse and include:

• enabling quality job creation (for example - local tour guide, homestay family, food department, craftsmanship, sales)

• generating local economic development

• helping eco-friendly tourism development

• enabling community empowerment

• preserving the traditional values of the local community.

What the Transformational Travel leaders had to say...

There were some inspiring speakers in attendance at the Transcend event too. On my first day I chatted with Amit Jaipira, Founder of Postcard, an amazing organisation which joins up the mindful traveller with community based tourism projects through the sharing of stories on postcards.

He spoke of the increase in mindful travellers, the experiences they seek and how to direct them to community based tourism providers through storytelling - absolute genius.  

At Postcard the philosophy is that responsible travel starts with building empathy and educating travellers about the people and places they visit. To make that happen, they invite travel writers, travel designers, industry groups and tourism boards to work with community tourism projects and initiatives to help showcase stories of their local people, history, culture, food, nature and wildlife. In turn, Postcard then share these stories with a global community of travellers and invite them to book with their partners”. (www.postcard.travel). 

In a world where social, economic and environmental pressures continue to pile upon each other, finding meaning and connection is increasingly vital to us as human beings. In a Transformation by Design workshop, facilitated by Tanner Colton, COO at the Transformational Travel Council, he indicated that a recent poll of why people travelled revealed that 68% of people travel for meaning and connection which is a fundamental shift in the travel market following COVID. People want deeper, more meaningful experiences and this kind of travel is on the rise.

Tanner said that with Transformational Travel it’s important to start from the inside out; to find deeper meanings and to travel with a mindful approach and one open to reciprocity. He commented that 'on the other side of challenge is transformation' - so true - and that those embarking on transformational travel are doing so in order to Seek, Explore and Connect; everything that sits at the heart of all we do here at Dream Catcher. My personal view is that transformational travel has the power to help change the world; that deeper and greater connection with both peoples and places can only be positive in driving respect and love and helping us move positively towards world peace. 

For me, perhaps the most profound and powerful message of all came from Jake Haupert, CEO of The Transformational Travel Council.

According to an article in the Harvard Business Review, co-written by Joseph Pine, TTC Advisor…'Transformation is emerging, and our entire economic system will evolve. The magnitude of this shift is truly extraordinary; it will cultivate individual emergence, resonance and a collective coherence that we need to bring forth a new future in travel'.

Jake went on to say: 

“This means our entire economic system will soon be aimed at creating conditions for living, breathing, human beings to become better versions of themselves”.
Our biggest obstacle is that you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink but whether they know it or not they are as thirsty as hell.

The bottom line is that if we are to become better human beings, we can influence the nature of our relationships and our relationships with nature. The day that Jake gave his opening speech was the 9th of October - Indigenous Day in the USA and he talked about indigenous communities needing to be at the forefront of this evolution in tourism because without this approach we are doomed to repeat many of the mistakes that contributed to the crisis that we are in now.

Everyone is talking about transformation and shifting the paradigm; with the climate crisis we need to challenge the status quo and do things differently. We here at this summit have an opportunity before us and we can help to unlock individual and collective perspective through our circles and our quiet moments. It’s not necessarily about having all the answers but it's basically challenging ourselves to ask the right questions so that we can shift patterns of behaviour and expand consciousness at scale."

An immersive experience!

As it turns out, Transcend was not a conference, an event or a summit….it would be unjust for me to describe it like this. It was my first “business trip” representing Dream Catcher Global, and I have come away having had some type of transformation myself. It was an immersive experience that included workshops by Donna Bond, (author of Original Wisdom), whose mission it is to ignite your light, revealing your original wisdom to empower your highest self on your human adventure. For me her workshop was an opportunity to understand exactly how to reach inward and focus on becoming the best version of ourselves so that we are in the best position to give back to the world and be of service to others through our transformational travel work and beyond. 

 Check out her recent LinkedIn post following Transcend.

Here at Dream Catcher we fully support Community based tourism and ensure that we only engage with partners and initiatives working with this approach. Do get in touch if you want to understand more about the way we work and the journeys we are currently planning.