Sustainable Tourism | Ecotourism | Destinations & Communities
Providing market-based solutions to sustainable tourism, preserving invaluable social and environmental capital for the well being of local people worldwide. LEARN MORE
THE INVISIBLE BURDEN:
Groundbreaking Reports
& Analysis
ECOTOURISM:
Business Development
& Field Engagements
SPEAKING:
Speaking & Strategic
Destination Evaluation
KEY AFFILIATIONS:
Harvard University, Cornell University, The Travel Foundation
FEATURED PROJECTS
Developing a Sustainable Tourism Economy in El Salvador
Sri Lankan Model Rainforest Ecolodge
Community-Based Tourism in Bangladesh’s Protected Areas
Latin American Tour Operators Plan for Sustainable Tourism
Building a Resilient Puerto Rican Ecotourism Industry Post Hurricane Maria
The Gems of Brazil’s Nature Tourism along the Estrada Real
Tunisian Tourism and Environmental Health in a Changing Climate
Social and Environmentally Responsible Tourism in Sierra Leone
What’s New?
August 31, 2020
In light of COVID 19, EplerWood International is working with strategic partners to develop and structure economic stimulus and impact investment platforms for destinations and small businesses. Together with The Travel Foundation, Harvard International Sustainable Tourism Initiative (ISTI), Cornell Sustainable Tourism Asset Management Program (STAMP), and Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA), EWI is designing timely and effective response mechanisms to destination management challenges worldwide.
Following the Destinations at Risk: The Invisible Burden of Tourism Report, supported by the Travel Foundation, EWI is now partnered with PATA to develop a healthier tourism industry post-COVID 19. We are developing tools, such as holistic accounting to address economic highs and lows, enable steady recovery, protect tourism assets, and manage long-term, sustainable growth within destinations. EWI continues to research the important issues of the tourism industry: the rapid changes in travel demographics and source markets, the impacts of the digital economy on tourism supply chains, and the growth and development status of key tourism hotspots.
EWI is working with these major institutions to review financial and management systems for tourism hotspots by using top-flight data and technology systems.
Read more about our affiliations here.
A firm platform for the travel and tourism recovery process is required which will ensure that finance reaches more beneficiaries and protects our earth’s most valued assets. In EplerWood International’s new White Paper, A Marshall Plan for Tourism: Can it be Built?, Megan Epler Wood calls out for a coordinated effort to finance the recovery of destinations.
“The primary purpose of this white paper is to point out that an investment fund or a variety of funds, which we will call the Sustainable Tourism Marshall Plan Fund could become key mechanisms in managing destination recovery. First and foremost, it is destinations that are the most impacted and most vulnerable to the drastic die-back of tourism. It is the inhabitants of destinations who will be forced into poverty without it. And even the wealthier, entrepreneurial class who rely on tourism will be hard hit because they are less diversified than multi-national corporations and much more dependent on visitor flows.”
As the pandemic cripples Airbnb, European cities see a chance to reclaim long-term housing. Good review of Europe’s action to rein in short term rentals. https://t.co/gMTHmDnlrg
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“The earth’s greatest treasures are cracking under the weight of the soaring tourism economy. New data-driven systems to identify the cost of managing tourism’s most valued assets are required to stem a growing crisis in global tourism management. With the right leadership, finance and analysis in place, a whole new generation of tourism professionals can move forward and erase the invisible burden while benefiting millions around the globe.”
Megan Epler Wood, Principal