FAIR TRADE TOURISM: PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE TOURISM OR JUST GREENWASHING?
Q: "Going Green, Eco-friendly, Ecotourism" - are terms that multinational corporations and tourism stakeholders use liberally. Please give us an update why this is an internationally accepted practice and fashionable, particularly within the tourism industry.
A: The use of the word green to signify conservation can of course be looked up. GREEN as the new marketing colour of choice started mostly in the food sector, where products were designed / branded in different shades of 'green' to signify to consumers that what they are going to consume is both healthy for the planet, and more importantly, for their own health. Now there is green tourism, green cosmetics, green finance and even green (or clean) coal.
Essentially, organic product marketing managed to break a glass ceiling about a decade ago (at least in Europe and America), and I would say that other sectors took that cue from other industries to target consumer segments that already seemed to understand that language.
We did a similar thing with Fair Trade (in Tourism), where there was also already comparatively significant recognition amongst consumers for this language. None of the above though has anything to do with credibility of the true green (if taken as sustainable) content of the marketing package or at least it varies widely in application.
FTT took all criteria used by the credible Fair Trade International label and adapted them from the agricultural sector to tourism, bar some exceptions that were not translatable into the tourism (or service) industry as such. I think the colour "green" has simply developed its own dynamic in the market place, both for consumers and marketing agencies.
In the 70s, tourism was sometimes called the "white" industry (as opposed to the black smoke coming out of chimneys in other industries)
