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Stan Karanasios
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Colombia home stay
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Hi all…I am not sure if I am posting my experiences in the correct place, but this seems as good as a place as any :) While I have stayed at a number of home stays during my research work and tra…
Started this discussion. Last reply by Roger Harris Jan 23.
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Hi Rob,
I wonder if Lonely Planet or other popular guidebooks (or even the WTO), have some kind of classification for home stays, which could be referenced?
I imagine many home stays would want to qualify according the definition used by these boo…
Hi Roger,
I was playing around with the site and came across this post. I think this is a good idea, and have some thoughts on this.
I think it is good to have guidelines, without being too strict as there are a range of different types of home st…
People who provide homestay experiences, and those that help them do business.
Great post Stan, right on target! Although our focus is Asia, it's great to hear from other parts, especially such a good example of the homestay experience as this. would love to see some of your photos on the network..
Hi all…I am not sure if I am posting my experiences in the correct place, but this seems as
good as a place as any :)
While I have stayed at a number of home stays during my research work and travels, there
is one (or a group of home stays) that…
People who stay in homestays and enjoy experiencing a taste of cultures that are different from their own.
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- Australia
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- Traveller, Other
Comment Wall (5 comments)
- At 10:53am on February 19, 2010,
Roger Harris said…
- Hi Stan,
Hong Kong tourism is essentially city-based; you can say at the opposite end of the spectrum to community based tourism. It is dominated by large corporations such as Cathay Pacific, Disney and the world's major hotel chains. Right now it's a huge contributor to the local economy not the least as a result of the massive influx of well-heeled travellers from mainland China, who come here to spend and spend. Rifai was referring to this type of tourism in his speech. He also touched briefly on "leakage" in the tourism industry (e.g., the fact that up to 90% of tourism revenues earned in developing countries do not stay in the destination country). But I felt it was revealing that he mentioned the industry's failure to address such problems as global poverty. The ST-EP initiative includes a sprinkling of CBT activities, some of which I have experience with, principally those operated by SNV in SE Asia. Notwithstanding these praiseworthy projects, overall, my sense is that the industry (including WTO) struggles with the concept of tourism for poverty reduction. There's no profit in it for the dominant players who regard it only as CSR for polishing their images, and development practice (SNV excluded) is very wary of tourism's potential for negative impacts; on the environment and on human rights etc. As a "disruptive innovation" pro-poor tourism and CBT really needs new types of organisational and procedural structures that don't need to 'borrow' from incumbent actors but can innovate with whatever is available; such as ICTs, and thereby reverse the dominance of relationships with industry players that currently leaves the poor with the s..t end of the stick.
rog
- At 8:13pm on February 18, 2010,
Stan Karanasios said…
- Cheers Roger,
That is very interesting....I was not aware of Hong Kong’s tourism being an example case. I also agree that more policy attention is required concerning the economic benefits of tourism. Does/will the wto or Rifai advocate on the part of homestays and their local economic importance? This probably does not rank very high on their agenda, but is food for thought...
stan
- At 11:53am on February 12, 2010,
Roger Harris said…
- Hi Stan,
His reference to poverty was in the context of tourism not doing as much as it could to solve the problem, although he did make reference to the ST-EP initiative of UNWTO. His reference to ICTs was that the industry generally is not making as good use of the technology as it could. Here's how the speech was reported in the local press:
The new head of the United Nations World Tourism Organisation will push for Hong Kong to have a greater say in promoting tourism as a key economic driver around the world when he meets Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen today.
"We consider Hong Kong a success story in tourism by all aspects," Taleb Rifai, secretary general of the organisation, said. "We would like this success story to be shared and the lessons learned. I am going to be pressing to have Hong Kong play a bigger role on the stage of tourism because it has something to showcase. That can only happen if there is a political will to present Hong Kong at the international level like that."
Rifai, the first Arab secretary general of the 161-member body, is keen to use his three-year term at the UN agency for greater "policy acknowledgment" of the economic benefits that international tourism brings to both developed and developing markets, such as jobs. In many developing markets, such as Rifai's birthplace of Jordan, tourism accounts for more than 10 per cent of gross domestic product. In Hong Kong, tourism made up 3.4 per cent of GDP in 2007, according to official statistics.
The push comes as the agency predicts between 3 per cent and 4 per cent growth in the number of international visitors globally this year. Normal growth averages about 4 per cent annually. However, tourism spending was expected to grow less, by no more than 3 per cent, Rifai said.
- At 11:29am on December 3, 2009,
Roger Harris said…
- Hi Stan,
Thanks for your comments. The easiest method to add to the web site is to select an option from the "Quick Add" drop down list at the top right of the page. You can post a blog or start a disucssion and/or contribute some multimedia materials. Look forward to your contributions.
If you're travelling in the north of Peru you may be interested in some telecentre projects that I visited in Cajamarca, Combayo and Llacanura. run by ITDG with WB funding. Combayo especially has potential for tourism including community based. It is a high (3,000 mtrs+) village of around 8,000 people 35 kms from Cajamarca, reached by an unpaved road through some spectacular high-country scenery. Can definitely recommend a visit.
cheers
Roger
- At 10:35am on November 26, 2009,
Roger Harris said…
- Hi Stan, welcome to the network. Stayed in any homestays yet? We'd like to hear about your experiences.
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