My Virtuoso Profile – “A Travel Advisor on Why Sustainable Tourism Matters”
Expert insight on how to travel with a purpose.
“Instead of Fly and Flop, my travel mantra is Stop and Sop,” says Virtuoso advisor Sheila Gallant-Halloran. “Sop up the culture and experience, immersing yourself wherever you are.”
Gallant-Halloran, a travel advisor for 12 years, has long championed sustainable tourism, and feels strongly that we can have a trip of a lifetime while also making a positive impact on the local communities and places. She often speaks about sustainable tourism practices – most recently, to 70 students at the University of Ottawa with a “Geography of Tourism” course and at an Ottawa Biosphere Eco-City event on “Sense of Place”– and also hosts Twitter chats on the subject. Gallant-Halloran invited Big Five Tours and Expeditions’ president Ashish Sanghrajka to her daughter’s school to talk about sustainable tourism, and arranged for them both to be interviewed on TV in Ottawa about why it matters.
The United Nations declared 2017 as the Year of Sustainability, in large part due to the increase in the amount of travelers exploring the world: In 1950, there were 25 million tourists around the world. In 2016, there were 1.2 billion. That presents a huge opportunity, but also a threat if not managed well – education is key.
We talked to Gallant-Halloran about sustainable travel trends, where to go in 2018, and how her clients respond to sustainable tourism. https://www.virtuoso.com/travel/articles/travel-advisor-sustainable-tourism-matters
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