Responsible travel has been a passion of Sally’s. Since she was a child she has always maintained an appreciation for the balance between people and planet, and the ‘powerful force’ of travel. In an interview with i-genius, Sally talks about the motivations behind setting up Your Safe Planet, and what the future holds for responsible tourism…

Editor: What does responsible travel mean to you? Why is it important to you?
Sally: Responsible tourism is respectful of both people and places. Travel has huge impacts on society and the environment and these impacts can be both positive and negative.

I was born and brought up in the Lake District which is an area of outstanding natural beauty in the north of England. I grew up with an inherent appreciation for the delicate balance of nature and the community and how this balance is tipped when disrespectful travellers visit. I also gained experience of travelling to developing areas of the world and seeing both the wonderful benefits and destructive blows travellers can yield. Overall travel is a powerful force – something that can broaden minds, bring greater understanding between cultures as well as create sustainable livelihoods. However we can ignore the environmental context no longer. We need awareness and ways of involving the consumer in efforts to cut carbon emissions, starting at home and continuing abroad.

Editor: What inspired you to set up Your Safe Planet?
Sally: My upbringing included an education at a Round Square school called Windermere St Annes. This global organisation of schools promotes democracy, cross-cultural integration, adventure and debate. I was exposed to an international perspective that meant meeting people from all over the world and gaining an appreciation for their lifestyle and outlook. On travelling independently later in life, sometimes to meet people from my school days, I realised the power of seeing and experiencing other cultures from the inside. Many people don’t have friends in other countries or the places they want to visit and end up just scratching the surface – so Your Safe Planet fills in the gaps!

 

Editor: Can you tell us a bit more about the work of Your Safe Planet, and how it hopes to make a positive impact on the world of travel?
Sally: Your Safe Planet links travellers to a trusted ‘friend at the other end’, providing access to the most up to date information and local knowledge available. This means travellers not only have a route to understanding the challenges faced by the community they visit, environmental and social, they are closer to appreciating the impacts their travel has on the world. It’s hard to listen to people speaking about the way their lives are impacted by tourism and not be affected by their passion to encourage responsible tourism.

It helps also to have a friend to advise on reducing the environmental impacts of your trip – such as how to avoid flying between two places that are served by another form of transport. The enhanced access to information really empowers travellers with the knowledge they need to make better decisions.

We have found that given half a chance travellers love to give something back but baulk at paying thousands to do so. Our local contacts are linked with a variety of community initiatives that travellers are welcome to support with time and/or money for anything from a day to a few months. Obviously the longer people spend the more involved they can become. But every effort helps and means the traveller gains a greater awareness of local issues.

 

Editor: Do you think that responsible travel has the potential to become the only way in which people travel? What are the major obstacles to this happening?
Sally: Something that has become clear to me and the industry is that people are overwhelmed by the amount of information in the press and online about flying, responsible tourism and related issues. Many people switch off, including myself sometimes! The situation will have to get really bad before people listen to others telling them to stop travelling in the way they have become accustomed to.

But this is nothing new. As aChinese proverb suggests:
‘Tell me, I will forget;
Show me, I may remember;
Involve me, I will understand.’

This is a wise view of human behaviour – if you are told to do something, you often switch off. If you are involved you cannot so easily turn away. So the answer is helping people to travel more responsibly and opening their eyes to the world and the impacts of their lives on those in other parts of the world. We need to incentivise, make people feel good about making small changes, that overall will have a big net impact.

Ultimately, we can’t continue to travel the way we are. Aviation and travel in general is only one part of the problem but nevertheless must be addressed. We as people leading the industry need to help consumers gain awareness by providing information and resources as well as incentives in order to reduce the massive negative impact the human race is having on the earth. This relates to our lives at home and abroad and must include a holistic approach to helping people understand the real issues at stake with global warming and environmental degradation.

The important point to get across is that if we don’t start to change our behaviour and the travel industry, we will soon loose all the reason we do travel because they will be wiped out by mass tourism. That goes for both delicate cultures and environments.

Editor: What are your hopes for the future of Your Safe Planet?
Sally: I hope YSP will become the major third arm of travel – a bridge between independent travel and group travel. Both these arms have major value but I hope we can offer people something in between for those who don’t want to go it alone or wish to travel independently after taking a group trip. I also hope we can show the industry that it makes economic as well as moral sense to be responsible and support travellers to make changes to their lives in general as well as their travelling behaviour that maximises the benefits brought by travel and minimises the negative impacts.

Editor: Do you view yourself as a ‘social entrepreneur’? What does the term mean to you?
Sally: If you take ‘social entrepreneur’ to mean someone who builds ethical and moral consideration into their venture from the core values right up to the market offering then yes, I would hope to be able to include myself in that category. However if it means someone who doesn’t plan to make profits from their venture then no. I truly believe that profits made in a democratic way can stimulate development and conservation, bringing us a little closer to achieving the (possibly oxymoronic) concept of sustainable development. It will also allow responsible tourism to be a bigger player within the travel industry, encouraging other companies to improve their commitment to corporate social responsibility.

I have every intention of growing Your Safe Planet into a major travel industry player that acts as an example for other organisations to follow, showing that responsible tourism makes sense for all. The winners are threefold: the companies and organisations that adapt to meet the new demands from travellers; the travellers themselves who gain more from their experience and ensure they are doing their bit; the communities whose livelihoods depend on tourism and benefit from a greater voice within the global tourism industry.