why should we have alternatives in the journey
Answers
Explanation:
The term is ambiguous, sometimes confusing, and many variations have been suggested, such as Responsible Travel or Soft-Tourism. The naming saga also includes Geotourism, “tourism that sustains or enhances the distinctive geographical character of a place…” (coined by National Geographic) and Slow Travel, “a way of slowing down your vacation” (a TM of Internet Brands). All perfectly legitimate and interesting, but we prefer to stick to the original.
To further help clarify and put some order into things, we have classified the following types of Alternative Travel: Ecotourism, Active & Adventure Travel, Cultural or Educational Travel, Voluntourism, and Post-Tourism.
Having said that, also some forms of the so-called Special Interest Tourism, if niche and unusual, may be a good way to escape mass tourism, which instead implies a “large-scale packaging of standardised leisure services” (Poon) that pushes people to do all the same things, at the same time, in the same places.
But beyond academic definitions and classifications, what have all these novel forms of travel in common? A quest for originality, the refusal to conform to ordinary tourists (pioneering & discovering) and the relationship with the local environment (being green). In short: travel differently! Or, as stated in a Chiang Mai Workshop in 1984: “alternative tourism promotes a just form of travel“.