Center for Responsible Travel (CREST), USA

The Center for Responsible Travel (CREST) is a unique policy-oriented research organization dedicated to increasing the positive global impact of responsible tourism. CREST assists governments, policy makers, tourism businesses, nonprofit organizations, and international agencies with finding solutions to critical issues confronting tourism, the world’s largest service industry. CREST provides interdisciplinary analysis and innovative solutions through research, field projects, publications, consultancies, conferences, courses, and documentary films, recognizing tourism’s potential as a tool for poverty alleviation and biodiversity conservation.
CREST’s Mission: To promote responsible tourism policies and practices so that local communities may thrive and steward their cultural resources and biodiversity.

I am the Managing Director at CREST and hold a Master of Tourism Administration from the George Washington University, with an emphasis in sustainable destination management.

FOR ICTP MEMBERS:

CREST frequently completes projects related to responsible travel, the results of which may be useful to the greater tourism community. We also bring on consultants for those projects, so ICTP members may be able to apply for them. Some of our current projects include a film on responsible travel in the Caribbean with a free teacher’s guide to go along with it, and two books we are currently preparing on sustainability, climate change, and marine/coastal tourism in the Caribbean.

INTERESTED: We are really interested in learning how we can get involved in the larger movement for the 2017 Year of Sustainable Tourism and meeting the Millenium Development Goals. Partnerships are critical in this industry, and we must work together instead of against each other for the greater good. We are so impressed by the membership of ICTP and look forward to making connections to advance responsible tourism internationally.

By Samantha Hogenson

http://www.responsibletravel.org