Context Travel's Sustainable Travel Initiative
Location
Our walking seminars are designed to include discussion of the impacts of tourism on monuments and the character of the city. Docents (our guides) are trained to advise our customers on the most sustainable way to visit the city after the tour, including patronizing small, locally-owned businesses and using alternative transport. Part of the proceeds from our walks and additional donations are routed through the Context Foundation for Sustainable Travel to cultural preservation projects in these cities, which materially benefit them. The project are often focused on sustaining the character of the city and its local residents rather than museums or monuments. Lastly, the Foundation also ...
About You
Contact Information
Title
Mr.
First name
Paul
Last name
Bennett
Your job title
co-founder
Name of your organization
Context Travel
Organization type
tour operator
Annual budget/currency
$2 million (gross sales)
Mailing address
2222 Lombard Street
Telephone number
+1 215 392 0303
Postal/Zip Code
19146
Country
United States
Website
Email address
Alternative email address
Your idea
This will be the address used to plot your entry on the map.
Street Address
2222 Lombard Street
City
Philadelphia
State/Province
PA
Postal/Zip Code
19146
Country
United States
Geotourism Challenge Addressed by Entrant
Quality of tourist experience and educational benefit to tourists , Quality of benefit to residents for the destination , Quality of tourism management by destination leadership , Quality of stewardship of the destination.
Organization size
Small (1 to 100 employees)
Indicate sector in which you principally work
Tourism-related business
Year innovation began
2007
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Indicate sector in which you principally work
History, Architecture, Living culture, Destination aesthetics, Culinary or agritourism, Education, General tourism.
Name Your Project
Context Travel's Sustainable Travel Initiative
Describe Your Idea
Our walking seminars are designed to include discussion of the impacts of tourism on monuments and the character of the city. Docents (our guides) are trained to advise our customers on the most sustainable way to visit the city after the tour, including patronizing small, locally-owned businesses and using alternative transport. Part of the proceeds from our walks and additional donations are routed through the Context Foundation for Sustainable Travel to cultural preservation projects in these cities, which materially benefit them. The project are often focused on sustaining the character of the city and its local residents rather than museums or monuments. Lastly, the Foundation also ...
Innovation
What is the goal of your innovation? Please describe in one sentence the kind of impact, change, or reform your approach is intended to achieve.
Our Sustainable Travel Initiated looks for ways to mitigate the negative impact of tourism on the social, economic, and cultural life of key cities in Europe and the U.S. and educate travelers.
Please write an overview of your project. Include how your approach supports or embodies geotourism or destination stewardship. This text will appear when people scroll over the icon for your entry on the map located on the competition homepage.
Our walking seminars are designed to include discussion of the impacts of tourism on monuments and the character of the city. Docents (our guides) are trained to advise our customers on the most sustainable way to visit the city after the tour, including patronizing small, locally-owned businesses and using alternative transport. Part of the proceeds from our walks and additional donations are routed through the Context Foundation for Sustainable Travel to cultural preservation projects in these cities, which materially benefit them. The project are often focused on sustaining the character of the city and its local residents rather than museums or monuments. Lastly, the Foundation also runs a travel scholarship for disadvantaged youths, broadening the reach of travel (and its ameliorative, educational effects) to a population that has little access to it.
Explain in detail why your approach is innovative
Firstly, we operate in cities, which often get overlooked in discussions of sustainable tourism. But large destination cities like Rome, Paris, and New York face serious issues with crowding, tourism management, and the stripping of character through mass tourism. Secondly, because we only work with small groups (our walks are capped at 6 people) we're able to use the power of dialogue and discussion to allow our customers to critically engage with the issues of sustainability and geotourism. Thirdly, our foundation's travel scholarship is completely innovative. It turns the focus of sustainable tourism around on itself. How sustainable is tourism if only the well-off are able to visit far-off lands and cultures? Are we bifurcating our societies into the travel haves and the travel have-nots, and if so does this mean that we're only empowering part of our population with an appreciation and knowledge of other cultures? The travel scholarship seeks to address this and, in so doing, makes travel a truly sustainable (in a whole society sense) endeavor.
Impact
Describe the degree of success you have had to date. How do you measure, both quantitatively and qualitatively, the impact on sustainability or enhancement of local culture, environment, heritage, or aesthetics? How has it transformed or contributed to the power of place or demonstrated the sustainability of tourism? How does your approach minimize negative impacts?
Through interviews with our docents and customers we've learned that our geotourism principles have deepened the experience of our walks. In terms of effect, the results have been mixed. Some projects have been very successful. The artisan project in Florence, for example, has been a successful. The student has learned a lot. The artisan was able to train and rely on an apprentice. In Venice, where we underwrote a study of the effects of tourism on the lagoon, the results have also been measurably favorable. That report is finished and is affecting policy in Venice and abroad. The scholarship for the U.S. students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds has also been a success, as measured from reports made by the school and the students.
In what ways are local residents actively involved in your work, including participation and community input? How has the community responded to or benefited from your approach?
I described an example of this above for Florence. There are other cases of direct material benefit on the local level. In London, for example, we partnered with Thames 21 to have some of our customers participate in their clean up programs along the river as part of our Tides of Time walking seminar. In Rome, we've underwritten an important study of the ruins at Ostia Antica, which is leading to further digs, measurements, and changes at that monument, and which has also resulted in bringing attention to what we consider a sustainable alternative to touring Pompeii.
How does your program promote traveler enthusiasm, satisfaction, and engagement with the locale?
This is a key component of our initiative as it relates to what happens during a walk. All of our docents are trained through workshops to respond critically to such mundane questions as "where can I get lunch after this walk" or "how do I get to ...." In each case, we've established guidelines that attempt to steer the clients away from international chains and polluting forms of transport, and towards locally-owned businesses that not only sustain the local economy and character but also offer a more substantial cultural experience. Our customers are all handed National Geographic's Geotourism Principles when they book with us, so that they are thinking in this mode when they arrive.
Describe how your work helps travelers and local residents better understand the value of the area's cultural and natural heritage, and educates them on local environmental issues.
In most of our cities, knowledge and appreciation for the cultural heritage among locals is already pretty high. We're more focused on helping them think of new ways of approaching preservation. For example, in Paris, where we held an event at the Ecole de Beaux Arts to raise funds for preserving a chapel there, this was considered extraordinary. On the traveler side, as I mentioned before, this goal of educating the customers about cultural heritage is really the core of our business.
This Entry is about (Issues)
Sustainability
How is your initiative currently financed? If available, provide information on your finances and organization that could help others. Please list: Annual budget, annual revenue generated, size of part-time, full-time and volunteer staff.
We are a commercial company with about $2m in annual sales. We have three full-time employees, two part-time employees, and two founders (working a lot). We have over 170 scholars and experts who lead our walks.
Is your initiative financially and organizationally sustainable? If not, what is required to make it so? Is there a potential demand for your innovation?
Yes, although we're at a critical stage in our development where we need to scale our business.
What are the main barriers you encounter in managing, implementing, or replicating your innovation? What barriers keep your program from having greater impact?
As we grow our sustainable travel initiative will need to grow in tandem. We will reach a point in the not distant future when we will need a single person dedicated to managing and scaling the program. This will be a critical moment. We will need enough revenue to finance it.
What is your plan to expand or further develop your approach? Please indicate where/how you would like to grow or enhance your innovation, or have others do so.
We would like to have a significant project in each of our cities, so this means expanding from our current three projects to nine. We would also like to expand our internal education program and look for new ways to work with our customers. Since our business is cultural tourism we feel that there are a lot of opportunities for weaving geotourism into our core activities.
The Story
Please provide a personal bio. Note this may be used in Changemakers' marketing material.
I (Paul Bennett) have been a journalist for over ten years for a variety of magazines, including National Geographic. I also co-founded (with my wife, Lani) and manage Context Travel (www.contexttravel.com), a network of 170+ scholars and specialists who lead "walking seminars" of major world cities. We have branches in Paris, London, New York, Rome, Florence, Venice, Naples, and Istanbul. Travel + Leisure magazine has named us one of the top tour operators in Europe.
What is the origin of your innovation? Tell the Changemakers and media communities what prompted you to start this initiative.
We began Context in 2002. Years previously I had written several articles about ecotourism for National Geographic Adventure, Landscape Architecture, and other magazines. Some of this work landed me on NG's sustainable destinations panel. One day I woke up and realized that in addition to writing about sustainable travel and working on the topic for NG I was also running my own travel business. So, in 2006-7 we began to look critically at what we do and searching for ways to do it better.
We began with an internal discussion among the docents who lead our walks (nearly 200 scholars, at this point) and held a series of workshops on the issues facing our cities. Drawing on some outside research on the destinations and combining this with the expertise of our scholars—many of whom are preservationists, conservators, and others with specialized knowledge—and the institutional knowledge Context had of its programs and clients, we laid the groundwork for transforming ourselves into a more sustainable organization. Part of this entailed redesigning our programs. Part of it entailed establishing programs, mostly through a nonprofit foundation, to preserve the character of our cities.
Describe some unique tourist experiences that your approach provides. Be specific; give illustrative examples.
We believe that our sustainable travel initiative enhances our customer experiences. For example, in Florence, we run a walking seminar of the Oltrarno neighborhood that looks at the history and role of artisans living and working there. A couple of years ago, in the wake of several of these centuries-old workshops closing we held a public meeting with a number of artisans and learned that a variety of pressures—mostly all originating in the acceleration of the tourism economy in Florence—were acting on the artisans and threatening their existence. We asked what we could do, and learned that the biggest problem was that they were losing their apprentices, and thus their long-term sustainability, to other economic opportunities (mostly in tourism). So, the Context Foundation launched a scholarship work-experience program at a local trade school that funnels students in jewelry and other metalcrafts into some of these workshops. Part of the ticket price for our Oltrarno Artisans Seminar goes to support the program. Participants are aware of this, and in the course of the walk they have a chance to meet the recipient of the scholarship and the artisan (the true recipient in many respects). There is also a portion of the walk in which our docents discuss the issues facing the artisans and the efforts being made (by us, and others) to offset this.
What types of partnerships or professional development would be most beneficial in spreading your innovation?
We could really use some good consulting and strategic planning from an experienced person in the sustainable travel industry to take this program to the next level. We have local partnerships in each of our cities, from which we derive our projects. But we could benefit from some international partnerships on the business development, fund-raising, and marketing side. We've innovated. Now we need to scale.
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Comments
Hello Mr. Bennett,
I really enjoyed reading about your work. You've created a unique travel experience that incorporates historical education and a connection to the local community and its needs.
You mentioned scholarships for U.S. students. How many students receive these scholarships and what are they for?
You mentioned a report in Venice that is affecting policy locally and abroad. Can you tell us more about this report and how it is impacting policy?
Thank you for submitting your entry and keep up the good work. I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Dana Frasz
Ashoka's Changemakers
Hi Dana,
Thank you. We inaugurated our travel scholarship program in 2008. And so this is our second year. We had one student last year, and hope to have two this year. (The first student was selected last month and is funded. We're engaged in a separate fundraising campaign for the second student, and it looks pretty good.)
The idea behind the scholarship is to turn sustainable travel on its head. Normally, and this is the case with most of our sustainable travel program, we think about the negative impact of travel on a destination and try to either mitigate or lessen that impact. But it's always focused on the destination. In this case we've turned it around, and we're thinking about the traveler. In particular we're concerned that the exclusive nature of travel due to cost makes travel unsustainable in a broad sociological or political sense. If travel, as many claim and we believe, is a fundamental part of civic education and gives one a broader sense of the world and our place in it, it's problematic and inevitably detrimental that only a narrow segment of society can partake. Without extending the benefits of travel to the economically disadvantaged we build a society of travel haves and travel have-nots, separated by a chasm of cultural awareness.
So with this idea underlying it, we teamed up with St. Hope, which is a community development organization that took over Sacramento High School in the inner city neighborhood of Oak Park in Sacramento. The scholarship is intended for a high achieving student with an interest in art or history, a track record of community service, and economic need. Sac High has no dearth of kids with need, and many of the applicants for the scholarship have very little chance of jetting off to Europe for a week or semester.
to be cont'd in the next comment...
Last year's recipient spent a week in Rome during which she participated in 1-2 walking seminars on site at the major monuments with local professors, and then produced a video project to document her experience. The student has gone on to enroll in the art history program in the local university in Sacramento.
This year's scholarship will mirror last year's: a week in Rome filled with learning experiences.
The report that we're underwriting in Venice is the second part of a study on the ecology of the Venetian Lagoon, commissioned by Venice in Peril. In this second part, the researcher, Jane da Mosto, has studied the impact of tourism on Venice and its environment. This is the first time that anyone has unified all the various studies on garbage, boat wake, and other effects of tourism on the city into a single report; and so it is already having an impact. Preliminary copies have found their way into the local environmental agency, which has recommended that the tourism authority step up its efforts to control garbage and improve the monitor of waste outflows from the cruise ships. This is a small thing, but it bodes well for the future. Venice faces a major hurdle in dealing with the effect of tourism, and in particular the huge cruise ships that are now the lifeblood of the local economy. But this report will shed light on some of the true costs of that lifeblood and allow stakeholders to make decisions with context.
Please let me know if you need anything further.
Best,
Paul
...is to understand and walk in the footsteps of the past. My first experience with Context Travel walking tours was in 2006 on my first trip to Rome. All that I had done and read to prepare for this city was marginalized when I began my first walk with Context and the small, personal window they opened for me to Rome. I returned in 2007 an will call them again in 2010.
I found Context on a ramdom web search for tours in Italy and altough uncommon for me, decided to book all my walking tours with them based on the websites obvious passion for the traveller experience. I was not disappointed. Ancient Rome, Baroque stroll, Ostia Antica., Vatican museums. The eclectic mix of guides, all perfectly matched to the subjects and exploding with information was like falling into the subject matter. The common bond was that they all loved the city not only as it was but as it is. The very clear message that Rome, as it exists today can only continue it's historical rich path by educating it's visitors on the future as well as it's past.
I have suggested Context to many, many travelers and have always heard back that their experience with them was beyond the expectations.
Flying into an airport , renting a car and driving to a countryside is wonderful, but there is a reason Rome, London, Venice and New York attracted large groups of people in history and still do today.
Context Travel helped me become a better traveller with this education.
We've seen the incredible work that Context Travel does - I am always so very impressed with the mission, scholars, and organization. We've talked with many of their Docents, as well as with Paul, and the commitment that Context has for sustainable travel - and education - is extraordinary.
Hacemos llegar ,el equipò de Bio Uruguay y yo nuestras felicitaciones por estar entre los mejores en éste Desafío 2009.
Adelante con su proyecto en pos de un Turismo responsable y sustentable.
Lady Rodriguez
www.biouruguay.org
http://bio-uruguay.blogspot.com
On July 1, 2009 the judges reviewed the entries for the Changemakers “Geotourism Challenge 2009: Power of Place Sustaining the Future of Destinations” competition and would like to pass on the following feedback (listed below) for your entry. Thank you for applying and for your hard work in the field. We are excited to archive your entry to serve as a leading solution for the worldwide community of innovators. If possible, please take the time to respond to some of the provocative questions and issues that were raised by the judges. We wish you continued luck with your innovative, sustainable, and socially impactful initiatives.
All the best, The Changemakers Team.
“I am a walking tour enthusiast because they are an interesting way of learning about a place and connecting with the place. I liked the hand tool nature of it, which was great! This kind of context touring could be translated to every city, but is this happening? I would like it more if it were transportable and moved on to other cities than they have been covering. The idea of basing tourism on locals looking around the village and improving their own space that they live is encouraging and innovative. When we think of tourists, we should think of bringing them to our place and showing them our cultures and where we live in order to make them appreciate our city, invest in our city and make it a better place. You want to see people appreciating your city. This gives community ownership and local appreciation as well.”
“I really like this innovation. It re-considers the way we take a city tour in the right 'context'. It has loads of potential and is already doing well. The branding development of the business online has real potential for sustainability. I think it project is about getting a deeper connection with a place through that social awareness of a place and connection. I would like to see the quantitative social impact demonstrated by this project. This is one area where this project could take off with the right creativity.”
- Changemakers “Geotourism Challenge 2009: Power of Place Sustaining the Future of Destinations” Judges: National Geographic Society, United Nations Foundation, Tribe Wanted, The Green Belt Movement, Lonely Planet, Southwest
Context travel is the best organization ever to make visitors feel at home and truly understand foreign cities. It is able to get to the heart of a culture, its people, its art and history and its lifestyle. What it also does is to make one aware of the peculiar problems each city has and how, as a turist or visitor, one may contribute to relieve them and how to preserve the cultural heritage each one of us can profit from.
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Alex
I first utilized the services of Context Travel in Rome, in 2006. They set the benchmark in providing personalized tours led by PhD level docents who have extraordinary knowledge and insight into their areas of expertise. The tours are varied and well organized - the groups no larger than six. Context Travel is located in several countries, including the U.S.
the research of contexttravel consists in getting behind the surface and looking for the true cultural and social background in order to get tourists into a true view on either unaccessible sites or workshops or restoration sites; the choice of docents depends not only on their specific knowledge in one or the other field but also in the capacity to get the customer into a particular local atmosphere and such a personal treatment that one can feel almost at home and being taken around by a friend.
interest