After a year of staycation or traveling close-to-home, travel providers are seeing a resurgence of international travel bookings for 2010. This means that U.S. travelers are feeling more comfortable with their job and economic situations. They are overcoming doubts about the economy as shown by their willingness to invest in travel, leave the office for longer periods, access discretionary funds, etc. At the very least these booking gains indicate their belief that things are stabilizing and that an economic turnaround is in progress.
“Travel is the ultimate barometer of consumer confidence,” …

There has been considerable excitement (and press) about green travel certification initiatives. Everyone agrees that sustainable practices in tourism is important and good. But plenty of questions still need to be answered about global sustainability criteria, application and monitoring standards. Meanwhile, everyday more green travel products are being offered to travelers. Often, travelers buy travel offerings based on “good faith” because they have no way to evaluate providers’ green initiatives.
There has been efforts to develop a Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria, but Professor Harold Goodwin of the International Center for …

The explosive growth of social media in the past year has changed the way many of us do things like shop, get our news, get deals or simply engage with an expanding circle of people like never before.

A recent travelhorizons survey of 2,200 U.S. adults conducted by Ypartnership and the U.S. Travel Association revealed the following:

The growing popularity of “slum tours” has prompted media coverage and debates.  We did a post, “Poverty Tours: Good or Bad?” exploring some of the questions last July.
Topics about the poor or disadvantaged in relations to the wealthy and advantaged often trigger heated opinions. Debate is good because it brings issues to the forefront and is productive if the underlying desire is for betterment rather than being right.
Critics of slum tours have long argued that tourists visiting the slums exploit and violate the dignity of slum dwellers. While supporters of …

Volunteering abroad is nothing new. For decades, people have gone abroad with the Peace Corps, with relief organizations or even on their own. But the momentum for volunteering abroad has never been stronger than today as more opportunities are available for just about anybody.
Collectively, we have made this huge shift from thinking about ourselves to helping people on other continents. At its core, this is a by-product of an affluent society where our basic needs are met and we are ready to use our excess resources to help others globally. …

North Americans and Europeans accounted for the largest groups of travelers in the last 30 years. Travel experts expect that to change in the next 30 years with more people from Russia, India, China, and Brazil traveling. They expect destinations in Southeast Asia and Latin American will jump in popularity because of their proximity to the new source of travelers. UK travel specialist Hoseasons chief executive Richard Carrick indicated, “There will be a shift in the axis of power over the next 30 years. As people from China and India …

One exciting news expected to come out of the upcoming UN Climate Change conference in Copenhagen December 7-18 is the launch of Hope Plus, seen as a global online Peace Corps or a global “eBay for caring.” This is a global, multilingual web portal that allows people interested in social change projects to meet online, share ideas and resources and start planning projects such as helping disaster victims, building schools, campaigning for clean water. It will run independent of any government. The project, backed by Obama and Gates, is led …