People-First Tourism Lab Blog

A longstanding goal of conservation initiatives has been for the development of projects that exhibit long-term sustainability without dependence on foreign funding.  Additionally, recent research has shown that conservation initiatives with a traditional ‘command and control’ approach tend to undermine the livelihoods of local populations and the economic sustainability of forest-dependent communities, therefore failing to succeed in the “triple bottom line” approach to sustainability.  We propose that Forest-based tourism micro-entrepreneurship through People-First Tourism may provide a suitable alternative to large-scale top down approaches.  People-First Tourism provides dignified and sustainable livelihood alternatives to small-scale entrepreneurs in tropical forest communities by empowering them to support their livelihoods through innovative tourism opportunities.  For example, in the context of the Caatinga forests of Brazil, it hopes to accomplish three ma...

It has been almost a year since People-First Tourism (P1T) was in Brazil working with the NGO Humana Povo Para Povo to recruit local entrepreneurs for the first P1T network outside of the United States – Humana Sisal, Bahia, Brazil . From that intense week we clearly remember the barrenness of the land, the incredible hardships of everyday life, and, most strikingly, the kindness of the people we met and their paradoxical “joie de vivre” in the face of it all.   The complexity of our experience is illustrated in a short video on P1T’s Youtube channel; particularly in the genuine communion we felt while we danced with a group of sisal harvesters one night after a long and hard day’s work (an extraordinary day for us, just another day for them). Among the aspiring and inspiring entrepreneurs we worked with that week, Felipe dos Santos Almeida stood out due to his charisma, his authenticity and his desire to make more of his life.  Felipe was an engaged community m...

Hey, What do you guys think? We here in the P1T lab have reworked the definition of People First Tourism through an iterative process, honed by the experiences we have had in the field over the last year. A week ago we took the various definitions of P1T and analyzed them for their key components. We added to this our understanding of the underlying principles of P1T, wrote and rewrote our own definitions in teams and then as a lab team produced a "final"(?) statement of what P1T means in one sentence. That statement appears at the end of this blog. It is vital that we get more input. Please read it carefully and share with us your thoughts about this one sentence statement. We want to have a single statement defining P1T to use in all of our communications, papers, posters, grant proposals, reports, publications, and documents. So, let me know here what your thoughts are. People-First Tourism is a global partnership among tourists, the university and with individuals...