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Past Campaigns & Projects

The Maldives

The Maldives are seen as an idyllic luxury holiday retreat, with tourism the biggest contributor to the country’s economy. However, employees in Maldivian tourism industry have few rights and typically endure appalling working conditions.

Supporting Sustainable Tourism in Mexico

In 2008, Tourism Concern worked with local communities in Chiapas to train them in understanding and monitoring the impacts of tourism on their culture and livelihoods.

Sun Sand Sea & Sweatshops

While we relax in the sunshine around the world, life is far from paradise for the waiters, cleaners, cooks, porters, drivers, receptionists and other staff working to make our holidays happy and carefree.

Trekking Wrongs: Porter's Rights

Frostbite, altitude sickness and even death can be the cost for the porters carrying trekkers' equipment in the Himalayas, on the Inca Trail in Peru and at Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania. Tourism Concern's campaign helped to put a stop to the abuse of porters' human rights.

Foreign Office Advice

Foreign Office Travel Advice is believed to be a fair representation of information on these countries. However, our campaign – Foreign Office Travel Advice: Safe and Sound? – highlighted many major inconsistencies.

1998-present: Tourism and Human Rights

The right to turn on a tap and see water come out, the right to have a livelihood, the right to walk around in your neighbourhood - these are all human rights we take for granted. But what if these rights were taken away from us - and what if the reason was because of tourism? It may sound incredible, but in fact, the tourism industry is so large and consuming that it often does violate people's human rights, particularly in the South. Below are a few examples of how those rights are abused that come from our report, Tourism and Human Rights

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1996: Displacement of People

Tourism Concern started to realise that one of the most severe effects of tourism development was that people were evicted from their homes. We were contacted by Maasai people from Tanzania asking for help and saying quite simply in hand-written letters which must have cost a lot to post: "tourism is killing us." Tourism Concern started campaigning on displaced people - people who have lost their homes and livelihoods through tourism. We focused particularly on the Maasai and other tribal people of East Africa and the people of Burma.

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1992: Golf

The 1980s economic boom saw a proliferation of golf courses world-wide and a massive surge in golf tourism, particularly in tropical south east Asia. By the 90s, 350 new golf courses were being built world-wide each year. Maintaining golf courses in prime condition requires massive inputs of fertilisers, pesticides, herbicides and water.

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1990: Goa

Goa was one of the first destinations Tourism Concern forged a good working relationship with. There is a strong NGO network there which has campaigned on tourism since charter tourism began in the 80s. The issues for local people are water, unregulated development, co-option of land, and cultural offence caused by inappropriate behaviour such as nude and topless sunbathing.

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