Solidarity Tourism

Solidarity Tourism can be seen as a gateway to respond to the challenges of tourism, taking into account that this concept goes beyond the mere fact of organizing a trip, it has to do also with the links that are created with the local community and the positive impacts for them, the departure process, but also reception process etc. And above all, solidarity tourism is responsible for the environment and the people who inhabit it, and promotes a model of tourism that is accessible to everyone. Solidarity Tourism is therefore the opposite of “mass tourism”. A tourism that respects all ethnicitie, cultures, sexual orientations, identities and people with disabilities.

Solidarity tourism as an opportunity to ally the challenges of local development with the challenges faced by youth these days. By creating a more aware business market we can create more sensible and adequate responses to the needs of the youth, namely providing job opportunities that are safe and fair, later on giving the possibility to younger generations to fixate themselves not just in big urban cities but even in their homelands no matter how underdeveloped they seem to be. At the same time by fixating locals we also guarantee the preservation of one's community traditions and cultural heritage, a healthy local economy and specially can aim to protect the surrounding environment.

Equivalent concepts

• Community-based tourism
• Responsible tourism
• Tourism for Local Development
• Educational Tourism
• Inclusive Tourism
• Community Based Tourism

History of the concept

Avise points out, in its dossier on social and solidarity tourism, the Vienna Charter (1972) for tourism, as "a means of human development and maturation accessible to all, in a spirit close to popular education". Then in 1996, the Montreal Declaration: For a humanist and social vision of tourism, adopted by the BITS/ISTO General Assembly on 12 September 1996, which aims at "tourism development, environmental protection and respect for local populations" (article 8). 

In 2002, at the Rio+10 summit, the questioning of ethical issues linked to the development of mass tourism and the highlighting of alternative tourism initiatives and actors, aiming to transform tourism practices, will subsequently give rise to fair and solidarity tourism which applies the principles of fair trade to tourism, involving a strong integration of local populations in the different phases of the tourism project. In addition to social impacts, it also takes into account environmental impacts and the possibility of local economic spin-offs, in a relationship of partnership and transparency.

Main networks working on this issue

• ATES, Association pour le Tourisme Équitable et Solidaire.
• Echoway

Links

With socioeco.org

Matching Socioeco.org thematic keyword

With Ripess NL articles or position papers

• Community-based tourism: Find other forms of accomodation, Article from the RIPESS Europe newsletter - January 2022 by Andrea Rodríguez Valdés
• Greece : The resilience of Social Solidarity Economy during the pandemic, Article from the RIPESS Europe newsletter - October 2020 by Heinrich Böll Foundation

With pedagogical tools in socioeco.org

• Solidarity Tourism: Alternative, Sustainable and Responsible Ways of Promoting Youth Mobility, 2022