Misty Foster

Yet, it’s precisely due to COVID-19 that the most prominent outcome could be increased awareness among individual travellers. As mentioned, people’s appreciation for nature has exploded under COVID-19 alongside enjoying their local environments. To ensure an adequate lasting response to the coronavirus, they are treating this to promote responsible travel and that it will merely, benefit the wellbeing of individuals or their fellow travellers, but the broader climate and environment. So, ironically, COVID-19 could be the very wakeup call we have needed to start living greener lives, travelling more responsibly and make more conscious, informed decisions.

This doesn’t entirely curb the overdevelopment of the hotels in the area but there is a concerted effort from the secretary of tourism to strike a balance and push for “zones of sustainable tourism development.[2]” The Mesoamerican Barrier Reef, also known as the Great Mayan Reef, is home to 65 species of stony coral and around 500 species of fish. The coral nursery run by Alltournative isn’t open to the public but it’s a noble effort being put forth by the company to do their part to ensure that the reef is around for visitors to enjoy for generations to come. The company is very transparent about their social and environmental policies and work closely with Maya communities to “reach social and economic development but also to prevent logging and hunting in the areas visited by tourists through excursions in the Riviera Maya and Yucatan.

articlesHow travelers can help save our planet’s species for Earth Day (and beyond) How travelers can help save our planet’s species for Earth Day (and beyond) You’ve heard of overtourism. Top 10 luxury eco-hotels to stay at in 2019 This eco-lodge, deep in the jungles of Bali, should be on your radar You’ve heard of overtourism. You’ve heard of overtourism.

Increasingly, destinations capitalize on undertourism as a benefit — like Norway’s 2017 proclamation to “[rescue] weary travelers from overcrowded European cities [by] flying them to Oslo. Writer Aubrey Menarndt says traveling to undermarketed destinations makes her journeys feel like she is discovering something new. Undertourism affects destinations as remote as St. Helena and as near to popular destinations as Abruzzo and tiny inland towns of Puglia, Italy. Then there’s Puerto Rico, welcoming tourists after Hurricane Maria, and El Salvador, which is what travel writer Johanna Reed calls “the exact opposite of what’s being portrayed in the news.