Dr. Rachel Dodds - What is sustainable tourism and "Are we there yet"

On a recent flight from Dubai back to Cyprus on Emirates Airlines I watched the documentary "The Last Tourist" which points out that travel is at a tipping point. In the movie, various tourism expert reveal the real conditions and consequences of one of the largest industries in the world. One of the cast members of the above documentary is Dr Rachel Dodds, who is the Director of Sustaining Tourism – a boutique consulting firm. She is also a full Professor at Toronto Metropolitan University in Canada where she joined the Ted Rogers School of Tourism & Hospitality Management in 2006. I was delighted when this busy lady decided to take the time to be on my podcast.
Having been trained to look at many different aspects of tourism, Rachel knows that sustainability means long term planning and management and that experience and understanding of diverse cultures and environments is a fundamental part of tourism. She also has seem many of the issues that lead to overtourism and perhaps undertourism and understands how to plan for them. Rachel has furthered her understanding of the industry through both her personal and work travels. She has now has traveled extensively to six continents and over 80 countries.
Rachel has written, co-authored and edited articles about sustainable tourism, tourist motivations, CSR, islands, tourism development and planning and urban sustainability. She has published a book about sustainable tourism policy (2005), planning and island sustainable tourism (2010) and overtourism in 2019.
Her latest publication is a children's book called: Are We There Yet?Traveling More Responsibly with Your ChildrenThis book will help you make responsible and sustainable choices before, during and after your trip. It will also help you to navigate travelling with children and will give you tips and inspiration for how to raise resilient, responsible kids who will grow to love travel as much as you do!
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61261282-are-we-there-yet
https://sustainabletourism.net/