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In partnership with George Washington University, we created the Responsible Travel with Indigenous People: Global Good Practice Guidelines

Officially Launched “50 in 5” campaign to develop and include 50 new community tourism enterprises into G Adventures tours in 5 years

Planeterra embarks on a $1 million initiative with the Inter-American Development Bank to build sustainable tourism projects in Central and South America

The Ccaccaccollo Women’s Weaving Co-op, Planeterra’s first community tourism enterprise is established in Ccaccaccollo, Peru

The Planeterra Foundation was created as a means for the travel industry to give back. In that same year, G Adventures and Planeterra established camps in Tibet, flying in 60 doctors to perform cataract and other eye surgeries, restoring the sight of over 300 people in remote Tibetan villages

Lady Tuk-Tuk Driver Siem Reap, Cambodia Impact As tourism recovers and borders reopened in Cambodia, Ms. Kim decided to register the Lady Tuk-Tuk Driver group as an association to offer tuk-tuk (Auto rickshaw or Remorque in Khmer) transportation services to travellers who want to discover the beauty of Siem Reap, the home of Angkor Wat, and many ancient temples. But the mission of the Lady Tuk-Tuk Driver group goes beyond that, as they also seek to empower women to be confident and independent given that most of them serve as the leader of their families. The women can now use the income from tourism to support themselves and their families. 40 community members benefitting 70 community members indirectly benefitting . Critical Need It is no secret that the COVID-19 pandemic had devastating effects on communities worldwide and Cambodia was not the exception. Women in Siem Riep were struggling to earn an income, especially in tourism-related activities. With the recovery of tourism, there is hope for the members of the Lady Tuk-Tuk Driver group, but in order to fully reap the benefits of the travel industry, they need to secure a steady stream of visitors in need of their services. Our Involvement Planeterra provided training and mentoring support so that the Lady Tuk-Tuk Driver group can become confident in working with travellers and continue building a sustainable business model. Also, by connecting Lady Tuk-Tuk Driver with Planeterra’s corporate partners, the group of women is able to secure a constant stream of travellers demanding their services in addition to the individual visitors they are hosting daily. . Related projects View all projects > Chocolate de la Cuenca de Altamira (CHOCAL)Restaurante El Manglar View all projects >

Celebrating 20 years of impact Help Create a Better Kind of Tourism  Looking ahead to the next 20 years, we are more dedicated than ever to continue growing community tourism so that its ripple effects can continue to multiply and create even more positive change in every corner of the globe for both communities and travellers alike.  Want to support the growth of community tourism?  Donate today 500000 288452 What we've accomplished so far . Sorry,You have not added any story yet Learn more about Planeterra's work over the past 20 years here GX Peru G Adventures and Planeterra demonstrated the transformative potential of community tourism in the first-ever GX World Community Tourism Summit. GX: Peru was more than just an event—it was a testament to the power of community in shaping a better world. Throughout the week the over 400 participants experienced first-hand the impact of community tourism visiting four different communities. Then on September 27, everyone gathered for the first-ever World Community Tourism Summit in Cusco, Peru where a diverse line-up of speakers and panelists shared their thoughts and experiences, igniting discussions on how community tourism can make a lasting impact. Click here to learn more. Ccaccaccollo Women’s Weaving Co-op Sacred Valley, Peru GX became a reality thanks to the support of: The next 20 years What do the next 20 years look like? Planeterra set the bar high working towards achieving the following  aspirational goals by 2030: 50 million travellers experiencing community tourism $1 billion worth of income reaching communities 3.5 million lives improved through community tourism Would you like to be part of the next 20 years and help Planeterra uplift lives through travel? We're looking for travel companies, strategic partners and community tourism champions who want to uplift more lives through travel. Contact us at info@planeterra.org  Community tourism around the world Looking for a different way to travel? Check out the community tourism enterprises that Planeterra has directly supported. Friends International“it was natural for ChildSafe to choose Planeterrra as our partner, as we are both committed to the business of changing lives for the better. Planeterra’s dedication to ensuring the welfare and protection of children in the travel industry reinforces the key messages of ChildSafe, and their position as a global leader in sustainable and responsible tourism means that through our partnership, more communities, families and children can enjoy the benefits that tourism brings, in a protective environment. ChildSafe Movement is proud to partner with Planeterra – Together, protecting children!” Planeterra Strategic Partner çöp(m)adam“Our community as a workshop benefits tremendously from Planeterra – there are lulls now and again but by and large, tour groups help us pay the rent; our community as a town relies heavily on tourism – the best change I notice is more young waiters speaking English!” Planeterra Community Partner Erwin Sasmito“When I joined G Adventures 12 years ago I quickly realized how lucky I was to find myself working for a company where doing good business comes from intentionally helping communities around the world – that’s why the 12 years (and more years to come). I’m doing something right and for [...]

As 2022 came to an end, so did the ‘Sustainable Tourism and Protected Areas in a Post-COVID World’ project, funded by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, in which we collaborated with the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). With this project, we aimed to uplift communities, living in and around protected areas, to use tourism enterprises as a way to recover from the impacts created by the COVID-19 pandemic. The project also aimed to develop a more crisis-resilient and sustainable landscape in and around protected and conserved areas. The focus was on improving the ecological and social aspects of tourism and rebuilding better for people, wildlife, and ecosystems. To achieve this, IUCN and Planeterra worked in the Cuc Phuong National Park and Van Long Nature Reserve (Vietnam) to provide training to, and build the capacity of, community members. Through this, both organizations were looking to uplift local community tourism enterprises and increase their benefits, build common visions through action planning, and provide recommendations to protected area staff and management, as well as global guidance and best practice solution sharing based on lessons learned from the project. We used MEET Network’s experience and methodology to inform and provide guidance and content to the project, including its actions with project sites. Also, the IUCN Green List Standard was core to the success of the project. Our work in Vietnam Tourism was not the main source of income for the communities in the Cuc Phuong National Park. The Khanh village has been the only location open to visitors since 1993, making it one of the earliest examples of community-based tourism in Vietnam, as noted by the Cuc Phuong Management Board. However, the village currently has only four homestays and the services, pertaining to tourism, are limited. We found out that people in Cuc Phuong were keen to gain knowledge about tourism and use it to diversify their income. We also discovered that staff from the Cuc Phuong Center of Education and Environmental Services, in charge of tourism and education activities, were not trained to deliver tourism products and services. Likewise, there was no monitoring and evaluation system in place to ensure an effective and smooth operation of community tourism-related products.  We could see a similar case in the Van Long Nature Reserve, given that tourism was not the main source of income, but community members were eager to gain the skills and knowledge needed to run a tourism enterprise. It was also identified that the Management Board responsible for tourism management in the area, lacked expertise in the matter. Check out the activities the project initially planned for the Cuc Phuong National Park, here. To identify all of the situations mentioned above and adapt the initial project plan to better suit the communities needs, our team in the field started off by conducting a baseline survey. Training sessions A series of three workshops were conducted in five villages to improve the community participants’ knowledge and skills in: Health & safety. Ecotourism product and itinerary development. Ecotourism marketing and promotion. All the contents were tailored to fit the demographic [...]

As 2022 came to an end, so did the ‘Sustainable Tourism and Protected Areas in a Post-COVID World’ project, funded by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, in which we collaborated with the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). With this project, we aimed to bridge the gap created by the pandemic on tourism and develop a more crisis-resilient and sustainable landscape in and around protected and conserved areas. The focus was also on improving the ecological and social aspects of tourism and rebuilding better for people, wildlife, and ecosystems. To achieve this, IUCN and Planeterra worked in the Río Abiseo National Park and Amarakaeri Communal Reserve (Peru) to provide training and capacity building to community members. Through this, both organizations were looking to uplift local tourism businesses and increase their benefits, build common visions through action planning, and provide recommendations to protected area staff and management, as well as global guidance and best practice solution sharing based on lessons learned from the project. We used MEET Network’s experience and methodology to inform and provide guidance and content to the project, including its actions with project sites. Also, the IUCN Green List Standard was core to the success of the project. Our work in Peru Because of COVID-19, the access roads to the Río Abiseo National Park were closed, the flow of visitors decreased, and economic activities based on agriculture, forestry work, and local commerce were limited. Even though the situation of tourism in the area seemed to be improving at the start of 2022, there were still some barriers for community members. Some of these included having limited access to training and funding opportunities to develop unique and meaningful community tourism enterprises that go along with the flow of visitors around the local tourist attractions (e.g. the improvement of food and lodging services that already existed). Through this project, we worked with five rural communities (San Juan del Abiseo, Pizarro, Pucallpillo, Santa Rosa and Dos de Mayo) in this protected area. Check out this blog post and meet some of the local entrepreneurs at Río Abiseo National Park who developed and improved their community tourism products and experiences by working on this project with IUCN and Planeterra. In the Amarakaeri Communal Reserve, the COVID-19 pandemic paralyzed the flow of tourists. Given that the community has been hosting travellers for over 10 years when tourism came to a halt it left severe economic losses. This meant that they had to go back to traditional fishing, hunting, agriculture and other extractive activities as a survival measure. Talking about tourism, in this protected area we worked and supported the Indigenous communities of Queros, Shintuya, Puerto Azul Mberowe and Boca Ishiriwe. They were already involved in the tourism sector, and some of them had formal organizations and basic tourism facilities to host tourists. However, there was still the need to provide training and capacity building to improve the existing community experiences, effective market access, as well as access to tools for responsible tourism development, basic sanitation, and improving the quality of life of the local population. To get a [...]

Planeterra continued to be at the forefront of community tourism in 2022. As travel restrictions were lifted, we were thrilled to receive images and videos from our partners as they welcomed back travellers after shutting down due to the pandemic. But the road to recovery has not been easy for everyone and a great part of our work in 2022 was focused on ensuring that communities are able to benefit from tourism once again. We continued supporting community tourism enterprises through our Global Community Tourism Network (GCTN). In 2022, our team hosted several Community Hours and monthly Webinars, both in English and Spanish, and we continued providing ongoing support and mentorship for community tourism enterprises through our Learning Hub. To date, 450 community members from 77 different countries are part of the GCTN🌎 Watch some of the webinars we hosted in 2022: Earth wisdom, community well-being, and values of Indigenous Tourism. Rethinking Community Tourism in Protected Areas. Women's Leadership in Tourism. What Community Tourism in Action looks like. For more Planeterra videos, check out our YouTube channel. One of the major highlights of last year was the launching of the Global Community Tourism Fund. This is a grant program that supports growth and recovery for community tourism enterprises within the GCTN through small grants and mentorship. Each of the recipients received a flexible grant to support initiatives such as infrastructure upgrades, equipment purchases, marketing, training and more. Read more about the first projects supported by the fund, here. Over the past year, our team collaborated for the first time with the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in the ‘Sustainable Tourism and Protected Areas in a Post-COVID World’ project, funded by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH. The goal of this project was to bridge the gap created by the pandemic on tourism and develop a more crisis-resilient and sustainable landscape in and around protected and conserved areas. The focus was also on building back better for the people, wildlife and ecosystems, as well as improving the ecological and social aspects of tourism. Planeterra and IUCN worked in the Río Abiseo National Park and Amarakaeri Communal Reserve in Peru and Cuc Phuong National Park and Van Long Nature Reserve in Vietnam. Our team in the field first worked with community members in each protected area to understand the current situation of tourism, provided training in topics such as ecotourism, health & safety, and marketing and deployed a series of initiatives, one of them being the cash for work activities, to benefit community members.  Read more about some of the outcomes of the project in Peru and Vietnam. Dos de Mayo Community, Río Abiseo National Park Planeterra closed 2022 granting wishes with our annual holiday campaign, The Wish List. This year, the goal was to help our community partners fully recover from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and to support them in getting ready to welcome travellers once again and benefit from tourism.  To create more impact, the Wish List focused on uplifting five critical areas: Women’s empowerment. Conserving cultures. New paths for youth. Environmental protection. [...]