Due to the current situation with COVID-19 this seminar has been postponed to a later date to be confirmed.

Since the announcement of the Icelandic Pledge in June 2017, initiatives that ask visitors to commit to responsible behaviours when they travel have become increasingly common. From the Palau Pledge, a compulsory visitor immigration requirement launched in December 2017, to the Tiaki Promise, which asks visitors to act as guardians of New Zealand, destination managers are increasingly turning to pledges as a tool to address negative impacts caused by visitors.
Dr Julia Albrecht and Eliza Raymond investigated and explored tourist pledges in Iceland, Palau, Hawai’i, Finland and New Zealand from an organisational perspective. Eighteen semi-structured interviews were carried out with a total of 21 participants in various roles in destination management. Interviews addressed the underlying motivations behind the pledges, development and implementation strategies, and expected and actual impacts that have resulted from the pledges. This presentation will share the key findings from this research and identify lessons learnt from the organisations involved in developing and implementing the pledges.

About the presenter & researcher:
Eliza Raymond is the co-founder and director of operations for GOOD Travel, a New Zealand-based social enterprise working globally to transform the tourism industry into a force for GOOD. Through trips, research and advocacy, GOOD Travel inspires and empowers travellers to have a positive impact on the places they visit. Eliza’s research interests include visitor management, voluntourism and ethical travel. Her work has been published in leading academic journals including the Journal of Sustainable Tourism and Current Issues in Tourism. Eliza also teaches entrepreneurship, innovation and social change at the University for Peace established by the General Assembly of the United Nations.
Dr Julia N. Albrecht is a Researcher at the Department of Tourism at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. Julia’s academic background is in geography, landscape ecology, political studies, and tourism. Julia is interested in sustainable aspects of tourism, tourism strategy and planning, visitor management and stakeholder relationships in tourism. Julia’s work has been published in leading academic journals such as the Journal of Sustainable Tourism, Annals of Tourism Research and International Journal of Tourism Research, among others. She is the editor of Visitor Management in Tourism Destinations (published by CABI in 2015), and she is currently editing a book on Managing Visitor Experiences in Nature-based Tourism (to be published by CABI, 2020).

ALL WELCOME:  Any queries please email: jesse.pirini@vuw.ac.nz