Space & Place
GTJ covers sustainability, conservation, adventure travel and ecotourism, while emphasizing a destination’s character. As told by those who experience life in or through a place.
We understand place as space with meaning. In 1977, the human geographer Yi-Fu Tuan wrote that if space is abstract and universal, place is imbued with meaning by virtue of experiences we have had there. Experience, he said, is the overcoming of perils.
The word “experience” shares the common root per with experiment, expert, and perilous. To experience in the active sense will require you to get out into the unfamiliar, to dally with the uncertain—whether you plan on climbing K2 or taking the kids on their first backpacking trip. The word “adventure” has been defined in many ways, but GTJ runs with anything that requires an element of risk—along with the necessary preparation to confront that risk.
Identity
What gives a place its identity, its aura, its soul? It was said of South Africa’s Lowveld region for example, that “the place gets into your blood.” GTJ’s publisher and executive editor was raised with family roots that reached into the gritty sodic soils of this southern African heritage. The South African National Archives and Record Services in Cape Town have it on record that his great, great, great grandfather stumbled upon Mosi-Oa-Tunya or The Smoke that Thunders, 12 years before David Livingstone discovered what he then named Victoria Falls. Great, great, great Gramps was on a lion hunt. Apparently, one was shot off his back.
Can the love for a locale or region be transferred from generation to generation in a genetic fashion, thereby working its way into the bloodstream? Probably not. But countless individuals have their own unique stories that testify to the way they were grafted into a particular landscape. The Welsh have a word to describe that sense of displacement, homesickness, nostalgia and longing when you have to leave. “Hiraeth” is that pull on the heart that conveys a distinct feeling of missing something irretrievably lost.
These all might be an expression of Tuan’s concept of place. He references a time when physicists Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg visited Kronberg Castle in Denmark. Bohr asked Heisenberg, “Isn’t it strange how this castle changes as soon as one imagines that Hamlet lived here?”
As scientists they may have believed that a castle consisted only of stones. They might have admired the way the architect put them together. None of this should be changed by the fact that Hamlet lived here, and yet, says Tuan, it changed it completely. Suddenly the walls and the ramparts spoke a different language… a dark corner reminded them of the darkness of the human soul, and says Tuan, we hear Hamlet’s, “To be or not to be.”
If you feel you can capture a similar sense in a submission, pitch away.
Personalize that thought while hiking the Israel National Trail. You might consider that David dropped Goliath with his slingshot in that valley, or that Jesus turned water into wine just down the road from the modern-day Cana Wedding Winery. Even a ruined room will echo to the notes of a different score when ensconced in one of those narratives.
Sustainability
Truly sustainable travel should involve local communities and uplift the disadvantaged. It will educate both traveler and locals. National Geographic says that hosts should discover and grow in their own heritage— when they learn that what they may take for granted is compelling to outsiders. GTJ tells the stories that explore the emotional, physical, and spiritual connections between the people and their landscapes, with those around the globe. Each article should depict a commitment to travel that is sustainable, supports local conservation and sanctions cultural heritage.
So, for example, GTJ would welcome a submission from someone who walked the entire route of the Abraham’s Path Initiative, or about the traditional delights of the practice of making a cup of terebinth coffee in a little village on the trail somewhere in southeast Anatolia. Both emphasize the sustainability precept of ecotourism, by benefiting locals.
Your journey to and through a locale should support its integrity of place. Your stories should inspire readers to plan a similar sustainable adventure.
Categories of Tourism
The Geotourism Principles
These are the 13 principles listed in the Geotourism Charter principles (PDF) as originally put forth via the National Geographic Society. To see the rationale for each principle, read Principles Discussed.
- Integrity of place: Enhance geographical character by developing and improving it in ways distinctive to the locale, reflective of its natural and cultural heritage, so as to encourage market differentiation and cultural pride.
- International codes: Adhere to the principles embodied in the World Tourism Organization’s Global Code of Ethics for Tourism and the Principles of the Cultural Tourism Charter established by the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS).
- Market selectivity: Encourage growth in tourism market segments most likely to appreciate, respect, and disseminate information about the distinctive assets of the locale.
- Market diversity: Encourage a full range of appropriate food and lodging facilities, so as to appeal to the entire demographic spectrum of the geotourism market and so maximize economic resiliency over both the short and long term.
- Tourist satisfaction: Ensure that satisfied, excited geotourists bring new vacation stories home and send friends off to experience the same thing, thus providing continuing demand for the destination.
- Community involvement: Base tourism on community resources to the extent possible, encouraging local small businesses and civic groups to build partnerships to promote and provide a distinctive, honest visitor experience and market their locales effectively. Help businesses develop approaches to tourism that build on the area’s nature, history and culture, including food and drink, artisanry, performance arts, etc.
- Community benefit: Encourage micro- to medium-size enterprises and tourism business strategies that emphasize economic and social benefits to involved communities, especially poverty alleviation, with clear communication of the destination stewardship policies required to maintain those benefits.
- Protection and enhancement of destination appeal: Encourage businesses to sustain natural habitats, heritage sites, aesthetic appeal, and local culture. Prevent degradation by keeping volumes of tourists within maximum acceptable limits. Seek business models that can operate profitably within those limits. Use persuasion, incentives, and legal enforcement as needed.
- Land use: Anticipate development pressures and apply techniques to prevent undesired overdevelopment and degradation. Contain resort and vacation-home sprawl, especially on coasts and islands, so as to retain a diversity of natural and scenic environments and ensure continued resident access to waterfronts. Encourage major self-contained tourism attractions, such as large-scale theme parks and convention centers unrelated to character of place, to be sited in needier locations with no significant ecological, scenic, or cultural assets.
- Conservation of resources: Encourage businesses to minimize water pollution, solid waste, energy consumption, water usage, landscaping chemicals, and overly bright nighttime lighting. Advertise these measures in a way that attracts the large, environmentally sympathetic tourist market.
- Planning: Recognize and respect immediate economic needs without sacrificing long-term character and the geotourism potential of the destination. Where tourism attracts in-migration of workers, develop new communities that themselves constitute a destination enhancement. Strive to diversify the economy and limit population influx to sustainable levels. Adopt public strategies for mitigating practices that are incompatible with geotourism and damaging to the image of the destination.
- Interactive interpretation: Engage both visitors and hosts in learning about the place. Encourage residents to show off the natural and cultural heritage of their communities, so that tourists gain a richer experience and residents develop pride in their locales.
- Evaluation: Establish an evaluation process to be conducted on a regular basis by an independent panel representing all stakeholder interests, and publicize the results.
