FAQs Flashcards
Is now really safe to travel? Aren’t you being irresponsible recommending potentially dangerous destinations?
For 47 years, Lonely Planet has been advising travellers amidst a variety of political turmoils, and has always taken the same approach to ensure that travellers make the best decisions about their safety when travelling.
We provide balanced and objective opinion, and consult official government warnings regarding the safety of destinations. Unfortunately, there are events that cannot be predicted which cause destinations across the globe to become unsafe. However, we also know that millions of people travel safely each year and have incredible experiences.
Our advice continues to be: follow official advisories, keep abreast of a destination’s local news and stay informed right up until your visit will ensure that you can stay as safe as possible.
We genuinely believe that the places, people and businesses highlighted in Best in Travel 2021 offer unique experiences that are best discovered in the year ahead.
How will travel change as a result of COVID?
As people have become more accustomed to lockdowns and travel restrictions, there’s been an increasing interest in local experiences - day trips or road trips from home, for example. The great outdoors continues to be a major draw for travelers. We’re finding that these local trips can be just as illuminating and transformative, and that travel doesn’t always have to be big, international, bucket-list trips.
With people also increasingly working from home, we think the trends in digital nomadism and remote work will continue to rise. Companies are more willing to allow their employees to work from home, and workers can take advantage of that in “workcation” trips. Destinations like Barbados and Estonia have already established special visas for these types of travelers.
But beyond that, travel is more deliberate now. We have to decide if it’s safe to take a road trip or stay in a hotel. We believe that will continue to shape how travelers think about the impact of travel, both themselves and the places they travel to. That’s why we wanted this year’s Best in Travel list to focus on the themes of sustainability, community and diversity.
Why is Best in Travel 2021 different this year?
Travel is different, for now. Covid-19 has severely impacted travel and is likely to continue to do so until it is safe to travel. This year is unlike any other and we felt it was important that our annual list should reflect that although our circumstances have changed for now, travel is still a force for good.
Rather than recommending destinations to travel to, we decided to take stock of what matters most in travel. We believe that the three pillars of Sustainability, Community and Diversity reflect important shared values in travel and we are delighted to recognize people, places and businesses making a positive contribution.
Why pick Sustainability, Community and Diversity?
The Covid-19 pandemic, combined with natural disasters and political unrest has caused many people to reflect on what is important to them. We believe that the future of travel is based in sustainability and community-led travel initiatives that give back. And we believe that travel has the ability to break down barriers and increase understanding between people. That begins with diversity and inclusivity.
What were your criteria for picking the winners under sustainable tourism?
We identified sustainable tourism as meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.
In line with the UN World Tourism Council guidelines, we examined the prospective winners under their commitment to planet and its people
We based our winning selections on the Global Sustainable Tourism Council criteria of:
- Sustainable management
- Socioeconomic impacts
- Cultural impacts
- Environmental impacts
How did you choose the community winners?
Community tourism is a positive force that supports locally based projects and people offering a direct benefit for both the local community and the traveler.
To select our winners in Best in Travel Community 2021, we looked at how businesses, people and places were delivering in the best interests of local residents. Our criteria were:
- Empowering to local communities
- Generate an income for locals
- Promote cross cultural understanding and offer authentic experiences
How did you choose the diversity in travel winners?
We believe that diversity in travel matters because diverse perspectives and experiences produce better stories, better understanding and break down barriers.
We think that now, more than ever, in our world, developing a more diverse and inclusive travel perspective can be transformational for all - the traveler and the places and people we visit.
We see diversity as acknowledging all kinds of travelers including race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, disability, ethnicity age and size. We picked our winners based on the criteria that they:
- Foster more collaboration and understanding
- Reflect all kinds of travelers and meet their needs
- Tell great stories that help educate travelers
How can you choose a list of the Best places in the world to go to for 2021 with so much uncertainty?
We agree that we can’t release a run-down of the best places to visit in 2021 right now - it’s too risky and unpredictable. So there’s no print edition of Best in Travel and we’re taking a different approach online than we have in recent years.
We’re also taking the opportunity to have a fresh focus on some key themes that will endure beyond the current difficult circumstances for travel: sustainability, community and diversity.
We have reviewed the list to make it as current as possible up to the minute of release, and will continue to monitor our content to ensure that it is recommending safe and accessible places and experiences.
How do you choose your winners? What’s the process?
- It started the same as it has in previous years - by tapping into the global Lonely Planet family to suggest their picks for the year head.
- But once the pandemic hit, we realized we couldn’t accurately and safely recommend countries, regions and cities the way we usually do
- Our news and features teams shifted the focus to the three themes of sustainability, community and diversity and kept what was relevant and added what was needed to reflect travel now.
- Finally we double-checked these winners with our expert content creators around the globe to ensure they met all of our criteria.
How long has Lonely Planet been releasing Best in Travel?
This will be its 16th annual edition and the first digital-only one. It was called Lonely Planet’s Bluelist in its first couple of years – we renamed it Best in Travel for the 2009 edition, to more accurately reflect the book’s contents.
This campaign devotes a significant amount of space to the importance of diversity and inclusivity as well as sustainable travel. Is Lonely Planet making a political statement(s) with this release?
We’re as conscious as anyone that diversity is the key issue in 2021 and we hope that by featuring so prominently destinations that are getting it right we can play our part in the conversation.
Lonely Planet has always taken sustainable travel seriously – our content aims to help travellers to have a positive impact wherever they choose to go - and we do not see this as a political statement.
Travel gives us so much: adventure, delicious food, expanded horizons and lasting memories being just a few of its personal rewards. Perhaps less obvious is the effect our travels have on the places and people we visit. In this edition of Best in Travel, we explore how well-planned, sustainable travel can be a force for good for all involved – good for the environment, for the local people, and for ourselves.
How diverse are your contributors/staff?
Lonely Planet considers that diversity and inclusivity are very important. As a company we are passionate about travel and we are keen to work as much as possible with the widest and most expert people in travel. We audit our content regularly to ensure that it is reflective of the diverse world in which we live and accurately portrays travelers from a wide range of backgrounds and experiences.
We strive to reflect travelers of all ethnicities, gender identities, sexualities and abilities in our content. We encourage diversity in recruitment of contributors and seek out new viewpoints in travel writing by having a presence at professional workshops such as AUDACITY Fest and the Women in Travel summit, as well as hosting our first in-house Diversity in Travel event in 2018.
Thanks to the pioneering work of Martin Heng, former Accessible Travel Manager & Editorial Advisor, Lonely Planet has been on the forefront of promoting accessibility in the travel industry. We aim to remove barriers to travel for people with disabilities and offer a number of accessible travel resources free of charge.
*If they ask us a followup about actionable items and what Lonely Planet is doing, comment that the COVID-19 pandemic and the changes in the industry have given travel media organizations like Lonely Planet an opportunity to further dismantle the colonial model of “parachute journalism” and instead empower local writers to tell their own stories and share about their communities in their own way, ushering in a more diverse era of travel writing. That brings us back to how we selected this year’s BIT winners, celebrating what these places and individuals have done in their communities.
Didn’t Lonely Planet recently lay off most of its staff and close its London, Melbourne and NY offices?
Lonely Planet did recently announce a set of restructure measures in response to the COVID-19 outbreak and sadly we lost staff and saw some offices closed. We continue to publish content on lonelyplanet.com, in guidebooks and phrasebooks, but have otherwise reduced our publishing operations including stopping the Lonely Planet magazine. Our commitment to our community via these products, our Guides app and our award-winning website, however, remains undimmed.
You claim to be serious about sustainability - yet you’re still promoting long-haul travel. Aren’t you being irresponsible and hypocritical?
- We believe that travel is a force for good and we are very focussed on what it means to travel well.
- There’s no better time than right now to re-evaluate our personal flying habits and start approaching air travel more thoughtfully.
- And we encourage our community to consider being more sustainable by making small changes that can reduce your carbon footprint when you do fly - from travelling light, going direct and staying longer, as well as choosing your plane wisely and using carbon offsetting.
- Climate change is an important conversation and one that we contribute to by reporting on new developments, opening up discussions and contributing to the global dialogue.
- Finally, our own tours, Lonely Planet Experiences, are a carbon-neutral initiative that work with local leaders and give back to local communities with a minimal impact on the environment, and include carbon offsetting in the price.
To be considered in a list such as this, does a sponsorship, financial arrangement or advertising agreement need to be in place with a destination in order for it to be considered?
The list is compiled by our editorial team independent of any commercial influence. A closely guarded process; our writers, in-house staff and community of bloggers submit recommendations and these are considered and shortlisted by a panel of editorial staff. Once the list is determined, we will let tourism boards know to expect the flurry of media coverage and some choose to maximise the attention on their destination by sponsoring the destination page on our website - these conversations with tourism boards take place once the list has been selected and the book has gone to print so that there is no risk of any outside influence on selection.
