Adrian Phillips talks about Bradt Guides

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It’s possible to listen to the travel publishers Webinar online and also read a transcript of the chat that took place during the session. Unfortunately there are voice conflicts in the recording that weren’t present during the actual Webinar. It is for this reason that we’ve produced a written account here of all that was said by Adrian Phillips.  To find out more about the event visit ‘Next Webinar hands the mic to Travel Publishers‘.

About Bradt travel guides

Bradt was founded on the idea of responsible travel. Hilary Bradt set up the company about 35 years ago as a direct response to being asked by someone (a traveller publisher at the time) whether she could write a guide book without even visiting the destination.  She was so enraged by this that she decided to set up her own company.

Our niche has traditionally been in offering guidebooks to destinations that other publishers aren’t covering.  We’ve got guides to Sierra Leone, Iraq, Rwanda, Kosovo, those sorts of destinations.  The books often cover areas that have been recently devastated by war or famine, and where tourist revenue is vital to their recovery.  We like to think that by just being out there the guides are promoting a responsible attitude, in that the destinations are benefiting in ways that perhaps they otherwise wouldn’t if the information wasn’t provided.

A wider view of responsible tourism

The other thing I think we do is take a more adult approach to travel.  In my view there’s a fairly narrow view of what it is to travel responsibly.  So much of the debate at the moment defines travel as a guilty pleasure.  Flying is seen as the big bad thing, the carbon footprint is the be all and end all.  We’ve always viewed travel as a powerful force for good.  It just so happens that some of the poorest nations of the world are a long way from us.   If we restrict ourselves to places accessible by train or bike we’re really just using our money in the first world.

Tourism is the overwhelming impulse behind conservation projects, people need to make a living from their local environment.  Tourism offers them the motivation to preserve that piece of rainforest rather than cutting it down and turning it into furniture.  We changed our tag line from ‘giving something back’ to ‘travelling positively’ because we kind of felt it suggested people should feel guilty, as though they need to give something back, when in actually fact if they travel more positively in the first place they’re already giving.

Encouraging positive travel

I suppose our main contribution to positive travel is encouraging that mindset in everyone who is  travelling.  It might be deciding to go to an emerging destination as I mentioned before, rather than your typical holiday hot-spot.  It might just mean getting off the beaten track to villages or areas that most other people aren’t going to in a more mainstream destination, and so what our books try to do is provide the information that allows visitors to do that.

We work with a charity called stuff your rucksack which was setup by Kate Humble and that provides information on things required by local schools, or by orphanages.  It says specifically what they need at that moment, travellers can then log-on to the website, find out where they’re visiting and perhaps take marker pens or whatever in spare space they have in their luggage.  Delivering them personally to the schools at the other end gets you much closer engagement with the culture.  I think over all we just need to encourage this positive mindset towards travel and that in itself will bring the rewards.

Every destination has different requirements

Travelling responsibly can mean very different things for different destinations.  There are different kinds of publications – there will be a more narrow scope for covering responsible travel in Berlin than there might be for travelling in Rwanda, but there will always be local charities that will benefit from support through guidebooks from publicity, there will always be conservation projects whether that’s architectural, wildlife or whatever.  I would have thought that the general attitude toward travelling responsibly could be promoted whatever the destination, but certainly it’s going to be more readily propagated for certain places, and is more desperately required in some more than others.

What’s required in areas is sufficient visitor numbers to ensure that the local environment is protected, that the wildlife is protected, but not too many visitors so that in their very number they’re actually damaging the environment.  I think it all feeds back into working with local organisations on the ground.  Again this is very much part of what we would try to promote as part of positive travel, and obviously it’s great to work with international charities in many ways but it’s the local ones I think where travellers can actually make a very real and visible difference during a visit.   Certainly Bradt authors themselves can play a part in monitoring that, and certainly our authors will say if they believe that an area is getting over visited.  There’s no perfect world here, and certainly the responsibility lies very much with the authors as they take the lead with this responsible travel.

Ranking accommodation on eco-friendliness

We’ve come up against this problem or suggestion before that we should some how rank accommodation by their eco-friendliness.  The reality is that it’s actually something that’s very difficult to do.  There are different levels of eco-friendliness from destination to destination.  What you’re probably find is that areas in the first world are far more ecologically friendly than some of the poorer areas of the world, so I think it’s quite difficult to get a benchmark for how you go about assessing these things.

In a practical sense it’s also extremely difficult, an author’s already having to be a jack of all trades to write about the country’s economy, markets, wildlife etc. There’s a limited amount of money to spare to pay authors and they have to make the most use of their time.  To try and assess accurately the level to which a hotel is meeting certain criteria is quite difficult.  Having said that, our individual authors are very conservation minded and will only promote places which they think are taking steps in that sort of direction or meet those sort of aspirations.  To come up with a fixed template by which to judge these places is very difficult I think.

The Go Slow movement

Author’s fall almost naturally into the Go Slow movement really.  It’s very much about travelling with low impact whilst on the ground, and certainly buying local crafts, eating local food, engaging with local businesses.  We’re actually bringing out some books that are UK based next year called Go Slow guides, targeting the Go Slow movement more specifically.

Further information:

• Interview: Hilary Bradt MBE, Creator Of Bradt Travel Guides