“The Awards give us the opportunity to acknowledge operators who are making a difference and to increase our understanding of the industry and good practices,”

Wild Asia 2008 Awards / Photo by Wild Asia

Dr. Reza Azmi, Founder and Director of Wild Asia, explains. “The awards act as both a showcase for the exemplary resorts and as an inspiration to others.” Since the inception of the Awards, Wild Asia has identified 12 winners and 27 finalists from all over Asia as leaders of Responsible Tourism.

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Established in 2003, Wild Asia is a social enterprise sensitive to the connections between natural areas and communities reliant upon them. Fundamental to its growth has been the equally sociable building of partnerships with businesses that share similar social and environmental sensitivities.

“Our ultimate goal is to promote sustainable practices that will minimise adverse impacts on the environment, ensure that local communities are engaged and that local cultures are respected.”

- Wild Asia

Responsible Tourism Initiative

In addition to several other programs and initiatives – focusing on sustainable agriculture; the establishment or enhancement of ‘natural corridors’ where wildlife can live and move with minimal human interference; and direct financial support (amounting to 25% of Wild Asia’s annual profits!) to causes in Asia, for example, through seed grants – Wild Asia directs a far-reaching Responsible Tourism initiative (RTI) which:

“aims to promote the best practices of sustainable tourism in Asia. Our goal is to demonstrate that there are clear financial incentives for doing the right thing. The reward for tourism operators is simple; we offer them unique marketing opportunities to reach out to a growing global market for responsible tourism. The reward for travelers – ecologically and socially sound tourism – is just as important, because they make choices with their conscience and their budget alike.”

For travellers, there are clearly presented responsible tourism guidelines and an interactive responsible tourism map spotlighting tourism practitioners in Southeast Asia committed to responsible tourism. (Far from compendious, the map is more of a demonstration of how little is out there right now, something sure to change in the years ahead.) Complementing both is a professional Wild Asia travel team using the organisation’s intimate knowledge of the region to help ethical travellers “maximise the spread of the ‘tourism dollar’. This is important in supporting the local economies of the communities you visit and will also be an excellent way to discover the real Asia (minus the gloss and hype).”

Responsible Tourism Award

As if not already busy enough, Wild Asia is the force behind the Responsible Tourism Award (RTA), established in 2003 and now an annual occurrence. Billed as the first pan-Asian award for excellence in responsible tourism, the RTA recognises tourism accommodations in Asia that are making a difference.

Although submissions for this year’s RTA are now closed, the award presentation will be hosted in Kuala Lumpur from 27-30 October in association with the international CSR Asia Summit. The CSR Asia Summit is another annual event focusing on corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the Asia-Pacific Region. The 2008 Summit welcomed 300 people from 27 countries and regions to discuss CSR issues in Asia.

In conjunction with the awards, Wild Asia will lead its annual ‘RT in Action’ two-day training workshop on 29-30 October 2009. It is designed as a way to bring tourism professionals – property owners, managers and tourism professionals, as well as media – up to snuff on sustainable principles in tourism using case studies from the region.

“By sharing the winners’ best practices, and demonstrating how easy and beneficial responsible tourism is to implement, we hope other operators will be inspired to take the first steps to change,”

- Wild Asia.

Further information

• This is an abridged version of an article written on the whl.travel blog.

I spent most of my early work on research – from looking at the way people were using forest remnants to hard-core taxonomy; to be honest, it was always the villagers I have worked with that have given me the most inspiration. Seeing people not being respected by the “system” or being taken advantage of by expanding industries (plantations to tourism) are all my drivers for wanting to make things work – making business work for the environment and the communities they operate in.

MTF: What is your background and what initially prompted you to set up Wild Asia?

Research, research, research. Well grounded in modern biological sciences but after graduating, I found myself working on conservation issues with WWF – from marine to forest conservation. Wild Asia was my next step really – to build a new platform to seek new approaches to conservation. It did not happen overnight though and our starting point was my first website – wildborneo.net – which was setup to assist travelers find village tourism enterprises and a means to bypass mainstream tourism operators.

MTF: Can you explain a bit more about what you do?

My day to day job is shared between nurturing Wild Asia – a team held together with very little cash, lots of motivation and very little free time – and also working as an adviser for a wide range of conservation projects. Usually these are projects funded by international aid but we find, more and more, that these are projects we have dreamt of, such as the natural corridor initiative.

MTF: How succesful has your work on Oil Palm plantations been and why is it important?

Our whole approach is to work from within, and so one of our biggest coups was to be drawn into one of the largest oil palm companies in the world. It took over a year to build their trust but we are now in a position to influence change – this has ranged from influencing the protection of natural areas; advising on approaches to sustainability and simply making plantation managers build better relationships with the local community. This is potentially of wide ranging consequence as these ideas now have a higher chance of being picked up by the other companies.

MTF: Why did you get involved in the tourism industry?

Tourism in Malaysia – or Asia – is most often than not based on natural areas and its people. These are the very environments we want to see conserved. We also saw that a clean “environment” and “local communities” is relevant for the entire tourism industry and not restricted to those so called eco-tourism operators. It was only natural, again, that we started looking at ways to influence this industry.

MTF: What are your hopes for the future, both for yourself and Wild Asia, and for the environment and world of travel?

Its a moving goalpost isn’t it? For whatever progress we make – we never quite seem to get there. Thats the nature of our times. What we see though is that we can make a difference, however small, its simply important to keep sharing, keep talking and keep connecting to connect with yet more like-minded people. Its this critical mass – whatever that may be – that I hope we can build which would kick start some major wins.

MTF: What advice would you give to a travel company that wants to make a real difference?

The one thing I have learnt is that to make RT work on the ground, you need patience and a strong financial base. Once you can get started and that you have a viable business, work to understand what responsible travel means; you can start by filling up our responsible tourism checklist!

More information:

• Listen to Dr. Reza Azmi on Kuala Lumpur’s BFM radio talking about Wild Asia and how it all got started.