GATN Consultative Meeting for Mentors and Regional Representatives

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Last Updated (Thursday, 31 July 2014 20:24)


The Consultative Meeting for Mentors and Regional Representatives of the Global Alternative Tourism Network (GATN) was held in Phnom Penh from 14-18 September 2013. The meeting brought together members of the GATN Task Force to review our programme, explore and strategise how best to develop this programme further in the coming years. We were also fortunate to have two members from the Tourism Watch, Bread for the World, Germany, Ms. Antje Monshausen and Ms. Annegret Zimmermann, participate in this meeting.

Mr. Yamada Kohei, General Secretary of the Asia and Pacific Alliance of YMCAs, welcomed participants to the meeting and shared his hopes and expectations that the Alternative Tourism programmewill contribute to leadership formation and development of global citizenship of young people.In his welcome to the participants, Mr. BunthokDeth, General Secretary of the Cambodia YMCA, informed that the Cambodia YMCA has also been working hard to develop an alternative tourism site and hoped that everyone would have a good time visiting the site on the following day.

Mr. Caesar D’Mello, advisor to the GATNbegan the meeting with morning devotion and an input on Current Trends in Alternative Tourism and Challenges for the GATN. This was followed by Ms. Monshausen’s sharing on “Human Rights and Tourism” and Ms. Zimmermann’s sharing on “Tourism and Climate Change”.

The members of the GATN Task Force also enriched the discussions on alternative tourism with their own experiences and expertise. Some shared with the group case studies of their experiences in developing and managing alternative tourism sites. Another group shared case studies of their experiences in sending groups of young people for study tours and service learning programmes. From the sharing of these case studies we derived much input for further improvement of the programme.

One of the highlights of this meeting was the GATN Round Table. Representatives from YMCAs that regularly send youth groups for study tours and service learning programmeswere invited to participate in this Round Table. The objectives of the Round Table are to share with these sending YMCAs some of the special and unique sites being developed in our alternative tourism network and receive feedbacks from them on how these sites could be developed further to cater or meet the needs of these sending YMCAs.

Another highlight of this meeting was the visit to alternative tourism site being developed by the Cambodia YMCA. We visited a school about 30 minutes outside the city of Phnom Penh. Several groups of international visitors have participated in various projects in this school such as painting the class rooms and having English conversation classes with the students. We also visitedthe village and houses where international visitors of the alternative tourism had their homestay. We ended the visit with a community dinner and some cultural activities with the villagers.

In order to further promote and develop the Alternative Tourism programme the meeting concluded that more training workshops should be conducted at national levels. It was also proposed that the APAY initiate some pilot study tours as a means to showcase alternative tourism and also to help the local YMCAs to jumpstart their alternative tourism programme.