JJ: The easiest and most obvious is to offset your carbon footprint. Many airlines now offer the chance to do that when you book a flight, and there are numerous organisations that have calculators so you can see the impact you have. A few I recommend: Gold Standard and the climate consultants 3Degrees who helped me to offset the carbon impact of my business so we can be climate positive.

JJ: I think context is the most important thing to understand when talking about sustainable development through tourism. If a family has no food or a safe place to live, talking about recycling or offsetting carbon does not respect the situation they are in. The travel industry has the power to change this as travellers invest their dollars into projects that create amazing travel experiences and put money into local economies. I strongly recommend people to look out for ways to do this. 

Eat at local restaurants, hire local guides, buy local products, and venture outside your hotel as the money you spend when you travel can change people’s lives. In Rwanda [I saw this first hand visiting gorillas], the guides and those who worked at the National Park had been poachers who were taught the power of protecting the animals and generating income through tourism instead of poaching. They did not poach because they wanted to; they had no other way to survive. The development of sustainable tourism enabled them to protect the environments that now give them so much more than they had before.

JJ: 1) Rwanda, definitely—I love that country; 2) Palau—their pledge is an amazing idea and tourism marketing tool in one; and 3) Nihi Sumba.