GLP Films is proud to once again be the official storytelling partner and co-host for ITB Berlin’s Green Destinations Story Awards. This yearly event pulls destinations across the globe into a powerful, feel-good competition of “Good Practice Stories” that demonstrate sustainability within tourism.

Mass tourism marketing has often times led to overtourism, as destinations learn the hard way that endless upward growth is simply not sustainable. It’s time for us to rethink traditional marketing metrics by reframing what success means, and going all in on the shift from destination marketing to destination management.

Technology’s role in sustainability has come a long way. Hotels have recognized the tech potential in their sustainability reporting, cost savings, traveler communications, and marketing campaigns. And we have a feeling tech is only just getting started for sustainable hospitality.

As more and more destinations find themselves pivoting from marketing to management amid an influx of travelers beyond sustainable limits, you may be asking yourself, how do we use our destination’s Instagram to help direct the travelers we already receive, rather than market to more of them? Here are our top Instagram tips for destination management.

The goal of community engagement should be to connect travelers with local communities to enrich the travel experience and concurrently benefit the community. For a sustainable hotel, this means making efforts to enhance the company's sustainability while aligning with community values.

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals are a set of 17 categories that aim to make a more prosperous, sustainable, and equitable world. Tourism is uniquely equipped to align with the United Nations SDGs due to its vast impact and dependencies across a variety of industries.

To begin understanding what Community-Based Tourism really is, we suggest adopting a new gaze that moves away from thinking of tourism simply as a product. CBT is more a way of experiencing tourism, rather than a specific service or a series of activities. CBT focuses strongly on the relationships between the hosts and the guests, and this interaction becomes what structures the whole experience.

As boutique hotels and the travel industry are coming to realize, sustainable tourism is now expected by travelers and is not going away. Regenerative travel however, goes beyond sustainability in not just focusing on eliminating harm, but rather creating a positive impact. Boutique hotels can leverage sustainability and regenerative principles to both improve business and protect the environment.

One of the ways to design your content calendar is to look at topics that are going to be front and center in your industry, and that relate to your business’s values, mission, services, or products.

‘Community-Based Tourism’ (CBT) is a term that is gaining more media attention at the global level. Nevertheless, too little is being regularly shared about this, and, consequently, confusion over the terminology is common among tourists.

With COP26 behind us, those in the travel and tourism industry now have a chance to turn their good intentions into measurable actions that count.

The impacts of tourism on climate change, and vise versa, are now a widely-accepted fact in the industry. With one in 10 jobs around the world linked to tourism, the impact of climate change on businesses, communities and livelihoods is not only immense--it’s already here.

Without our destinations, this industry would cease to exist, so it’s on all of us to embrace our role in the climate movement. Read our article to learn how to get involved.

Micro-influencers have a smaller following, but their audience is more engaged and targeted, and their values tend to align with the principles behind sustainable destination management—immersive experiences, slow travel, with respect for nature and communities.

In today’s new travel era, destinations are switching to destination management instead of destination marketing — to rebuild the tourism industry in a way that prevents overtourism and degradation, preserves culture and heritage, ultimately moving towards sustainable and regenerative travel.

Geotagging drives foot traffic. GPS-located metadata on social media has the potential to skyrocket tourism to unmanageable heights while negatively affecting the local environment and community in the process. Some call it “loving nature to death.” We call it an opportunity to push travel in the right direction. By tapping into social media influencers’ audiences, we can get ahead of overtourism.

We believe in creating visuals with values which means reversing and rethinking the language around the world of photography and video. Read more in our article on responsible photography.

Newsweek announced its 2021 Future of Travel Awards winners, broken down into a variety of categories including Destinations, Airlines, Places to Stay, Tour Operators, Visionaries, Startups/Travel Tech, and Storytelling. GLP Films has been awarded as the sole winner in the Group Storytelling category.

By creating strong content about the sustainable side of outdoor activities in tourism, you are saluting the stewards of our lands, lakes, seas and rivers. Many outdoor adventure guides take this responsibility of stewardship very seriously and this commitment and love transposes wonderfully into film and other content.

The idea of ‘giving back' is used a lot in sustainable tourism. One of the ways we can give back is through education, but this is a complex issue. And one that cannot be resolved by sending a few volunteers to do a week of teaching in far off schools.