Aware, Believe, Choose

Travellers as Changemakers in Sustainable Tourism

- By Shoba Rudra

On World Tourism Day (September 27), Shoba Rudra highlights the urgent need for conscious living as the foundation of sustainable travel. Daily waste, plastic pollution, water scarcity, and disregard for local communities reflect a lack of awareness and empathy, even among the upwardly mobile travellers seeking “sustainable” experiences. The author stresses the ABCs of change: Awareness, Belief, and Choices. From refusing single-use plastics to respecting local crafts, small acts matter. Tourism must begin with responsibility at home—only then can travel truly support sustainability and the planet's future.

If you are one of those people who wake up early and head out for your walk or run, you will see a band of warriors, most often all-women armies, each with a basket, broom, and a small board to help train the muck off the street and into her basket. Every morning, depending upon where I am, I walk to the park or to the seaside or along the road and see these litter and garbage collectors, creating islands of clean ground, roads, or footpaths. They may be cleaning systematically at 1000-metre intervals. They begin as early as 6 am, one of them told me. If there is a VIP movement, they are assigned to earlier duties. By the time I begin my walk back, there is already dog poop, some litter, and a bottle or two strewn around. In fact, this new fervour for health has small health drink and snack carts all over, and tender coconut carts, waiting for the 'healthy' walker, who drinks, pays, and throws the straw. By the time it is 10 am, the roads are already filling up with litter and garbage, and by the time the city sleeps, every kind of litter, from paper, plastic, leaves, and cloth, is back on the streets. And the warriors begin again...