Cultural Awareness and Local Impact

Our work shapes how destinations and communities are perceived. Poor coverage can tangibly reduce living communities to scenery and flatten cultures into cliches. Therefore, we must make it a priority to treat places as what they are: they are people’s homes, livelihoods, and unique social and cultural communities.

Cultural Sensitivity

Travel involves many different emotions, including wonder, discomfort, and awe. We do not expect contributors to be emotionally neutral, but what matters is how those reactions are expressed in writing.

Contributors should remember that these destinations are places where people live ordinary lives. Coverage should avoid treating otherwise-ordinary local customs, religious practices, or social norms as entertainment for tourists. VIA will require contributors to conduct active research on the community/custom/site that they are writing about and to make a good-faith effort to understand its local significance before publication. This expectation applies especially when covering religious spaces/practices, historical monuments, memorial sites, or other unique cultural/social/historical artefacts of local communities.

Active research can include consulting local sources, reading local or academic articles, reviewing museum or heritage museums, and examining the background that’s relevant to the subject.

When approaching new experiences at new destinations, contributors should avoid writing from the perspective of “first-impression certainty.” Immediate reactions can be honest, good or bad, and can be worth describing, but they should not be treated as the definitive outlook for your entire experience. For instance, if you accidentally violate an etiquette rule that might appear arbitrary, strive to understand its historical significance! We expect contributors to learn about the norm and be curious. Afterwards, we would then expect them to verify what they found before turning their reaction into official publication insight. It’s also worth noting that feeling unfamiliar or culturally out of place does not by itself establish that a practice is irrational or otherwise “wrong.”

Contributors should not use patronizing phrases (e.g. “backwards,” “weird,” or “crazy,”) or similar expressions to describe local customs or norms. Likewise, we should also avoid cliches that often flatten communities into offensive tropes like being “pure” or “untouched” cultures. During the editing process, editors will request revisions or additional sourcing where a particular sentiment might be misunderstanding the local context or frame the contributor’s unfamiliarity as deficiency in any form.

Fair and Balanced Representation

Travel stories can involve many competing interests: residents, tourists, businesses, governments, and other relevant stakeholders. When we cover stories of travel trends, we should not assume that any single group speaks for the whole destination. For instance, the opening of a new nightlife district can create income for businesses and local restaurants, one group might argue, but may also be generating noise burdens for residents, another group might argue. In cases like these, contributors should seek to include multiple perspectives, especially those directly affected, and explain the debate

fairly. Contributors should also be honest in who will benefit from a particular development, and who will be harmed.

Privacy and Consent

Contributors should consider the privacy of people they encounter while traveling. Locals, hosts, or even other fellow travelers are not automatically good for publication simply because they appeared in the story. Use discretion when naming private individuals or sharing identifiable details that can potentially embarrass or expose someone who did not meaningfully give consent to being part of the public attention! When in doubt, consult with the editor who will be able to give guidance.

Overtourism

Overtourism is not always a universally agreeable topic, as what feels overcrowded to a visitor can actually be sustaining local livelihoods. Because of this complexity, VIA will treat overtourism as something that demands evidence.

We will generally consider overtourism present when visitor volumes or tourism patterns create sustained harms that can significantly outweigh the benefits or overwhelm local capacity. When evaluating overtourism at a location, we may be looking for other publicly-available metrics–such as housing displacement, rent prices, environmental degradation, traffic congestion, tourism revenue, among other metrics–to help us ascertain whether the cost of tourism outweighs the gains.

As such, no single voice automatically settles the question of overtourism’s impacts. Those dependent on tourism deserve our attention, but so too do those arguing that tourism can generate long-term costs. Our role is to weigh the insights from both sides and use data to ascertain tourism’s impacts on local communities.

When contributors cover popular destinations, they should also be wary of the fact that publishing certain “hidden” or lesser known sites can inadvertently bring about more attention, potentially worsening tourism pressures for those locales. Spots that function sustainably at low volume can become strained once amplified to a larger audience.

As such, contributors should exercise editorial judgment before framing places as “secret” opportunities to be “discovered.” The fact that a palace is little known to outsiders does not mean that it is waiting to be marketed. At the core of the editorial decision, contributors should question whether a recommendation primarily benefits readers or externalizes costs onto the relevant communities. Some potential solutions can be to describe the

broader area rather than pinpoint an exact location, note behavioral expectations, or emphasize off-peak visitation to alleviate tourism pressures.

To the best of our ability, VIA’s coverage of a location or site must not contribute to its decline.

Avoidance of Promoting Harmful or Extractive Practices

VIA will not promote experiences that are built on exploitation or abuse. This includes tourism built on the mistreatment of animals, coercive cultural performances, or businesses that profit through abuse. This can also include exploitative volunteering.

We will also discourage framing communities as cheap consumption opportunities. We will not promote advice centered on how to exploit low wages or maximize privilege at the locals’ expense. These types of content are inconsistent with our values.

We will also be wary of publishing advice on the act of bargaining with local communities. While bargaining can be locally acceptable, readers should be advised to do so fairly. Most importantly, visitors should be aware of the relative purchasing power of their destination country! In many settings involving family-run businesses, food stalls, or already modestly-priced goods, aggressive haggling can be harmful. Contributors should avoid presenting bargaining as a travel “skill” of sorts, as saving a small amount of money rarely justifies humiliating workers or livelihoods.

Environmental and Economic Impacts

Tourism can generate employment, revenue, and cultural exchange. It can also produce waste, emissions, water stress, and rent inflation. Our coverage must recognize all of tourism’s and travel’s impacts, good or bad. When relevant, contributors should note the context of each of the locales they cover: whether destinations face drought, high waste burdens, or are dependent on tourist demands, among other contextual considerations.

Moreover, VIA encourages contributors to promote practical environmental responsibility. Contributors should highlight lower-impact transport options such as rail or bus that are alternatives to flying, possible walkable routes, or best practices for trails, reefs, and other natural ecosystems.

While also acknowledging that many readers travel under time and budget constraints that limit options, our guidance should not shame individuals for lacking green choices.

For example, a student that is taking budget flights may have fewer alternatives than a luxury traveler.