Have attempts to categorise and define a 'new' type of tourism over recent years simply led to confusion amongst tourists and travellers? As a niche enters the mainstream is it really necessary anymore to speak about the social, environmental and economical concerns of travel from a platform called responsible travel?

The terms responsible tourism, responsible travel, pro-poor tourism, green-travel, eco-tourism have all been used in recent years to reference growing concerns over the impact of the travel industry. This year saw the first World Responsible Tourism Day coincide with the World Travel Market on 14th November 2007. The day featured some interesting, thought provoking seminars and the responsibletravel.com award ceremony. Unfortunately it felt a lot like an attempt by the ICRT (International Centre for Responsible Tourism) and its related projects to dominate and act as custodians of the responsible tourism movement. It would have been great to see more grass-roots initiatives being offered the spotlight, and less of an attempt to control and dominate a movement that is ultimately about small scale projects and about celebrating initiatives around the world.

It seems that conflicts of interest and some people with fingers in a lot of pies mean that it feels as though the Responsible Travel movement has been branded and nutured by a small group of people, making it difficult to use the phrase to describe a form of travel anymore.

Grass roots initiatives being led all over the world are the future of travel, they aren't talking about responsible travel but simply working with the right concerns in mind. Conservation organisations are working worldwide in the travel industry without referencing responsible tourism, they are responsible tourism. It seems to be definition for the sake of definition. Wild Asia run their own Responsible Tourism Awards in Malaysia but award them on the basis of scores achieved on an extensive, painstakingly devised checklist of requirements. They don't brand a winner as 'responsible' based on a nomination and the judgements of a panel, they geniunely work to promote best practice, determined by these guidelines devised and distributed by them.

Let's put some meat back on the bones of travel, celebrate progression and all of those passionate people making it happen around the world without a spotlight on their efforts.