25 Nov 2020

COVID-19: In Transit

In February 2020, we published a story about Batu Batu, a resort in Malaysia with a heart for marine conservation. Little did we know that holidays were about to become pipe dreams, as COVID-19 unleashed its full weight on the world.

With travel off the cards, and a pandemic to fight, we at Our Better World put stories about travel in the backseat while stories about COVID-19 relief came to the forefront, as seen in our HumanKind series.

Nine months on, the pandemic in many parts of the world has not abated, depriving communities reliant on international tourism of their means to survive. The United Nations estimates that the tourism industry faces US$1 trillion in losses due to COVID-19, and some 100 million jobs are at risk.

The Better Traveller has always featured people and organisations that do good for their communities and the environment, while delighting travellers. Now, despite their hardships, these organisations remain resilient and true to their mission, and are finding new ways to carry on. And these are the stories we want to share over the next few months, so that you too, can make a difference by supporting their efforts.

For example, instead of hiking through the Himalayas with a locally-owned trekking enterprise, you can now buy carbon credits to support their reforestation programme, which generates income and does the environment good. Instead of unwinding in a home stay with hill tribes in northern Thailand, you can order meals in Bangkok cooked with ingredients harvested by the same tribes, creating income for them.

Through our stories, take a different kind of “trip” with us: discover how those in the travel for good space are finding new ways to support communities. And don’t forget to bookmark them for future trips. When borders reopen, we can all be better travellers.