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PALAU became the first country in the world to implement responsible tourism; offering visitors exclusive experiences based on how they treat their environment and culture, not on how much they spend.
The tourism sector in the Republic of Palau, located in the northwest Pacific, today announced Ol’au Palau: a new model of responsible tourism that aims to change the way people interact with the country’s indigenous environment and local culture.
Pre-COVID-19, tourism accounted for 85% of Palau’s GDP, but when international travel collapsed in 2020, the country was hit by a pandemic without any visitors traveling to the island nation for nearly two years.
Ol’au Palau aims to help the country bounce back from the pandemic and rebuild its tourism sector in a sustainable manner, by rewarding visitors for the protection and preservation of Palau in a measurable way during their stay. Ol’au Palau was launched by Palau’s tourism sector in response to new global market research.
With the negative environmental and cultural impacts of tourism gaining worldwide attention, Palau hopes the new program, informed by global research, will serve as a model for other countries and destinations to follow.
“Palau’s tourism industry has been badly hit by the pandemic without visitors coming to Palau for almost two years. Despite the economic impact, Palau’s tourism sector is determined to stick to its high-value ecotourism strategy and find ways to sustainably bounce back from the pandemic,” said Alan T. Marbou, Board Member, Palau Visitor Authority and former spokesman for the Koror State Government.
Alan T. Marbou explained, by launching Ol’au Palau, we can reward our guests most responsibly and protect our most valuable tourism assets, our pristine environment and unique culture. It is hoped that Ol’au Palau will get more destinations to think about the true costs of tourism and rethink who is being rewarded with their best experiences.
“Ol’au Palau is the most recent in Palau’s history of the world’s first nature protection and cultural preservation initiative. Palau is home to the world’s first shark sanctuary, the first nuclear-free constitution, and Palau is the first to create a marine wildlife sanctuary that fully protects 100% of its territorial waters from commercial fishing,” he concluded. [sources/photo special]
