For every $100 spent by a tourist in a developing country, only about $5 stays in that country's economy.

That's a statistic shared in an ebook by RISE Travel Institute, an award-winning nonprofit dedicated to decolonizing travel.

(RISE is also a Going Places Founding Member.)

That $5 is an average number that varies from place to place: a 2014 report from the World Tourism Organization approximates tourism leakage to be 40% in India, 70% in Thailand, and 80% in the Caribbean.

Said differently, only a fraction of the money we spend on our trips stays in the local communities to make a meaningful impact.

RISE Travel Institute's ebook offers ways to make more impactful travel choices.

If you missed Part 1 of our conversation with Vincie, catch up on it here.

Listen to the Episode

What you’ll hear:

  • What is tourism leakage?
  • What a 17th-century cartographer has to do with modernity
  • The word Yulia avoids using when talking about travel
  • What's intimidating about Vincie's work
  • How to stay engaged with the many forms of resistance
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"Our objective is to help people dig deeper and ask more nuanced questions about the state of the world, tourism's place in it, and how we contribute to that. And once we recognize that it is a harmful system, how do we help dismantle it and build a better one?" – Vincie Ho 
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Decolonizing Travel

A free RISE Travel Institute e-book with profound questions.

RISE Travel Institute has published the Decolonial Guide to Travel as a free e-book.

Inside, RISE asks critical questions that bring the impact of colonization into the present through the concept of neo-colonialism:

  • Did you know that 17 places worldwide remain under colonial rule–destinations like the British Virgin Islands and Turks and Caicos?
  • Let's think about tourism leakage: for every $100 spent in a developing country, only $5 of it stays there
  • How do wellness retreats, conservation movements, and digital nomadism perpetuate colonial systems?

Download the free e-book here.

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Use code goingplaces10off to get a discount on all existing and future RISE paid programs

Check out our interview on YouTube →

If you don't use the word decolonization, you're not recognizing that our world is shaped by colonialism. – Vincie Ho

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RISE Travel Institute is our Founding Member

RISE is a nonprofit with a mission to create a more just and equitable world through travel education

Interested in your organization becoming a Founding Member? Send us an email.