From Fiji to Appalachia – Bringing It Back Home

by Kristina Sandi

meeting with rural villagers

In order to complete the final 3 credits I needed to graduate from WVU and receive my Ecotourism Certificate I had to spend 2 ½ weeks of my precious summer studying sustainable tourism development.  I spent those 2 ½ weeks living on a tropical island in Fiji … I know, college is such a drag – who said learning can’t be fun?

Over the course of eighteen days we got to experience Fiji and had a blast!  I know, who wouldn’t have a blast on a tropical island.  We had fun and learned a great deal through these experiences.  I met with resort and adventure-travel operators, talked with tourism students from the University of the South Pacific, and stayed overnight in rural villages to learn about the challenges and successes associated with ecotourism in Fiji.

I could see the wheels turning in some of the other students brains about how they could get a job experiencing and developing ecotourism in places like this.  I was thinking about how what I saw, heard, and did could be applied in West Virginia.

Fiji and Appalachia couldn’t be farther apart geographically. When you look up at the stars at night in Fiji, you see a completely different set of constellations than the one’s you see here in West Virginia. These two places are literally on the opposite sides of the world and it seems that the thick forests and rolling hills of West Virginia would have nothing in common with the white sand beaches of the Fijian islands. In reality, the similarities are striking.

Both Fiji and West Virginia have a population that is predominately rural, and when I entered some of the remote mountain villages in Fiji I couldn’t help but see them as an exaggerated version of an Appalachian community where family is at the core of all values. The traditional arts and crafts that are integral to Fijian society reminded me of the wonderful craftsmanship I have found all over West Virginia. I found a people that like Appalachians, have a history of living off a wild and often difficult terrain and thus have developed deep understandings of the natural wonders around them.

Most importantly, I noticed that the majority of Fijians displayed the same warmth and hospitable nature you can find all over Appalachia.

Schoolchildren welcomed us to their village with a song and dance

Just like West Virginia, the country of Fiji has struggled with distributing the wealth from their main industries to their rural sectors. Fijians and Appalachians have come up against the same globalizing forces which make it difficult to make a living in traditional rural occupations such as agricultural and forestry. Tourism, the cornerstone of Fiji’s economy, occurs primarily in island groups and major urban areas so the country has experienced a mass migration of rural dwellers who have moved to the city to make a living. Appalachia has seen the same population migration to urban areas over the past 50 years, as employment in natural-resource dependent industries continues to drop.

In the late 1990’s, the government of Fiji began turning toward sustainable tourism as a way to promote rural economic development. In 1999, the country’s Ministry of Tourism created a National Ecotourism Policy which called for an emphasis on cultural and village-based tourism, and for the integration of traditional arts and crafts into the tourism industry. Above all it demonstrated the need to further the development of tourism in a manner that respects the environment and social traditions of those who are visited, while improving the welfare of the local people.

Since the introduction of the National Ecotourism Policy in Fiji, it seems that rural and village life has been improving. During my village visits, I was able to sit down and talk to a group of Fijians about how they feel tourism has impacted them. Though I was expecting them to complain of disrespectful visitors or display some sort of resentment toward foreign tourists, I was surprised to find neither problem. Almost all of the people I talked to told me they had benefited financially whether it was from selling produce or jewelry or by working as some type of adventure guide. I did not sense any animosity toward travelers, and in fact most Fijians seemed to genuinely enjoy foreign visitors. It appears that Fiji’s ecotourism policies have truly created a happier lifestyle for its rural dwellers.

A typical rural village in the mountains of Fiji

Through my studies and research of Appalachia, I have learned that rural poverty in the United States is one of the most difficult social problems facing legislators today. West Virginia is the second most rural state in the nation, and among the most economically depressed. If we can gather the support necessary to create a comprehensive sustainable tourism policy like Fiji’s, maybe we can use tourism to uplift our rural communities both culturally and economically.

Though my trip to Fiji was undeniably beautiful, I realized that you don’t have to travel to a remote tropical island to enjoy things like majestic mountains and beautiful waterfalls, and you don’t have to leave the country to have an enriching cultural experience. We have all of those things and more here in Appalachia. I believe that if tourism is developed in West Virginia in a sustainable manner, we can have an industry that is just as successful as Fiji’s in stimulating all sectors of the economy and preserving natural and cultural resources.

Now that I’m working with Doug I’m excited about what’s happening here including the formation of the West Virginia Sustainable Tourism Advisory Council and the development of a Sustainability Rating System.  I’m hopeful one day West Virginia will rank right up there with Fiji and other international hotspots as a model of sustainable tourism development.  I’m excited to be a part of this movement.

Fiji is an amazing place.  If you ever get a chance to go I’m sure you’ll be as fascinated as I was.

If you’ve ever been to either place please weigh in on this one and let me know what you think.

Tags: Fiji ecotourism, green travel West Virginia, Kristina Sandi, sustainable tourism, sustainable tourism Appalachia

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 26th, 2010 at 8:55 am and is filed under Blog, Inspiration. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.