Sistra contributor
Debbie Hindle
Responsible tourism leader & Chair of ICRT global
United Kingdom
For Debbie Hindle, making tourism better isn't simply about encouraging people to travel differently. It means asking the industry, governments and destinations to take responsibility for the consequences of tourism, and to be transparent about what actually changes.
Debbie has worked across tourism communications and sustainability for more than three decades, collaborating with governments and industry around the world. Today, she is Chair of ICRT global, the International Centre for Responsible Tourism global, where education, training and knowledge-sharing are used to help tourism professionals turn responsible tourism principles into practice.
Profile
Her story
Debbie's work sits at the intersection of communication and action: how the tourism industry talks about sustainability, but also what businesses, governments and destinations actually do.
Her career has included more than a decade as a Trustee and Vice Chair of The Travel Foundation, and she currently serves as a Non-Executive Director of Responsible Travel. As Chair of ICRT global, she works alongside a worldwide network of practitioners advancing Responsible Tourism across Africa, Latin America, Europe, the Indian Subcontinent and Southeast Asia.
ICRT's approach starts with a deceptively simple idea: tourism should create better places for people to live in, and then better places for people to visit. Rather than prescribing one universal model for sustainable tourism, the organization recognizes that priorities and solutions differ according to each destination's cultural, social and natural context.
That work now spans professional education, stakeholder workshops, a global practitioner network and the Responsible Tourism Awards, which recognize organizations able to demonstrate not only what they have done, but the impact their work has produced.
A closer look
From intention to responsibility
Responsible Tourism asks a harder question than whether tourism can call itself sustainable: who is taking responsibility for making it better, and what evidence shows that it is working?
Through ICRT global, Debbie is helping bring that question into professional education and industry conversations — from community benefit and destination management to overtourism, climate change and the economic impact of tourism.
The emphasis is deliberately practical. ICRT's training moves from theory into application, asking tourism professionals to identify how they themselves can make a difference through their work.
Looking ahead
What she’s building toward
Through ICRT global, Debbie is helping expand access to the knowledge, networks and practical tools needed to make Responsible Tourism actionable across different parts of the world.
The organization supports an international network of practitioners while developing training, workshops, awards and partnerships designed to move responsible tourism from aspiration into implementation. Its approach recognizes that there is no universal blueprint: tourism's challenges differ from place to place, and meaningful solutions have to respond to the communities, cultures and environments involved.
Increasing access to that knowledge is part of the work. ICRT's current initiatives include professional courses, global awards and scholarship programs intended to support emerging tourism changemakers and encourage new thinking across the industry.
Follow the thread
Meet more of the women behind the work.
