FooD &Culture
Much can be learned about the history, traditions, and values of a population by observing what they eat, where they eat, why they eat, and how they eat. The availability of various food products can also be based on climate, geography, history and politics of an area. Recent trends in healthful organic products has become more mainstream with the addition of an organic food product lines at Walmart and the proliferation of fast casual restaurants such as Chipotle Grill specializing in food that is sustainability sourced.
Tourism
The United Nation’s World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) defines tourism as “those activities of persons traveling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business or other purposes). With this definition in mind, it is important to know that tourism is the 1st , 2ndor 3rd highest generator of revenue in 62 countries of the world (UNWTO). Today stresses on the environment, culture and society in many areas of the world have necessitated that a more sustainable approach to tourism development be considered and implemented. International tourism continues to grow at a rate of 4% annually with forecasts for robust future growth to over a trillion travelers by 2020.(Changing Global Travel Trends).
Much of this travel will be generated by the Chinese market and only 5% of them have a passport today. Other trends include more use of technology and use of the shared economy concept in terms of Air B&B, Uber and others.
Social Entrepreneurship
A social entrepreneur is visionary leader who achieves sustainable and systemic change in addressing social, cultural or environmental issues through an invention; taking a different approach; or making a unique application of existing or future technologies. Ashoka is a well known 35 year old organization with the mission of “finding, selecting and supporting the World’s leading entrepreneurs. There are over 3,000 Ashoka Fellow in over 89 countries of the World.