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Your answer to finding sustainable tourism around the globe
The Mindful Tourist was just recently made aware of a global-yet-local travel company that is working to promote small accommodations for travelers.
A new dawn on Aitutaki, Cook Islands / Photo by Stephen Chapman
As you know, our standards are quite high for these companies. We have slammed others for presenting themselves as something they’re not.whl.travel started off as a project working to help small accommodation providers in Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam to access and leverage the internet to market their properties in order to be competitive with larger chain hotels. Since then, it has become its own company and now operates as a quasi-franchise type model with local partners in the destinations who do all the things best done locally (including working directly with the local accommodation providers and with travelers) and with whl.travel doing the things best done centrally (technology and web marketing).
While we do think the WHL website could be improved (it seems a little confusing and unwieldy sometimes), they are truly doing good work. We recently had the opportunity to interview their CEO, Len Cordiner, based in Sydney, Australia.
Shadia Garrison
Born in Cairo, Egypt to parents who met as Peace Corps volunteers living in Tunisia, Shadia has since journeyed all over the planet. She has an undergraduate degree in cultural anthropology from Indiana University, and spent 1990 living and travelling through Chile, South America. Her blog The Mindful Tourist attempts to write snarkily (new word!) on socially conscious travel.
