0

WHL Group supports the Ecotourism and Sustainable Tourism Conference

The Ecotourism and Sustainable Tourism Conference (ESTC) is North America’s largest and only conference focusing on sustainability in the tourism industry.

0

Top 5 National Parks for Nature Appreciation

Every year, curious travellers journey throughout the globe to escape into the untouched wild. The goal: to witness incredible plant and animal life without human interference.

8

Top five picks for community-based tourism accommodation in sub-equatorial Africa

Nothing beats the experience of staying with locals and supporting their local communities. The WHL Group puts forward here five of its favourite community-based accommodation initiatives in Africa.

1

WHL Group Supports Wild Asia’s 2010 Responsible Tourism Awards

The WHL Group is this year’s global media partner for Wild Asia’s 2010 Responsible Tourism Awards. Now in their fifth year, the Awards are part of Wild Asia’s Responsible Tourism Initiative

0

Responsible Tourism Week May 17th – 21st

For the second year in a row, Planeta.com is proud to announce Responsible Tourism Week, revving up for action from May 17-21, 2010.

0

In memory of Chrystel Cancel

On 8 February, the body of Chrystel Cancel was positively identified, nearly a month after the devastating earthquakes in Haiti levelled the Hotel Montana on top of her. She had only had just arrived in Port-au-Prince.

Chrystel Cancel

Chrystel Cancel grew up in Toulouse, France. After earning both a Bachelors and Masters degree in Business Administration from the University of Toulouse, Chrystel graduated from the University of Paris in 1999 with another Masters in Political Science, specialising in developing countries. A passion for travel, adventure and international development led her to Washington, DC, where she obtained a Masters in Tourism Administration from the George Washington University in 2006.

Chrystel spent the majority of her career as a dedicated sustainable tourism consultant leaving her lasting legacy on a variety of projects around the world.

We will never be able to give voice to the thousands of people Chrystel touched, both directly and indirectly. We hope that a few short remarks from some of the people with whom she worked will impart a sense of her spirit, her character… and the empty space we now feel in her absence.

See below for short tributes to Chrystel from:

• Len Cordiner, CEO of the WHL Group
• Zachary Rozga, CEO of WHL Consulting
• Simon Jones, Vice President of Solimar International
• Sandrine-Pia Casto, General Manager of Tucaya Panama

Chrsytel leaves behind her parents, a brother and her fiancé. Shortly after the earthquake and loss of contact with Chrystel, her fiancé travelled to Haiti to add his hands to the search for her, a heartbreaking story told in an interview with NPR.

George Washington University has devoted a special page to the memory of Chrystel.

Chrystel’s friends have also created a Facebook page through which feelings, thoughts, memories and pictures of her can be shared.

Chrystel’s remains, now back in France, will be interred in Pamiers cemetery of the village of Escosse on 13 February at 4pm local time.

From Len Cordiner, CEO of the WHL Group, on behalf of the extended WHL Group network:

My first contact with Chrystel was a coffee we arranged in Washington, DC, late one afternoon around three years ago. Chrystel was doing some work for the World Bank at the time and was keen to learn more about the WHL Group, having had an introduction through Zachary Rozga and Jodi McKeeman to our consulting activities in Africa.

The coffee stretched out to becoming a dinner as Chrystel explored possibilities for doing more business together. Subsequently I met Chrystel on several DC trips, where each time she briefed me on what she was up to and introduced me to people she thought would be interested in what we were doing. Not only did Chrystel share our vision for a more sustainable future for travel, she wanted to be part of the journey. Before long she teamed up with her friend Sandrine-Pia Casto to become Tucaya Panama, the whl.travel franchisee in Panama. Not long after launching this site, Chrystel and Sandrine had their first blog article up highlighting the special work being doneSupporting Local and Responsible Travel on Panama’s Gobernadora Island.

The last time I met with Chrystel was in August 2009 in Brazil at the WHL Group regional meeting for the Americas. As always, Chrystel was busy networking and bring to my attention all those franchisees she felt were doing exceptional things, as well as ideas she had for how we could do things better.

In fact after that meeting she started working actively to build a new program in the whl.travel network, where we would give more prominence to the local community and environmental projects our franchisees were driving. She was very keen to run a competition amongst franchisees in the whl.travel network to surface the best examples of local social entrepreneurship. In her last communication to the project team in December, she wanted to get things underway but said she was going to be busy in Haiti in January… so it would have to wait.

We will all miss her very much.

From Zachary Rozga, CEO of WHL Consulting

Chrystel was a good friend and an important colleague to WHL Consulting. Jodi McKeeman and I, cofounders of WHL Consulting, first met Chrystel while in graduate school at George Washington University, where we all studied sustainable tourism development together.

After graduation, Jodi and I left for Africa and Chrystel made her way to London, but we remained in touch. In January 2008, WHL Consulting landed a project with the government of Lesotho, which was the nexus of the Market Access Program. The problem was that none of the materials that were promised for the Market Access Training Seminars had been developed. So Jodi and I convinced Chrystel to come help us create material and then deliver the courses in Lesotho.

Those two months that Chrystel spent with us in Africa were some of the most random and wild months we had in our entire 3.5 years in Africa. Just a few of the highlights: we got stuck on a plane with the Prime Minister of Lesotho, Jodi and Chrystel danced with the King and Queen and we were invited for a VIP wine tasting in the laboratory with the owner of the largest wine farm in the Cape Winelands. More recently Chrystel was slated to begin working with WHL Consulting on the rollout of our pilot program with the MIF IDB.

She will be sorely missed. Every time we run a Market Access Training Seminar, we will most definitely pay tribute to Chrystel Cancel.

From Simon Jones, Vice President of Solimar International on behalf of the whole Solimar family

During 2009, Chrystel tirelessly led Solimar’s initiative to develop the Bocas Sustainable Tourism Alliance in Panama, a destination management organization and tourism information center dedicated to promoting Bocas del Toro’s natural and cultural attractions and an organization that will promote Chrystel’s passion for community-run sustainable tourism long into the future.

In January 2010, Chrystel was part of a team deployed to Haiti to assess the tourism opportunities and needs in the north of the country in an effort to promote greater economic opportunities for Haitians. She died dedicated to improving the lives of others and making this world a better place for us all.

Chrystel resided in Panama City, Panama, and was a valuable member and friend of the Solimar team. Her legacy will be remembered, but she will be missed by all that knew her.

From Sandrine-Pia Casto, General Manager of Tucaya Panama

One of the Tucayettes is not physically with us anymore. A passionate, restless worker, persevering and patient – all those things could be said about Chrystel Cancel. The projects she was involved with and those she wanted to pursue make this world a better place. The last thing we need is to let lights like her extinguish. We will try our best to carry on her legacy and with the spirit she has left at Bocas and Gobernadora Island. Chrystel, you won’t be forgotten.

0

Urban Adventures Open a Whole New World

On 1 October 2009, Urban Adventures opened a whole new world to travellers yearning to unlock the secrets of some of their favourite urban centres. A global range of city-based tours, Urban Adventures is a franchise-based network of local tour operators specialising in high-quality experiential tour and activity services.

1

Next Webinar hands the mic to travel publishers

Four speakers representing Bradt Guides, Footprint Travel Guides, Lonely Planet Publications and Wanderlust magazine will share how responsible tourism is increasingly important to them and their organisations.

Seated around the virtual table will be:

Moderators

• Sally Broom, CEO of Your Safe Planet & Fringe Network
• Stephen Chapman, Founder of Make Travel Fair

Speakers

• Tom Hall, Travel Editor at Lonely Planet Publications
• Dan Linstead, Editor of Wanderlust magazine
• Alan Murphy, Footprint Travel Guides
• Adrian Phillips, Publishing Director at Bradt Travel Guides

During the 60-minute session, the featured quartet will begin by making brief presentations about what is (and is not) being done to give readers what they need to travel as responsibly as possible. A question-and-answer period will follow.

To attend, please register first. Attendance is limited to 90 people and is on a first-come-first-served basis. Introductions will begin promptly at 13:00 GMT.

More Information

This responsible tourism webinar series, hosted by whl.travel, was launched on 4 June with a discussion of some of the thoughts and ideas propounded during Responsible Tourism Week 2009 – an online discussion held the week of 18-22 May that focussed on responsible tourism around the world. The primary objective of the webinar series is to demonstrate the universal appeal of responsible tourism to a broad range of constituencies in all sectors.

To listen to the proceedings of the completed 4th June webinar, check out the full recording, chat transcript and written summary, as well as additional commentary on the whl.travel Blog.

As this webinar is being run completely free of charge, please consider making a donation to the Cyclone Aila relief efforts.

Speakers’ biographies

TOM HALL – Travel Editor, Lonely Planet Publications

Tom Hall is a travel journalist based at Lonely Planet’s London office. He is the writer of the weekly Ask Tom feature in the Observer newspaper and appears regularly on radio and television. While Tom’s favourite destinations are all in Africa, he’s always banging on about how great holidaying in Britain is.

DAN LINSTEAD – Editor, Wanderlust magazine

Cambridge graduate Dan Linstead joined John Brown Publishing in 2000 as the editor of Orange’s pioneering lifestyle magazine, O. In five years of customer publishing, he wrote, edited and commissioned a range of travel, celebrity and general lifestyle features for companies including Waitrose, the AA, Honda and Ikea – and won a British Society of Magazine Editors award for O magazine. In 2005, he relaunched and edited bmi’s inflight magazine, ‘Voyager’, for Redwood Publishing. In 2006, he was appointed editor of ‘Wanderlust‘, the UK’s leading magazine for adventurous travellers.

ALAN MURPHY - Commissioning Editor and Publisher, Footprint Travel Guides

Following a stint as a copy editor and writer for the Bolivian Times, Alan Murphy began his Footprint career as an updater for the legendary South American Handbook, before being commissioned to research and write their new guidebooks to Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia and Venezuela. He then returned to his native Scotland to write new guides to Scotland, highlands & Islands, Edinburgh and Glasgow. Now, though, poacher has turned gamekeeper and Alan is commissioning editor and publisher for Footprint Handbooks.

ADRIAN PHILLIPS – Publishing Director, Bradt Travel Guides

Adrian Phillips has written several guidebooks – including ‘Hungary: The Bradt Travel Guide’, which won Best Guidebook of the Year in 2006 – and contributes regular travel articles to national newspapers and magazines. He is one of the judges of the Bradt/Independent on Sunday Travel-Writing Competition and a tutor on the panel at Bradt’s annual travel-writing seminar.

0

Win an Urban Adventure in Bangkok

This cool opportunity comes to us from Intrepid Travel, one of the world’s leading small-group adventure tour operators, to celebrate the launch of Urban Adventures.

1

Wild Asia: Responsibly connecting people to place

Established in 2003, Wild Asia is a social enterprise sensitive to the connections between natural areas and communities reliant upon them. Fundamental to its growth has been the equally sociable building of partnerships with businesses that share similar social and environmental sensitivities.

“Our ultimate goal is to promote sustainable practices that will minimise adverse impacts on the environment, ensure that local communities are engaged and that local cultures are respected.”

- Wild Asia

Responsible Tourism Initiative

In addition to several other programs and initiatives – focusing on sustainable agriculture; the establishment or enhancement of ‘natural corridors’ where wildlife can live and move with minimal human interference; and direct financial support (amounting to 25% of Wild Asia’s annual profits!) to causes in Asia, for example, through seed grants – Wild Asia directs a far-reaching Responsible Tourism initiative (RTI) which:

“aims to promote the best practices of sustainable tourism in Asia. Our goal is to demonstrate that there are clear financial incentives for doing the right thing. The reward for tourism operators is simple; we offer them unique marketing opportunities to reach out to a growing global market for responsible tourism. The reward for travelers – ecologically and socially sound tourism – is just as important, because they make choices with their conscience and their budget alike.”

For travellers, there are clearly presented responsible tourism guidelines and an interactive responsible tourism map spotlighting tourism practitioners in Southeast Asia committed to responsible tourism. (Far from compendious, the map is more of a demonstration of how little is out there right now, something sure to change in the years ahead.) Complementing both is a professional Wild Asia travel team using the organisation’s intimate knowledge of the region to help ethical travellers “maximise the spread of the ‘tourism dollar’. This is important in supporting the local economies of the communities you visit and will also be an excellent way to discover the real Asia (minus the gloss and hype).”

Responsible Tourism Award

As if not already busy enough, Wild Asia is the force behind the Responsible Tourism Award (RTA), established in 2003 and now an annual occurrence. Billed as the first pan-Asian award for excellence in responsible tourism, the RTA recognises tourism accommodations in Asia that are making a difference.

Although submissions for this year’s RTA are now closed, the award presentation will be hosted in Kuala Lumpur from 27-30 October in association with the international CSR Asia Summit. The CSR Asia Summit is another annual event focusing on corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the Asia-Pacific Region. The 2008 Summit welcomed 300 people from 27 countries and regions to discuss CSR issues in Asia.

In conjunction with the awards, Wild Asia will lead its annual ‘RT in Action’ two-day training workshop on 29-30 October 2009. It is designed as a way to bring tourism professionals – property owners, managers and tourism professionals, as well as media – up to snuff on sustainable principles in tourism using case studies from the region.

“By sharing the winners’ best practices, and demonstrating how easy and beneficial responsible tourism is to implement, we hope other operators will be inspired to take the first steps to change,”

- Wild Asia.

Further information

• This is an abridged version of an article written on the whl.travel blog.