By: P.Ling on 06 26, 2010
UK-based Responsible Travel has launched a new site ResponsibleVacation.com catering to US visitors and destinations in much the same way as the responsibletravel.com site works for European visitors.
Apparently an increasing number of US visitors have been making use of responsibletravel.com, and Americans now account for 10% of their total visitor base.
So they decided to offer a new site with responsible vacations and destinations designed for American travelers.
Responsiblevacation.com currently offers 1,669 vacation choices via partnerships with Gap Adventures, Explore Worldwide and Travel Indochina, and also destination partners such as the Belize Tourism Board.
Most of the options highlighted are for the outdoors, such as hiking in National Parks including Zion and the Grand Canyon, an Appalachian Trail walking vacation, and a Canadian Rockies adventure vacation.
There’s also a few nice Alaska vacations listed, including camping trips, a wilderness lodge and a tour of Alaska’s most scenic offerings. Would have been nicer, though, if they hadn’t listed Alaska as a whole new country.
Most Americans living below the 49th parallel might agree, but if Sarah Palin finds out, responsiblevacation.com Managing Director Justin Francis would be in serious danger of being field-dressed like a moose.
Related posts:-
Responsible Tourism Award Winners 2009
Walking the Walk: Paying for Environmentally-Responsible Travel
By: P.Ling on 04 13, 2010
When you’re planning on poking around the Antarctic, everything is an extreme, including the carbon emissions and offsets, and the impact of waste, its treatment and disposal.
The National Science Foundation’s U.S. Antarctic Program (USAP) took a bunch of journalists to the US base station in Antarctica to give them a first-hand view of how things work.
The highlights of the insights they gained:-
Carbon emissions per person for a 2-week trip with travel from Washington DC to Christchurch, NZ and then to McMurdo Station, Antarctica and back = 25 tons (offsets required for 25 tons = 639 tree seedlings grown for 10 years)
Twenty countries run 40 year-round research stations in the Antarctic. Over 1000 staff stay at McMurdo Station in summer and a few hundred in winter.
Everyone is required to carry pee bottles while visiting senstive areas so as to leave no trace, and clean the bottles personally afterwards.
Raw sewage was dumped into coastal waters from 1957 until 2003. A sewage treatment plant was set up at McMurdo Station in 2003 for treating human waste and gray water.
Human waste from the U.S. Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station is buried in the ice sheet, which moves an average of 30 ft/year. Today’s human waste will eventually end up in the Southern Ocean.
The research and gains for science have been invaluable, but then, so is the Antarctic. On balance, I’d prefer to believe the earth is flat and inhabitable, rather than letting scientists run-amok.
By: P.Ling on 11 12, 2009
The Virgin Holidays Responsible Tourism Award Winners for 2009 were announced on Nov 11 at the World Travel Market.
Whale Watch Kaikoura, from New Zealand, was judged to be the overall winner.
Here’s the full list of winners:-
Overall winner - Whale Watch Kaikoura, New Zealand
Best tour operator for cultural engagement - Village Ways, India
Best large hotel / accommodation - YHA Wellington City, New Zealand
Best small hotel / accommodation - Rivertime Resort and Ecolodge, Laos
Best low carbon transport & technology - Alcatraz Cruises, US
Best in a mountain environment - Upland Escapes, UK
Best in a marine environment - Whale Watch Kaikoura, New Zealand
Best cruise or ferry operator - Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd, US
Best for poverty reduction - Guludo Beach Lodge, Mozambique
Best for conservation of wildlife & habitats - Great Plains Conservation, South Africa
Best for conservation of cultural heritage - Selena Travel LLC, Mongolia
Best volunteering organisation - People and Places, UK
Best destination - City of Cape Town, South Africa
Best personal contribution - Gavin Bate, Founder of Adventure Alternative and the Moving Mountains Trust
For more details, visit www.responsibletourismawards.com/; Photo courtesy Whale Watch Kaikoura
By: P.Ling on 09 04, 2009
InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG), the world’s largest hotel company, has pledged up to $1 million to the University of Oxford to support innovation behind conservation.
But it’s not just a philanthropic gesture by IHG. This $1m is extemely crucial for the future of responsible travel, and will provide a roadmap for the future design and development of hotels and the international operations of hotel groups.
The money will primarily be used to fund Oxford research aimed at pinpointing areas of the planet - small in some cases - that have the greatest concentration of rare and threatened plants.
A central objective of the IHG funded work is the development of improved online hot spot maps linked to the data that defines them.
These will reveal hot spots at all scales including small areas in otherwise ‘cold’ regions, which are generally neglected by conservation agencies.
Conversely this will also identify extensive ‘cold spots’ in hot spot regions, which might be highlighted as places more suitable for sustainable forest use and economic development.
The aim will be not always to say ‘protect this, protect that’, but rather to recommend ‘protect this, use that’.
And to make it even more of an admirable initiative, IHG plans to raise this $1m over 5 years by asking it’s Priority Club Rewards members to switch from paper to online statements.
IHG has 44 million PCR members, and the switch will save the company $400,000 each year, half of which will be donated to the Department of Plant Sciences at Oxford University.
From October, IHG PCR members can track the progress of this project and speak directly to the scientists involved via this website - www.priorityclub.com/OxfordPlants.
Photos courtesy IHG Plc.
