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News • Great Britain • 2012-11-13

Judges selected to identify innovative pioneers at 2013 Awards

Judges selected to identify innovative pioneers at 2013 Tourism for Tomorrow Awards

WTTC announced 12 independent sustainable tourism judges who will select three finalists for each of its four Award categories.

Each year WTTC recognises the most innovative pioneers in sustainable tourism, following a rigorous three-step judging process including unique on-site evaluations of all finalists – the only Awards in the industry with such a thorough procedure.

Chairman of the international team of judges will be sustainable tourism expert, Costas Christ, and the panel has been selected to reflect all areas of the global Travel & Tourism industry including the private sector, academic institutions, non-profit organisations and government.

The judges will select a shortlist of 12 finalists by 21 January 2013, following which the second stage of the process, the on-site evaluation, will begin.

To meet the 12 judges of the Finalist Selection Committee for 2013 click here.

Following the on-site evaluations, the finalists will move into the last stage of the judging process; a separate Winner Selection Committee meets after a detailed review of the finalist judges\' recommendations, the award applications, and the on-site evaluation report, selecting one winner in each Award category. The winners will be announced during the Awards Ceremony held at WTTC’s Global Summit on the evening of 9 April in Abu Dhabi, UAE.

WTTC also takes this opportunity to invite further entries to this year’s Awards. Applications must be submitted within one of the four Award categories by 26 November 2012.

Submit your application online at www.wttc.org/tourismfortomorrow/apply

Save the date for the 2013 BEST EN Think Tank XIII

The BEST EN Think Tank XIII entitled, \'Engaging Communities in Sustainable Tourism Development\', to be held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, from 23-26 June 2013 hosted by Taylor\'s University.

Communities are the key resource upon which sustainable tourism relies. Without meaningful community input that transcends mere tokenism, sustainability in tourism will remain unattainable. There are a number of challenges in developing community-based tourism and encouraging meaningful local participation in decision making and ownership. The theme of this conference targets several of the UN millennium development goals through the development of sustainable tourism at a local level, such as ending poverty and hunger, gender equality, environmental sustainability, and life-wide learning. Engagement of stakeholders beyond the private and public sectors may refer to host communities, third sector organisations or interest groups.

At the BEST EN Think Tank the topics are addressed in a collaborative and stimulating environment. A BEST EN Think Tank is about more than presenting papers: in workshop sessions participants co-produce knowledge through brainstorming and discussions to create research and educational materials for use in their research and teaching. Examples of co-produced knowledge from previous Think Tanks can be found in the knowledge section of the BEST EN website (www.besteducationnetwork.org).

The BEST Education Network is a long established international consortium of educators committed to furthering the development and dissemination of knowledge in the field of sustainable tourism. It is open to all students, academics and professionals who are interested in furthering education and research for sustainable tourism.

UNWTO, WWF and Google hail adventure travel as the future of tourism

“Adventure tourism is what tourism should be today and definitely what tourism will be tomorrow,”said Mr Taleb Rifai, Secretary-General of UNWTO, referring to inevitable shifts in the leisure tourism market toward

more experience-based, responsible and lower-impact – environmentally and culturally – travel. Later in the week, WWF corroborated the trend toward more responsible tourism, upping the ante by introducing a new travel division with new leadership, while Google’s chief of travel, Rob Torres, indicated serious consumer trending toward more experience-based, responsible tourism. In additional keynote and concurrent sessions, tourism, conservation and technology leaders such as Alexandra Cousteau, granddaughter of Jacques-Yves Cousteau and co-founder of Blue Legacy and Darrell Wade, CEO of PEAK Adventure Travel indicated a shift in attention on the global stage to the power of adventure travel as an economic driver, as a force of sustainable development and one that delivers to travelers transformative experiences in nature, culture and active travel. To read on, click here

To watch an interview with Taleb Rifai, Secretary General, UNWTO and Shannon Stowell, President of ATTA, click here

Tourism and Protection go hand in hand in Europe’s protected areas

With great participation of park representatives who stepped up the stage to receive their certificate from EUROPARC Federation´s president Thomas Hansson at the

EUROPARC 2012 Conference in Genk, Belgium, the Federation and its partner EUROPARC Consulting were assured once more that the European Charter for Sustainable Tourism in Protected Areas is one of the most prestigious certificates for sustainable tourism development that honours the achievement to combine tourism, conservation and sustainable regional development in a designated area.

In 2012, 33 parks managed to either gain new Charter status or renew their status from previous years. Currently, the Charter network is composed by 107 protected areas.The European Charter for Sustainable Tourism in Protected Areas ECST is an evaluation system of the EUROPARC Federation that was started as early as 2001 to help protected areas in their mission to plan, implement and monitor tourism development in a sustainable and future-oriented way. Tourism is managed sustainably from the ecological, social and environmental perspective acknowledging its high potential to contribute to the prosperity and economic growth of a region. Tourism provides a tool to preserving traditional customs and local production. The protection purposes of national or nature parks can be easier achieved and financed through responsible tourism.

The increasing interest in the ECST, particularly in Southern and Eastern Europe, is proving its importance as a quality management tool to assist an integrated sustainable regional development. The Charter network is with 107 participants the largest European-wide network of its kind. At EUROPARC 2012 Closing Session, the Italian park Monte Rufeno Nature Park was awarded as the 100th Charter park

Better Tourism Photography Award 2012

Tourism Concern has launched the Better Tourism Photography Awards 2012, a competition set up to find the most inspiring travel and tourism photography from around the world. We are looking for images that will form part of an exhibition and ongoing collection of work which will highlight Better Tourism – tourism that benefits local people.

In addition to the prizes winners and shortlisted entries will also be used to produce our 2013 Better Tourism calendar.

Entries should also be accompanied by a narrative of up to 150 words which explain the relationship between the work of Tourism Concern and the entry image.

There will be prizes in each of the three categories and one overall winner. The competition is open to all amateur photographers; there is no cost to entering the competition and you may enter as many photographs as you like. All entries must be at least 1MB in size and submitted digitally via email. Entries must be received by Friday 30 November and the winners will be announced at our Annual Dinner on 10 December 2012.

To enter please send your images to Matt at Matthew.Butler@tourismconcern.org.uk

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