Responsible Tourism Awards 2007
May 2nd, 2007 by Katie
After Jenny told us about her hunt for the dream honeymoon, I promised to give you more details about the 2007 Responsible Tourism Awards that I help to coordinate. While not strictly speaking wedding related you might find a heavenly honeymoon with one of the Award winners! Over to responsibletravel.com…
responsibletravel.com is proud to announce the launch of the Virgin Holidays Responsible Tourism Awards 2007
The annual Responsible Tourism Awards - founded by responsibletravel.com in 2004 to celebrate responsible tourism businesses around the world - look set to be bigger and better than ever this year making it even more important that we
receive your nomination for the organisation you think is doing the most for responsible tourism.
By nominating you will not only be making a positive contribution to responsible tourism, but will also be entered in our holiday prize draw to win a trip to Nepal or Uganda …
We’re all on tenterhooks as we wait to be flooded with news of new and exciting responsible tourism holidays - along with many old favourites of course - from travellers just like you scouring the globe for worthy and wonderful winners to celebrate at the 2007 Virgin Holidays Responsible Tourism Awards which launched in The Times on Saturday.
This year we’re hoping to rival the record result of 2006 when over 1200 nominations were received from the travelling public. We love finding out about new places doing great things or old friends doing new things but perhaps not shouting about them as they should be - which is where you come in of course!
You are The Nominator
Responsible Tourism is all about making better places for people to live in and better places for people to visit. It’s about minimising the negative impacts and maximising the positive ones.
It’s about improving the wellbeing of local people through tourism and enabling the visitor to have a better relationship with them, putting something back to conserve their culture or environment and enjoying a more authentic holiday.
But what do you think is important?
We have 13 categories to choose from for your nominations. Alongside regulars such as Best Tour Operator and Best for Poverty Reduction, the search is on for 2007 for the Best Low Carbon Transport and/or Technology initiative and the tourism organisation doing the most for the Conservation of Cultural Heritage. So get your thinking caps on!
You can make your nominations at our dedicated Responsible Tourism Awards website. You don’t need to put forward a nomination for every category - just tick the box to let us know which category your nomination is for (only 1 category per nomination) and tell us why you think that particular tourism related organisation is responsible and deserving of an Award.
Win a holiday for 2 to Uganda or Nepal!
And don’t forget, your motives for nominating don’t have to be entirely altruistic! Tell us about an excellent example of a responsible tourism holiday and you could be heading off on one yourself thanks to our annual Responsible Tourism Awards Win a Holiday competition. This year we have two amazing prizes generously donated by i-to-i and The Adventure Company.
Nominate a winner and you could be packing up your troubles and trekking off on a 14 day tour of Uganda for 2 people courtesy of i-to-i, taking in the legendary Bujagali Falls, the stunning scenery of the Queen Elizabeth National Park and the chance to teach English to local children in the remote village of Niyakasiru.
Your tour ends with a relaxing stay in the natural paradise that is the Ssese Islands.
Or you could bag the perfect prize trip for a first visit to the kingdom of Nepal thanks to The Adventure Company. Starting in Kathmandu, this 19 day tour for 2 people sees you cycling through medieval streets to Swayumbhunath.
Then on to Pokhara for a 7-day trek deep into the foothills of the Himalayas discovering villages whose way of life has gone unchanged for centuries.
White water rafting on the Seti River will get the adrenaline pumping before finishing your trip with a jungle safari through one of Asia’s greatest wildlife reserves.
There’s no chance of winning either prize, however, if you don’t nominate! But worry not, as this year we’ve made it even easier for you to nominate with an online form to make sure you don’t forget any of those important details.
And if you’re struggling to choose between that cool community lodge in Lesotho, the tour operator whose practical approach to responsible tourism blew you away, or even a business hotel that was spot on when it came to energy efficiency and water conservation, stop struggling right now!
You can nominate as many tourism organisations and companies as you like.
Remember, all it takes is one nomination for your responsible tourism hero to be considered for the Awards.
The better your reasons for nominating your chosen tourism organisation, the more chance they will have of getting through to the next stage of the judging process and potentially winning an Award - and you winning a holiday!
About the Awards
The Virgin Holidays Responsible Tourism Awards are the biggest and best of their kind in the world, a collaboration between our team at responsibletravel.com who founded and organise the Awards, our UK media partners, The Times and Geographical Magazine, and World Travel Market who host the presentation event, which will this year be held at the first ever WTM World Responsible Tourism Day.
The guiding principle behind the Awards is that all types of tourism – from niche to mainstream – can and should be operated in a way that respects and benefits destinations and local people.
The Responsible Tourism Awards are different from other tourism awards in that winners are nominated by you, the traveller. Now into their fourth year, we are absolutely thrilled to see how the Awards have developed since we first launched them in 2004.
Competition to win a Responsible Tourism Award is more and more fiercely fought each year as the reputation of the Awards has grown alongside travellers’ awareness of the issues affecting communities and the environment in tourism destinations around the world.
Last year’s winners ranged from a community rail initiative in Norfolk helping to keep cars off country roads, to a community lodge in Northern Kenya working to eradicate Trachoma, a cause of painful blindness in over 80% of adults in the area.
Find out more about our 2006 winners in the Responsible Tourism Awards brochure and nominate now to help us find our 2007 winners!
Deadline for nominations Monday 2 July