Sustainable Travel

Conde Nast Traveler today announced the winners of the magazine's 2008 World Savers Awards, honoring travel companies from around the world for their leadership in social
responsibility in five key areas: poverty alleviation, cultural and/or environmental preservation, education, wildlife conservation and health.

"The Conde Nast Traveler World Savers Awards recognize companies that are stepping up to the challenge of improving our world," said Editor-in-Chief Klara Glowczewska. "This year's finalists are setting standards in social responsibility in ways that we hope will become models
for the entire travel industry."

The 2008 World Savers Award Winners are:
- Campi Ya Kanzi (Kenya), for Poverty Alleviation. The solar-powered safari camp is staffed primarily by local tribesmen.
- Cristalino Jungle Lodge (Brazil), for Preservation. This is one of the most biodiverse lodges in the Brazilian Amazon, where owner Vitoria Da Riva
- Carvalho has almost single-handedly saved more than 25,000 acres of threatened rainforest.
- Journeys Within (Cambodia), for Health Initiatives. The tour operator's non-profit arm has added more than 180 water wells to the landscape around Siem Reap, helping nearly 4,000 Cambodians to escape water-related disease. They also offer scholarships for university students, hold free English classes, and provide micro-loans for small businesses in Cambodia.
- Montage Laguna Beach (Laguna Beach, California), for Education. The hotel's employee-driven outreach effort supports marine and language education as well as local arts programs in the local school district.
- Phinda Private Game Reserve (South Africa), for Wildlife Programs. Phinda has implemented an animal restocking program that added more than 2,000 animals to the land. Eighteen years ago, nearly all of the animals on this 57,000 acre reserve had been killed by farmers, ivory hunters, and a misguided government fly-eradication program.
- Vail Resorts (Vail, Colorado), for Preservation. The company offsets all of its electricity usage by supporting the development of wind farms.

The 2008 World Savers Awards are featured in the September issue, which hits newsstands on Tuesday, August 19. World Savers Award finalists will be recognized at an award ceremony on September 23rd at the 2nd Annual Conde Nast Traveler World Savers Congress in New York City.

World Savers Awards Methodology: To determine the award finalists and winners, Conde Nast Traveler editors reviewed 142 applications and narrowed them to 38 finalists. An independent panel of 17 judges, comprised of leaders from the travel industry and non-governmental organizations, rated how applicants exercised social responsibility in 5 key areas: poverty
alleviation, cultural and/or environmental preservation, education, wildlife conservation and health. There were 7 categories of travel company: airlines, cruise lines, hotel chains, individual city hotels, large resorts, small resorts, and tour operators.

Below is a complete list of winners, runners up, honorable mentions and additional finalists. The list is also available online at cntraveler.com/makeadifference.

The 2008 Conde Nast Traveler World Savers Awards:

POVERTY ALLEVIATION
- Winner: Campi Ya Kanzi
- Runner Up: Accor Honorable Mentions: Cathay Pacific, Disney Cruise Line, Journeys
- Within, Phinda Private Game Reserve, Twelve Apostles Hotel and Spa

PRESERVATION
- Co-Winners: Vail Resorts and Cristalino Jungle Lodge
- Honorable Mentions: Disney Cruise Line, Evason Phuket & Six Senses Spa,
- Journeys Within, Montage Laguna Beach, Virgin Atlantic Airways

EDUCATION
- Winner: Montage Laguna Beach
- Runner Up: Banyan Tree Hotels & Resorts
- Honorable Mentions: Abercrombie & Kent, Disney Cruise Line, Lufthansa, Nkwichi Lodge, Phinda Private Game Reserve

WILDLIFE
- Winner: Phinda Private Game Reserve
- Runner Up: Disney Cruise Line
- Honorable Mentions: Banyan Tree, Campi Ya Kanzi, Cathay Pacific, Metropolitan Touring, Montage Laguna Beach

HEALTH
- Winner: Journeys Within
- Runner Up: Air France
- Honorable Mentions: Jai Mahal Palace, Holland America, Nukubati Island
- Great Sea Reef, Phinda Private Game Reserve, Six Senses

ADDITIONAL FINALISTS:
Anantara Resort Golden Triangle, British Airways, Fairmont, Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts, Fregate Island Private, Grand Hyatt Dubai, Micato Safaris, MSC Cruise Line, Nature Air, Norwegian Cruise Line, Puntacana Resort & Club, Regent Seven Seas, Rios Tropicales, Shangri-La's Mactan Resort & Spa, Thomson Safaris, and Willard InterContinental, Washington DC

2008 World Savers Awards Judges:
- Ralf Buckley, Director, Int'l Centre For Ecotourism Research, Griffith University, Australia
- Mark Conroy, President, Regent Seven Seas Cruises
- Louis D'Amore, President, International Institute for Peace Through Tourism
- Laurie David, Natural Resources Defense Council Trustee; Environmental Activist; Producer, An Inconvenient Truth
- Marcia Gay Harden, Environmentalist; Oscar-Winning Actress
- Martha Honey, Director, Center on Ecotourism and Sustainable Development
- Mark Hoplamazian, CEO, Global Hyatt Corp.
- Neel Inamdar, Senior Adviser, Ecotourism, Conservation International
- Sven Lindblad, President and CEO, Lindblad Expeditions
- Ron Mader, Director, Planeta.Com
- James McCarthy, Professor of Biological Oceanography, Harvard University
- Brian Mullis, President, Sustainable Travel International
- Denis Pinto, Managing Director, Micato Safaris
- Sam Raphael, Owner, Jungle Bay, Dominica
- Jean-Cyril Spinetta, CEO, Air France
- Shannon Stowell, President, Adventure Travel Trade Association
- Timothy Wirth, President, UN Foundation

About Conde Nast Traveler
Travel publications often accept free travel and accommodations. Conde Nast Traveler does not, and its correspondents, as far as possible, travel anonymously. They experience travel the way consumers do, both the good and the bad, and report on it fairly and honestly. Conde Nast Traveler has a circulation of over 800,000 and is published by Conde Nast Publications, Inc. Conde Nast Traveler's website is cntraveler.com.

Posted by BrianM at 4:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

In an exclusive interview today, Leilani Latimer, Sabre's Director of Sustainability Initiatives, asserted that the global travel business must work together to identify and implement a clear, transparent and verifiable certification system for sustainable tourism. Furthermore she emphasised that any system that relied solely on self certification would not be good enough. “The value to the general public of a system that is not based on outside certification is nil” She said.

Sabre is giving a high priority to sustainability, seeing it as a systemic facet of their operation. In their own business a recent staff community sustainability promotion found 2600 employees manning 149 events in 27 countries. Sabre now have a robust fuel efficiency consulting division, and offer offset programs amongst many other sustainability initiatives. The organization believes that, due to their sophisticated management and monitoring systems, they are in a unique position to identify and manage carbon footprints. A recent instance of Sabre’s capability is a method of providing enhanced detail with emissions reports to take into consideration other aspects of sustainability.

Sabre, through Travelocity, also manages Travelocity/travelforgood, embracing travel as an agent for positive change. The site offers “Change Ambassadors” grants, volunteers stories, podcasts, responsible travel tips and offsets and partners with Earthwatch, GlobalAware and the American Hiking Society amongst others.

In an effort to make sustainable tourism choices simpler and the consumers choice easier, top industry heavyweights, including Sabre have recently joined together in the Sustainable Tourism Criteria Initiative.The co-ordinating committee includes: UNEP, UN-WTO, CBD (Convention on Biological Diversity), IUCN, ICMOS (International Council on Monuments and Sites, Rainforest Alliance, CAST (Caribbean Alliance for Sustainable Tourism), Conservation International, The International Ecotourism Society, IHRA, Federation of Tour Operators, Conde Nast Traveler, Ecotourism Kenya, Choice Hotels International, Hyatt, Instiduto de Hospitalidade, EcoTrans, VISIT, Expedia, Tourism Concern and Sabre Holdings.

Latimer envisages a certification system that gives individual weight to different areas of sustainability so that clients can make choices according to their individual preferences. Tourism facilities could be graded on their sustainable management systems, preservation of cultural and environmental heritage and biodiversity, fair trade and local involvement and energy and emissions management separately.

Said Latimer “The travel industry has a great history of reacting positively to change. For example, millions of trees and dollars that have been saved by etickets. I’m sure that, in our quest for efficiency and sustainability, the industry will come together for the greater good.”

Even for a company with 9,000 employees in 45 countries and revenues of over $2,8bn, described as the “World’s leading travel marketing distribution provider” Sabre takes sustainability seriously.

The Corporate headquarters office in Southlake, Texas, which houses almost one-third of the 9,000 employees, was awarded the silver Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) by the U.S. Green Building Council after it was constructed in 2002. Recycling, Volunteerism and employee involvement is all actively pursued.

Key is the status of the sustainability department. Latimer, Head of Global Sustainability, is an 18-year Sabre employee, a marketing professional and ex-head of Global Sales. Serious about marketing, serious about business, serious about sustainability.

Source: TravelMole

Posted by BrianM at 3:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)