…we might also be able to find a causal link for the failure of the responsible tourism industry

By Len Cordiner

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On October 15th, 2008, I had the pleasure of attending the keynote address at the first National Geographic/Ashoka Geotourism Challenge awards in Washington DC given by Sven Lindblad, president and founder of Lindblad Expeditions.

He kicked off his talk by making reference to an op-ed published in the Los Angeles Times of July 2nd 2006 entitled “If Only Gay Sex Caused Global Warming: Why we’re more scared of gay marriage and terrorism than a much deadlier threat”. The article was written by Daniel Gilbert, a professor of psychology at Harvard University and the author of Stumbling on Happiness. The room full of attendees – mostly industry practitioners in sustainable development, academics, NGOs etc. – all found this a very amusing way to start the talk, but Sven was using it to make some very important points about the whole sustainable tourism movement to the sustainability practitioners.

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Posted under General, opinion, responsible travel

By Len Cordiner, CEO of whl.travel

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I was reading an article in the Historical Houses Trust magazine in Sydney this month about the fabulous network of trams which operated in Sydney until 1961. It is reported that the Sydney tram network was in its day the largest in the Commonwealth outside of London, and was much loved by Sydney commuters. However progress (represented by a strong lobby of the auto industry) took its toll and in the late 1950s the tram network was scrapped despite a large demonstration by the public at the time to save the trams.

Sound familiar? Around the same time some of Sydney’s most treasured buildings were up for demolition in The Rocks area, as well as the Queen Victoria Building. Fortunately strong union action at the time saved them (thank God).

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Posted under General, responsible organisations, responsible travel news, whl.travel newsletter