By Ethan Gelber

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The lion is one of the Big Five found in Kruger National Park, the country’s largest game reserve and a superb place for a safari (photo courtesy of South African Tourism)

The clock’s ticking. Every hour we move closer to 4pm South Africa time on 11 June 2010, when the World Cup 2010 kicks off in Johannesburg’s Soccer City Stadium. The anticipation is palpable, but so is the growing frustration and sometimes anger about the absurd room rates and out-of-focus travel opportunities in a country driven by high expectations.

So what are you to do? Are there reasonably priced accommodation options anywhere in South Africa? How can one find exciting and responsible travel options beyond the pomp of a month of games? And, as we’ve written about already, is there any way of ensuring that some of the money spent will be fairly distributed, so that the inflated profits benefit as wide a cross-section of people as possible, not just the already rich and powerful?
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Posted under General, South Africa, countries, local tips, responsible organisations, responsible travel, responsible travel news, whl.travel newsletter

On 24 June in London, the winners of the 2009 Travelmole Web Awards were announced. Although both whl.travel and its partner Make Travel Fair were shortlisted, neither took home top honours. We remain no less committed to the work we are doing and look forward to perhaps working with the winners, all of whom we congratulate.

Of the 300 nominations and after more than 15,000 votes, whl.travel was one of four finalists in the Responsible Travel category (see the whl.travel entry), and Make Travel Fair was to be judged along with three others in the Travel Blog category (see the MTF entry).

The finalists were those chosen by Travelmole subscribers, but the ultimate judgment fell to a panel of experts.

Other awards categories covered accommodation, airlines, car rental, cruise and ferry operators, holiday add-ons, hotel groups, mobile technology, recruitment and training, tourist boards, tour operators, travel agents, travel videos and Web 2.0.

Posted under General, awards, responsible travel, whl.travel news

On Thursday 4 June at 13:00 GMT, six leading global advocates of responsible tourism spoke and listened at a free public webinar (Web-based seminar) about the present and future of their fast-expanding industry. This inauguration of a regular series of online gatherings also served as a call for future discussion topics and guest speakers.

The hosting sextet began discussing and illustrating some of the thoughts and ideas propounded during Responsible Tourism Week 2009 – an online discussion held the week of May 18-22 that focussed on responsible tourism around the world. Using examples pulled from their extensive store of experiences or promoted through their organisations, the speakers’ primary objective was to demonstrate the universal appeal of responsible tourism to a broad range of constituencies in all sectors.

If you wish to listen to and then share the proceedings of this completed webinar, a full recording, a chat transcript and written summary are all available online.

After your listen, please share with us:

• your thoughts (constructive and deconstructuve) about this first webinar
• the topics/themes you would like us to address in coming sessions
• the names and/or kinds of qualifications of guest presenters you would like us to invite to coming sessions.

We hope to see you at our next webinar: 1pm GMT on 18 June. Mark it in your calendars and share the news with others.

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Posted under General, responsible travel, responsible travel news, webinar