Asia
Pepy Ride: Please join The Power of 10!
October 14, 2011
The Power of 10 is here! If our big announcement hasn’t reached all of you, we hope you could sense it anyway! The Power of 10 has arrived on 10.10 and we’re now a few days in! If you haven’t joined yet, please do! We’ve got another fabulous video produced for us by Kris Wozencroft and we hope you’ll watch it, donate $10 if you can or more if you like, and tell 10 friends! There are so many other ways to spread the word about PEPY’s annual campaign, so after you watch this video, check out the site and learn how to be involved! This year, we’re asking people to share their dreams with us. We believe that voicing and sharing our dreams makes them one step closer to reality. Share your dreams with us and subscribe to our message board so that you can receive the dreams of others as inspiration throughout the year! Visit our website www.jointhepowerof10.org, watch the video, make a donation of $10 or more if you can, explore the dreamboard, share... Read More →
New & Different
10,000 Free Round-Trip Tickets to Japan
October 11, 2011
Yahoo! News has reported on a remarkable campaign being proposed by the Japan Tourism Agency – the giveaway of 10,000 free roundtrip airfare tickets globally to elicit social media buzz in order to help jump start the ailing local tourism industry after the catastrophic earthquake, tsunami and Fukushima Dai-ichi Powr plant disaster this spring. If the government grants the funding, the plan would be put in action next April, roughly a year after the tragic events which have seen Japan’s inbound tourism slashed in half: The tourism agency says it plans to open a website to solicit applicants interested in the free tickets. Would- be visitors will have to detail in writing their travel plans in Japan, and explain what they hope to get out of the trip. Successful applicants would pay for their own accommodation and meals. They would also be required to write a review their travel experiences, and post it online. “We are hoping to get highly influential blogger-types, and others... Read More →
Spotlight: Sustainability
Indian Court Urged Not to Ban Tiger Tourism by Tour Operators, Travelers
October 11, 2011
Photo: tofttigers.org According to a recent article published in The Telegraph, the Supreme Court of India is considering banning tiger tourism and safaris in “core” tiger habitats, out of the concern that such trips are adversely affecting the approximately 1,400 wild tigers left in the country. They are being urged by a group of travelers, tour operators and local travel industry stakeholders to reject the ban. “This is a critical ruling for the future of tiger tourism in India,” said Julian Matthews, chairman of TOFT [Tour Operators for Tigers]. “Banning tourism from the core areas of tiger reserves is an irresponsible and unnecessary move that will have many negative consequences. “Tourism in tiger reserves provides an income to thousands of people, many of them local to the area of the reserves. Closing tourism in these core areas will cause the number of people visiting these reserves to drop drastically.” TOFT and critics of the ban claim that it would not just... Read More →
Member Press Releases
Managing Director of Shikhar Travels Receives Lifetime Achievment Award from ATOAI
October 4, 2011
Capt. Swadesh Kumar, Managing Director, Shikhar Travels, received Life Time Achievement Award from Adventure Tour Operators Association at their 9th Annual Convention held in Srinagar, India. He has been honoured for his outstanding contributions in the field of adventure tourism in the country. He received the award from Hon’ble Chief Minister of Jammu & Kashmir Jenab Omar Abdullah during the inauguration ceremony of the Convention on 12th September, 2011. Capt. Kumar is the Founder President of ATOAI, which plays a significant role in promoting adventure tourism in India, and has been recognized by the Ministry of Tourism as the prime body of the Indian adventure tourism industry. Capt. Kumar’s interest in Trekking and Climbing Expeditions started in 1969 when he joined the Delhi Mountaineering Association (DMA) as a member. From the very beginning of his career(1974 – 79), he has promoted and pioneered many routes and trails. One striking example of his breaking new... Read More →
Spotlight: Destinations
License to Kill: Should China Grant Foreign Tourists Visas to Hunt Limited Numbers of Protected Species?
September 30, 2011
A debate around granting international tourists special licenses to hunt protected animals as part of ‘adventure travel’ tours is taking place in China. A website dedicated to environmental issues, chinadialogue, recently reported that a special committee has granted permission to a group of American citizens to hunt the Bharal and Tibetan gazelle in the Dulan International Hunting Ground in China’s far western region of Qinghai - animals otherwise protected from hunting under Chinese law: While trophy-hunting tourism has largely been out of the news for the past five years – since public anger forced a halt to the first and only auction of international hunting quotas – the debate has been quietly raging on: does allowing select hunting ultimately benefit wildlife, or lead to disaster? …Wang Wei is president of China’s largest international hunting firm, Beijing-based Zheng’an Travel Agency, also known as China Adventure Travel. Speaking at an event organised... Read More →
Member Press Releases
Travel Operators for Tigers Introduces 14 New PUG Certified Lodges
September 20, 2011
The well-known Indian wildlife tourism campaign, Travel Operators for Tigers, (TOFT), have announced that an additional fourteen wildlife lodges in 11 of India’s premier Tiger reserves have gained PUG environmental certification this season, growing its list of lodges to a total now of 39 accommodation holders. Five of these are in Tiger reserves that TOFT has not focused on before, including Satpura in Madhya Pradesh, Kaziranga in Assam, Tadoba in Maharashtra and Nagarhole and Bandipur in Karnataka State. With much heated debate happening over the future of nature tourism in India, and its ability to be used as a conservation tool, the TOFT PUG audit serves to illustrate the lengths to which lodge owners are prepared to go to, to ensure a future for both themselves and for India’s iconic species and its forest habitat. TOFT is aimed at those within the nature travel industry and all visitors to India’s wildlife parks to advocate, endorse and support more responsible use of wilderness... Read More →
Member Press Releases
Wild Planet Adventures Unveils New Hidden Thailand Program Guiding Guests to Remote Wildlife Sanctuaries, Exotic Islands
September 15, 2011
Promises Clients Exclusive, Up Close Encounters With Region’s Most Extraordinary Creatures Sausalito, CA – Leading wildlife viewing specialist Wild Planet Adventures knows silence is golden when viewing elusive wildlife. For the first time ever they now access Thailand’s Klong Seang Wildlife Sanctuary by long-tail boat and soundless sea kayak which allow sightings of the most shy and rare animals without scaring them away. Featured in Wild Planet Adventures’ newest tour offering – Hidden Thailand the Klong Seang Wildlife Sanctuary has been nearly inaccessible until recently. The sanctuary is several hours from the nearest village and the only other humans are occasional passing fisherman. Because of this extreme isolation, Klong Seang harbors healthy populations of rare animals like smooth-coated and small-clawed otters, sun bear, slow loris, white-handed gibbons, wild boars and large colonies of flying foxes. There have even been recent sightings by Wild Planet guests of the... Read More →
Member Press Releases
Intrepid Travel Selects Discover the World Marketing to Increase Sales in Singapore, Hong Kong and Malaysia
September 15, 2011
Scottsdale, AZ. – Intrepid Travel, one of the world’s largest adventure travel companies, announced today its entrance into the Singapore, Hong Kong and Malaysian market through new sales and marketing representation with Discover the World Marketing beginning September, 2011. According to Renata Shepley, Intrepid Travel’s Industry Sales Manager – Australasia, “We were looking for a way to expand our business in these markets and Discover the World Marketing with its excellent reputation was the perfect fit for our marketing objectives. We look forward to a productive and fruitful partnership.” “It is a pleasure to partner with Intrepid Travel, which has 22 years of experience running award-winning small group adventure tours,” said Jenny Adams, CEO of Discover the World Marketing. “Tony Lim, Discover’s Director for these markets and his team, has a wealth of experience as well and will be a great asset for Intrepid Travel.” For... Read More →
Spotlight: Destinations
The China Daily: China Set to Grow as Adventure Travel Spot
July 18, 2011
Photo by Andy Siitonen, http://www.farandfurther.com/ - Flickr Creative Commons According to an article in the China Daily, after a four year application process, Intrepid Travel has obtained wholly foreign owned enterprise (WOFE) status in China. This comes right as Intrepid has announced a partnership with TUI Travel resulting in the formation of PEAK Adventure Travel Group. These moves put Intrepid in position to become a key player in the burgeoning inbound Chinese travel market, and resulted in the China Daily proclaiming that the nation is “set to grow as a destination for adventurous Western travellers.” “With the licence here now and the new companies we have as a part of PEAK, our business in China will grow very substantially,” said Wade. “There is an enormous amount of work to do, and an enormous amount of opportunity.” …The new group will have more than 20 brands with combined revenue of US$374 million and 340,000 passengers globally. The article... Read More →
Member Press Releases
&Beyond Influencing Guiding Practices in India
July 17, 2011
&Beyond, Africa’s leading luxury safari operator, is influencing better guiding practices in the central state of Madhya Pradesh, India, where it operates four exceptional jungle safari lodges in partnership with Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces. The company’s permanent naturalist training school which operates near Kanha National Park has, to date, fully trained 30 Indian naturalists who are employed at the lodges. Taj Safaris is the only operator in India to train its own naturalists; have specially designed Tata 4×4 safari vehicles; and employ female rangers – much like &Beyond did in Africa almost 20 years ago. Set up in 2006 by &Beyond’s Head Trainer, Graham Vercueil, together with Taj Safaris then Chief Naturalist and Trainer, Sarath Champati, the training school draws on &Beyond’s vast experience gained in Africa. A similar three phase course, focusing on wildlife and guiding techniques, was developed to train the naturalists to offer guests a world-class... Read More →
