Featured Interview
Q&A with Jon Gunnar Benjaminsson, Owner of Iceland Unlimited, on Disabled-Friendly Adventure Travel
April 5, 2011
“Handling people’s free time is a big responsibility that I take very seriously” by Nicole Petrak, ATTA Special Projects and Assistant Editor of AdventureTravelNews The following Q&A is with Jón Gunnar Benjamínsson, owner of new tour company Iceland Unlimited. Jon was born in Akureyri, on the north east coast of Iceland. Being the son of a farmer, he enjoyed the outdoors from an early age and soon took interest in fishing in streams and rivers on his parents land. His interest in being out in the nature grew stronger as he matured, and after coming home from culinary studies in Denmark he decided to seek education in tourism. After graduation in 2005 he started working for a local travel agency in Reykjavík. In September 2007 he was the victim of a severe car accident that left him paralyzed from the waist down. After two years of rehabilitation he took a trip across the higland plateau of Iceland on his ATV to raise awareness for accessibility to highland huts... Read More →
Featured Interview Lessons and Insights
Keeping Up with Over 50′s Set – Q&A with Author Don Mankin
March 16, 2011
by Nicole Petrak, Special Projects & Assistant Editor, AdventureTravelNews The following Q&A is with travel writer Don Mankin. Don has been through more career transitions than Arnold Schwarzenegger, from aerospace engineer to psychology professor to business consultant to university dean to travel writer, with a few other stops along the way. Before fleeing the academic life in 2006, he had authored four books in management and organizational psychology, including Teams and Technology from Harvard Business School Press and Business Without Boundaries from Jossey-Bass. His latest book, co-authored with ATTA President Shannon Stowell, is Riding the Hulahula to the Arctic Ocean: A Guide to 50 Extraordinary Adventures for the Seasoned Traveler (National Geographic Press, 2008). Riding the Hulahula provides personal, psychologically-rich descriptions of off-the-beaten track adventures for active seniors. The Wall Street Journal described the book as “one of the best travel books to... Read More →
Featured Interview Lessons and Insights
Journalist Alerts: Q & A with Chris Doyle, ATTA Vice President & Editor, AdventureTravelNews.com
March 15, 2011
Assistant Editor’s Note: The following Q&A is with Adventure Travel Trade Association (ATTA) Vice President & Editor AdventureTravelNews™ Chris Doyle, elaborating on the member-only media alert service the ATTA performs among its PR & Marketing outreach. ATTA's Chris Doyle outlines the Media & Journalist alert system How does the ATTA journalist alert system work? The ATTA has long-established relationships with travel journalists worldwide, and is regularly adding new writers to its journalist network. Journalists have come to recognize that the ATTA membership represents a treasure trove of adventure tourism industry experts, leads on new product, services and itineraries, leads on new and emerging adventure destinations, and as a key resource for adventure tourism research and trends. And, while the ATTA responds to many journalist trends and research questions, it relies mostly on its active members to respond to media queries. Journalists contact... Read More →
Featured Interview Lessons and Insights
“Your Network Will Save You” – Q&A with Courtenay Rooks of Paria Springs
February 15, 2011
Assistant Editor’s Note: Courtenay Rooks; adventurer, naturalist, conservationist, ecotourism expert, TV host and family man has long desired to develop ecotourism in Trinidad and Tobago. This is fueled by his exploring, hiking, diving, mountain biking, birding, surfing, snorkeling, adventure racing and kayaking while studying natural history for over 35 years in far flung places like England, Dominica, the Pacific North West of North America, Mojave Desert, the Cerrado and Amazon of Brazil, Guyana’s Amazon, the Savanna Grande of Venezuela and mostly Trinidad and Tobago. During this time he gained knowledge, experience, respect and love for these environments. He has written and contributed to several scientific papers and over 14 years research experience at the Institute of Marine Affairs. In 1993 he started as a nature tour guide, gaining respect from his peers and clients as someone genuinely interested in the environment that has substantial knowledge on natural history... Read More →
Featured Interview Lessons and Insights
Q&A with Nicky Fitzgerald of Pangaea Associates
February 9, 2011
Assistant Editor’s Note: After over 30 years building luxury ecotourism hotel and travel brands in Africa and Asia, industry veteran and ATWS speaker Nicky Fitzgerald is now focused on doing the same in Latin America, while shifting away from the corporate world and into a consultancy role. She talks about this transition and lessons she’s learned along the way in today’s Q&A. Fitzgerald opened her first hotel in 1982 at the southernmost tip of Africa and since then has opened, operated and marketed over 60 luxury safari lodges and boutique hotels across South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Tanzania, Kenya and India. In 1994 she was employed by Conservation Corporation Africa (CC Africa) as Operations Director and later moved into sales and marketing. Nicky was part of the team that grew CC Africa from 3 to 50 lodges across sub Saharan Africa, and later in India, in all the great wilderness high spots – Masai Mara, Ngorongoro Crater, Serengeti, Okavango Delta,... Read More →
Featured Interview Lessons and Insights
Q&A with Dan Austin of Austin Lehman Adventures
January 20, 2011
Dan Austin is a longtime ATTA member and serves on the 2011 Adventure Travel World Summit Advisory Committee. You are now the sole owner of Austin-Lehman Adventures – can you tell us about this transition? After 10 very enjoyable years working together and building the Austin Lehman Adventures Brand, Paul Lehman made the decision to free up more time for new and personal adventures and elected to sell his shares of the company to my wife and I. We worked together over the last few months to structure a sale that worked well for all. We have an amazing staff in place and all are supportive. We move forward knowing that fundamentally nothing will change in the management or direction of the company. We are very thankful for this great opportunity. What’s your future vision for the company and for adventure travel in 2011, 2012 and beyond? Simply put, to stay the course. All of us at ALA have worked tirelessly to create a company that continues to set the bar year... Read More →
Featured Interview
End Child Prostitution, Pornography, and Trafficking: Q & A with ECPAT’s Angeline Diamond
December 15, 2010
ATTA attempts to keeps an eye on issues that that are important – to our industry and in plain human terms. We’ve learned more about ECPAT (End Child Prostitution, Pornography, and Trafficking) in recent months and the compelling work they’re doing with the CODE – a code formed for specifically tourism companies to establish policies that may be incorporated into organizational ethical codes to prevent child exploitation. Our increasing awareness of the issue prompted AdventureTravelNews Assistant Editor, Nicole Petrak, to get in touch to learn – and share – more with the global adventure tourism community. Here’s what we’ve found: Assistant Editor’s Note: ATTA recently published a release about two important public awareness campaigns by ECPAT (End Child Prostitution, Pornography, and Trafficking), the Code of Conduct and TassaTags. We followed up with Angeline Diamond, speaking on behalf on ECPAT, to explore what specific awareness... Read More →
Featured InterviewQ&A with Eco Team, ATTA’s First Sri Lankan Adventure Travel Member
December 15, 2010
Assistant Editor’s Note: We are pleased to announce the Adventure Travel Trade Association’s first member from Sri Lanka, Eco Team. Below is a brief Q&A with Dileepa Manawadu, the Eco Team Marketing Manager, discussing this move and the larger strategic Eco Team has been experiencing relative to the adventure travel industry. Can you give us some background on Eco Team and how it fits into the adventure travel market in Sri Lanka? Being one of the first companies in Sri Lanka to operate an Adventure Base camp in Beli Hul Oya in Sri Lanka, Eco Team has shifted from soft adventure to hardcore adventure sports within a short span of time. We have seen an increased interest from travelers in indulging in holidays that are more enduring both physically and mentally. The new portfolio includes wildlife safaris and camping, white water rafting, canoe river safaris, mountain biking, rock-climbing, caving, rain forest exploration, trekking/hiking, and kite surfing, to... Read More →
Featured Article Featured Interview
Q&A with Praveen Moman from Volcanoes Safaris
August 12, 2010
Recently, Shannon Stowell, president of the Adventure Travel Trade Association, and Praveen Moman from Volcanoes Safaris were having a discussion that stemmed from the Adventure Travel World Summit in Québec, Canada 2009. They were talking about how companies can practically pursue sustainability and responsibility and also be profitable businesses. Curiosity got the better of Shannon and he quizzed Praveen on a number of practices that Volcanoes pursues. This has been published with permission in hopes of shedding light for other operators who might face similar issues: Read More → Read More →
