World's Innovative Travel Entrepreneurs to Gather to Share Geotourism Successes

21 January 2010
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WHAT: The Second Annual Geotourism Change Summit will take place at National Geographic headquarters Tuesday, Feb. 2, as travel leaders whose businesses range from eco-tours in rural villages to top-line resorts in major cities gather. They will share how to best cultivate destination stewardship and protect the world’s special places from the negative effects of mass tourism.

Geotourism, a growing travel trend, is tourism that sustains or enhances the geographical character of a place — its environment, culture, aesthetics, heritage and the well-being of its residents.

Registration $175 (general delegate)

WHEN:   8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 2.

WHERE: National Geographic Society, Washington, D.C.

Enter at 1146 16th Street N.W.

WHO: Ÿ The 10 finalists of the 2nd Geotourism Challenge, representing Brazil, Cambodia, Canada, Costa Rica, India, Mongolia, Spain, the United States and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Their enterprising tourism ranges from adventure bike tours through Cambodia to hut-to-hut visits with nomadic families in Mongolia.

  • James Gilmore, coauthor of the books Authenticity: What Customers Really Want” and “The Experience Economy,” will deliver the keynote address
    (10:30 a.m.). He will discuss why the “experience economy” is the next economic era, following the agrarian economy, the industrial economy and the most recent service economy. Gilmore is a Batten Fellow and Visiting Lecturer at the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia.

CONTACT: Barbara Fallon, National Geographic, (703) 489-0880, [email protected]

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