Free Responsible Tourism Webinar Gives Mic to Travel Publishers

whl.travel
12 June 2009

On Thursday 18 June at 13:00 GMT, the second session of a free webinar (Web-based seminar) series about responsible tourism welcomed travel publishers to the stage. Four speakers representing Bradt Guides, Footprint Travel Guides, Lonely Planet Publications and Wanderlust magazine were scheduled to share how responsible tourism is increasingly important to them and their organisations, but sound problems kept two out of the live discussion.

Seated around the virtual table were:

MODERATORS
* Sally Broom, CEO of Your Safe Planet & Fringe Network
* Stephen Chapman, Founder of Make Travel Fair

SPEAKERS
* Tom Hall, Travel Editor at Lonely Planet Publications
* Dan Linstead, Editor of Wanderlust magazine
* Alan Murphy, Commissioning Editor and Publisher, Footprint Travel Guides
* Adrian Phillips, Publishing Director at Bradt Travel Guides.

Biographical material about the moderators and speakers can be found below.

During the 60-minute session, Tom Hall and Adrian Phillips made brief presentations about what is (and is not) being done to give readers what they need to travel as responsibly as possible. A question-and-answer period followed, and included the participation of Toby Sawday from Sawday Publishing.

For details, consult:

* a written account of all that was said by Tom Hall of Lonely Planet
* a written account all that was said by Adrian Phillips of Bradt Travel Guides
* written questions and answers compiled from the webinar chat room
* the full recording of the webinar with voice conflicts that were not present during the live session
* the full chat transcript

More Information

This responsible tourism webinar series, hosted by whl.travel, was launched on 4 June with a discussion of some of the thoughts and ideas propounded during Responsible Tourism Week 2009 – an online discussion held the week of 18-22 May that focussed on responsible tourism around the world. The primary objective of the webinar series is to demonstrate the universal appeal of responsible tourism to a broad range of constituencies in all sectors.

To listen to the proceedings of the completed 4 June webinar, check out the full recording, chat transcript and written summary, as well as additional commentary.

For more information, contact:
* Shaun Gilchrist, Chief Operations Officer, whl.travel, +61 431 020 173; shaun@whl.travel
* Ethan Gelber, Media Liaison, whl.travel, ethan@whl.travel

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MODERATORS

SALLY BROOM – CEO, Your Safe Planet & Fringe Network
Sally Broom is founder of the unique travel website YourSafePlanet.com, the global network of trusted local experts. YSP connects travellers with experts at the grassroots who advise on trip planning using their up-to-date local knowledge. The goal of YSP is support slower and more rewarding travel.

‘Fringe’ network was a name given by media to a group of grassroots tourism organisations and individuals who feel that there is an opportunity to collaborate with more people on the important issues around local tourism, sustainable travel etc. What started as nothing more than a few drinks between friends around WTM has developed into a global network of hundreds of members. Their simple aims are to bring attention and energy to grassroots projects and, through collaboration, facilitate more local/sustainable travel.

STEPHEN CHAPMAN – Founder, Make Travel Fair
Stephen Chapman has travelled extensively and spent time living in both Australia and USA. After graduating from Edinburgh University in 2005 he spent a short period working offshore as a geologist in the oil & gas industry before changing direction completely to follow his passion for travel and established Make Travel Fair. The website won a TravelMole Web Award in its first year for ‘Best Online Education Site’, and more recently he was selected as ‘One-to-Watch’ in Travel & Leisure as part of The Courvoisier Future 500. This year he began working as part of the whl.travel team.

SPEAKERS

TOM HALL – Travel Editor, Lonely Planet Publications
Tom Hall is a travel journalist based at Lonely Planet’s London office. He is the writer of the weekly Ask Tom feature in the Observer newspaper and appears regularly on radio and television. While Tom’s favourite destinations are all in Africa, he’s always banging on about how great holidaying in Britain is.

DAN LINSTEAD – Editor, Wanderlust magazine
Cambridge graduate Dan Linstead joined John Brown Publishing in 2000 as the editor of Orange’s pioneering lifestyle magazine, O. In five years of customer publishing, he wrote, edited and commissioned a range of travel, celebrity and general lifestyle features for companies including Waitrose, the AA, Honda and Ikea – and won a British Society of Magazine Editors award for O magazine. In 2005, he relaunched and edited bmi’s inflight magazine, Voyager, for Redwood Publishing. In 2006, he was appointed editor of Wanderlust, the UK’s leading magazine for adventurous travellers.

ALAN MURPHY – Commissioning Editor and Publisher, Footprint Travel Guides
Following a stint as a copy editor and writer for the Bolivian Times, Alan Murphy began his Footprint career as an updater for the legendary South American Handbook, before being commissioned to research and write their new guidebooks to Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia and Venezuela. He then returned to his native Scotland to write new guides to Scotland, Highlands & Islands, Edinburgh and Glasgow. Now, though, poacher has turned gamekeeper and Alan is commissioning editor and publisher for Footprint Handbooks.

ADRIAN PHILLIPS – Publishing Director, Bradt Travel Guides
Adrian Phillips has written several guidebooks – including Hungary: The Bradt Travel Guide, which won Best Guidebook of the Year in 2006 – and contributes regular travel articles to national newspapers and magazines. He is one of the judges of the Bradt/Independent on Sunday Travel-Writing Competition and a tutor on the panel at Bradt’s annual travel-writing seminar.