WHL Consulting Announced as Finalist in Innovation Leadership Awards

Ethan Gelber
10 August 2010

On Monday 6 August, The International Ecotourism Society (TIES) announced the 16 finalists (five individuals and 11 organisations) of the 2010 Innovation Award.

The TIES Innovation Leadership in Sustainable Tourism Awards recognise demonstrated leadership through innovative actions that effectively promote sustainable tourism and bring tangible benefits to communities and conservation. Each year, one individual and one organisation will be honoured for contributions, best practices and, of course, leadership as judged on the basis of one example of an innovative project, product or program developed in the previous year that advocates for uniting communities, conservation and sustainable travel.

WHL Consulting in the Mix

The WHL Group is pleased to learn that one of its subsidiary companies, WHL Consulting, has been selected as a 2010 Innovation Award finalist for creation of the Tourism Development Bank, “a leveraged, barter-based, payment-facilitation platform… that lets accommodation providers pay for market-access, clean-energy and other services with room nights instead of cash.”

As described in the nomination of WHL Consulting: “Typically it is hard for small businesses, primarily in the hospitality sector, to collateralize their assets (i.e. their rooms stock) and/or gain access to finance from traditional lenders (especially in the developing world). High energy costs and a lack of market access due to insufficient e-commerce/online competitiveness are critical constraints to their long-term financial sustainability.”

The Tourism Development Bank is, therefore, an elegant means of overcoming this key business constraint faced by many small and medium-sized enterprises: access to finance. Without money, essential (and beneficial) business buoys, such as market access tools and services, and retrofits or renovations to reduce energy consumption and operating costs, often go unfunded. The businesses are seen as being either too small and risky for commercial banks or too large and not poor enough for micro-finance institutions and donors.

“We have been working quite hard over the past six months in several pilot destinations, like South Africa, Mexico and Brazil and always felt that what we were doing was really innovative,” said Zachary Rozga, CEO of WHL Consulting. “Sometimes when you do this, you get caught up in reflection and just aren’t exactly sure if what you are doing is going to make sense to outsiders. It is nice to be formally recognised by a prestigious organisation like TIES as being an Innovation Leader. We hope this is just the beginning of a good things to come for the Tourism Development Bank.”

Your Thoughts Matter

Project stakeholders, supporters and members are encouraged to comment on finalist submissions by Monday, August 23, 2010. Testimonial comments are considered for the final selection, scheduled to be made by August 31st, 2010. (Supporters of WHL Consulting and the Tourism Development Bank are additionally encouraged to comment on an entry about it in the G-20 SME Finance Challenge. Fifteen finalists from that competition will be invited to a meeting of the G-20 in November.)

The two winning Innovation Leadership Awards finalists will be honored at the Ecotourism and Sustainable Tourism Conference (ESTC), North America’s largest and only conference focusing on sustainability in the tourism industry, taking place from 8-10 September 2010 in Portland, Oregon.

Rozga, in his capacity as North America & Caribbean Regional Director of the WHL Group, will be presenting at the ESTC on September 10, 2:30-4:00pm, on the “Effective strategies for financing and supporting sustainability initiatives in tourism” panel of Track 2 – Practical Ideas on Triple Bottom Line: Managing Footprint and Implementing Solutions.

Momentarily setting aside his attention to the Tourism Development Bank, Rozga will be focusing on a practical model of how micro-franchising allows even the smallest tour operators to compete with big companies on both price and product. The WHL Group is the leading global franchise network for small and local entrepreneurs in tourism.

Ethan Gelber

For more than 20 years, Ethan Gelber has devoted himself to a somewhat baffling diversity of projects, most associated with writing/editing, cross-cultural communication and education, travel, bicycling and the arts. At present, he manages media and communications for the WHL Group, oversees The Travel Word (this very blog) and helped initiate the Local Travel Movement.