Sustainable Tourism Masterclass to be repeated in spring 2012

Earlybird discounts announced for 2012 sustainable tourism masterclass

This year our carbon guru accused the airlines of telling lies and forecast the end of the Kyoto Protocol  it couldn’t have cut a broader swathe of emotions if it had tried. And it was jam packed with a wide variety of sustainable idiosyncracies.

Let's hope that Kyoto still survives until next March when you can be sure ALL the sustainable options will be discussed at an interim event on 16 March

To join and get an earlybird discount CLICK here

The autumn masterclass was thought to be the ‘best ever’ and kicked off with Mark Sainsbury interviewed by Valere Tjolle.

Although the “incredibly profitable” and successful Moro restaurant business was run almost entirely on sustainable principles – the word ‘sustainable’ appeared exactly nowhere.  “We really love all our staff” Mark said “and this love transfers itself to our customers”. Obviously successfully.

It proves what can be done – after packing himself off to cookery school in France, Mark set up the world-renowned Moro and has now embarked on a growing up market hotel business with the Green/Gold certified Zetter Hotel and the newly-opened Zetter Townhouse.

Next up was Mark Linehan Managing Director of the Sustainable Restaurant Association – broadening its footprint with hundreds of UK restaurants under its wing. Current boost to success – the famous restaurant critic Giles Coren now rates restaurants in his Times column with the SRA sustainable stars.

CEO of Jury Inns, John Brennan and Sustainable Manager Sean Twohig gave an impassioned presentation about the strides that Jurys Inn was making in the sustainable arena – profitably. The organization, which now runs over 30 three star hotels differentiates itself with all the high-level green accolades it is working for and is clearly extremely successful.

A deliciously sustainable buffet lunch may have lulled participants into warm feelings of happiness.

But a ‘No Holds Barred’ presentation by Professor Stefan Gossling certainly poured cold water over it. The Carbon Guru lauded the UK Air Passenger Duty as being the world’s best government response to man made global warming,; slammed airlines for being “dishonest” about their emissions and wondered why the man in the street felt he had to have an opinion without knowledge of the problem.

Said Prof Gossling “4% is on the cards” meaning world apocalypse soon. In his opinion any post-Kyoto deal is DEAD.

Presentations wound up with a mind-challenging offering from Roy Graff, based on his experience of working in China and with Expedia.

Roy foresees a very different world of travel within the next 20 years with source markets changing dramatically and distribution methods radically re-positioning. Opportunities abounded.

Masterclass discussions embraced all-inclusives (“how can they be sustainable by nature?”) the Couchsurfers phenomenon (“what will happen when it’s taxed?”) and touched on many other areas of passionate discussion.

Talking continued through supper at Leon (http://www.leonrestaurants.co.uk/ Sustainable Restaurant in the Strand). Finally silence reigned as ice cream was consumed at http://www.theicecreamists.com/

A full synthesis report has now been circulated to all attendees and all attendees have both joined the masterclass network and been invited to join the closed Linked in group.

To get in an earlybird booking for the next masterclass scheduled for 16 March 2012 CLICK HERE

Valere Tjolle