TravelMole backs Geotourism Challenge
Wednesday, 08 Apr, 2009
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TravelMole is supporting an online contest which seeks top innovators in sustainable tourism.
The second annual global Geotourism Challenge is designed to showcase how tourism done well sustains, enhances and preserves local culture and the environment.
The competition, run by the National Geographic Society and Ashoka’s Changemakers. will identify individuals worldwide who have introduced the most innovative practices in tourism and destination stewardship.
The global Geotourism Challenge will accept online applications at www.changemakers.net/geotourismchallenge until a deadline of May 20.
Applicants must demonstrate an innovation that protects destination quality and furthers geotourism, defined by National Geographic as “tourism that sustains or enhances the geographical character of a place — its environment, culture, aesthetics, heritage and the well-being of its residents.”
The panel of judges — including Keith Bellows, editor of National Geographic Traveler magazine, and Erika Harms, United Nations Foundation’s executive director for sustainable development — will review the applications and select the finalists.
The online community will then vote for the Geotourism Challenge winners, who will be announced this summer.
Each winner will receive a cash prize of $5,000.
Last year’s Geotourism Challenge produced 320 nominations from 83 countries.
The 2008 winners were a program in Ecuador’s Amazon region to provide Amazonian youth with an academic degree in nature tourism; an outfitter in Nepal that trains women to be trekking professionals in a culture that offers women limited job opportunities; and an eco-lodge in Costa Rica that is teaching native Cabecar Indians how to manage the business in one of the country’s celebrated rain forests.
The competition also created an online community of geotourism activists, ranging from preservationists to developers.
All can use competition results and resources to apply holistic geotourism principles locally by consulting the Changemakers Web site, www.changemakers.net/geotourismchallenge.
Ashoka’s Changemakers executive director Charlie Brown said: “Our last competition revealed a wide selection of amazing innovations in geotourism. We are looking forward to many more such creative projects surfacing this spring within the Changemakers community.”
The organization provides solutions and resources needed to help everyone become a ‘changemaker’.
Phil Davies
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