Virgin Holidays Responsible Tourism Awards 2009
Nominations for our Virgin Holidays Responsible Tourism Awards are now
closed. The 2009 Responsible Tourism Award winners will be announced at World Travel Market on Wednesday 11 November, and in The Daily Telegraph the following weekend.
A huge thank you to all those who nominated this year, we received nominations for a record number of 580 organisations, individuals and destinations around the world leading the way and making a real difference to the lives of local communities and the environment.
Find out how the Awards are judged or read all about our previous Responsible Tourism Award winners.
The Responsible Tourism Awards are the most prestigious awards of their kind in the world and are a collaboration between online travel directory responsibletravel.com, who founded and organise the Awards, UK media partners Telegraph Travel and Geographical Magazine, BBC World News, and World Travel Market, who host the Awards ceremony (read more about our Partners).
Q&A with Paul Theroux
When Paul Theroux’s travelogue 'The Great Railway Bazaar' came out in 1975,
he managed to tickle the itchy feet of travellers inspired by his commitment
to making the journey, not the destination, the focus of his travels, and
to inspire us with his engaged approach to seeing the world and meeting
its peoples. To mark the 6th year of the Virgin Holidays Responsible Tourism
Awards, we asked him to share his thoughts on his experiences, from 'Dark
Star Safari', volunteering in Malawi, and living in Hawaii, to his opinions
on the emergent ideals of responsible tourism.Why are you supporting The Virgin Holidays Responsible Tourism Awards?
In the past, awards were given for Best Meal, Best View, Most Grovelling Staff, Biggest Ballroom, or whatever. It's encouraging that tourism organisations and individuals are being rewarded for doing something that is ethically right or supporting a position that will help the planet. That's the greatest lesson of travel: it is a very small and easily bruised planet.
Dark Star Safari was the best travel book ever written about Africa because you caught buses, walked etc and connected with local people. Do you think there is something rather superficial and thus irresponsible about the way we all travel now - flying first class to stay in luxury hotels?
There's a good reason why people fly First Class and stay in luxury hotels: it's an awful lot of fun. But I do think that if a traveler wishes to know how people live, and wishes to gain a little insight in a country, it helps to travel on the ground and stay in simpler places that might not have a big wall around them. Overland travel is obviously more difficult and time consuming - a lot of it is like Gap Year hassle - but it is much more revealing. I could have hopped from capital to capital in traveling through Africa for Dark Star Safari, but African capitals - new buildings surrounded by preposterous slums - are places to avoid. And you can't say that you have traveled anywhere unless you have crossed a frontier - in a literal and also figurative sense.
Read the full interview here
get involved
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Tourism Awards group, or sign up to IKnowAGreatPlace.com
and take a look at our Responsible Tourism Awards forum! Download r:travel, the responsible travel magazine featuring all the
winners of our Virgin Holidays Responsible Tourism Awards 2008 