the judges

Harold Goodwin

 Justin Francis Lisa Scott
Fiona Jeffery Nikki White John de Vial
Ian Reynolds Graeme Gourlay Tricia Barnett
Sue Hurdle Debbie Hindle Matt Walpole
Rebecca Hawkins
Harold Goodwin Harold Goodwin, Chair of Judges, is Professor of Responsible Tourism Management at Leeds Metropolitan University and Director of the International Centre for Responsible Tourism - a post-graduate research and training centre where Harold runs an MSc in Responsible Tourism Management. The Masters is the first of its kind. The programme has been carefully designed to ensure that students get the practical skills and range of knowledge necessary to achieve responsible tourism - the programme is holistic covering issues and principles, natural and cultural heritage, local economic development and poverty reduction, social anthropology and professional practice in achieving change and managing tourism in destinations.

The course attracts students from the industry and from around the world and has sister organisations in India, South Africa and The Gambia. Harold drafted the Cape Town Declaration on Responsible Tourism in Destinations in 2002 which defined the agenda for change and has written extensively on responsible tourism and worked with UK companies and with governments in Bhutan, South Africa and The Gambia to develop and implement responsible tourism policies. He is a partner in the Pro-Poor Tourism Partnership and Director of the Responsible Tourism Partnership. www.haroldgoodwin.info
Justin Francis Justin Francis is CEO of online travel directory responsibletravel.com which he co-founded in 2001. Justin says: "responsibletravel.com enables tourists to find and book a very wide range of more authentic holidays that maximise the benefits to local communities, and minimise negative environmental impacts. There are over 3000 holidays on responsibletravel.com in over 145 countries run by over 270 carefully screened tour operators, and 100s of accommodations. Tourists are also able to read fellow travellers' reviews of these holidays, including their thoughts on responsible tourism".

responsibletravel.com organises The Virgin Holidays Responsible Tourism Awards in association with The Metro, World Travel Market, Geographical Magazine and headline sponsors Virgin Holidays. Justin is a Trustee of The Travel Foundation, and writes regularly on responsible tourism for magazines and papers.
Fiona Jeffery Fiona Jeffery is Chairman of World Travel Market. Staged annually in London under one roof, World Travel Market is a business to business exhibition for the whole global travel trade industry to meet, network, negotiate and conduct business.

Fiona joined the Marketing Department of Reed Exhibition Companies in 1986 and by 1988 she was a Group Marketing Manager responsible for the marketing activity surrounding 17 of Reed Exhibition Companies' leading annual events within the travel, catering, computing, electronics, book publishing, fashion and jewellery industries. She then became Marketing Director in 1991. In 1992 she launched Arabian Travel Market in the Middle East and in December 1993, took over responsibility as Exhibition Director of World Travel Market as well as British Travel Trade Fair in 1996. In 2000 she was appointed Group Exhibition Director for World Travel Market & British Travel Trade Fair and Marketing and Business Development Director for Reed Travel Exhibitions responsible for the groups global communications and strategic development. In 2005 she became Managing Director, World Travel Market, and in 2007 was appointed Chairman.

In 1998 she founded and is now Chairman of the international travel and tourism industry charity - Just a Drop. Its aims are to deliver clean water to over 1.1 billion children worldwide who have no access near to their homes and reduce the instance of child death caused by polluted water in the world.
Nikki White Nikki White joined ABTA as Head of Destinations and Sustainability in October last year. Nikki has gained an impressive grasp of travel and tourism strategy over her years as Head of Strategy and Development at travel and leisure marketing experts Fox Kalomaski. Here she worked with a number of destinations as well as specialist agents, tour operators and airlines devising a range of strategic policies. Nikki's expertise in sustainable tourism has recently been enhanced by her completion of a Masters degree in Sustainable Development. Nikki is Head of Destinations and Sustainability at ABTA which includes responsibility for sustainability, operations, health and safety and crisis management.
John de Vial John de Vial is a tourism professional with 30 years experience, principally in the mainstream, UK outbound market, with a particular interest in sustainability. He was literally born in to the industry, being the son of a Spanish resident manager for an ABTA tour operator to Spain and an English customer, so tourism is in his blood. John's career, after an academic background in Engineering, returned to tourism in 1980 when he joined the International Leisure/Air Europe Group, ultimately becoming Director of Consumer Affairs. John went on to work for the Tour Operators' Study Group (TOSG), the forerunner of the Federation of Tour Operators (FTO) and as a contractor for the Civil Aviation Authority, Consumer Protection Group. He joined the Thomson Travel Group where he stayed until after the creation of TUI UK Limited, where he was Holiday Services Director. John then joined the MyTravel Group plc, where he was Consumer Affairs Director and in 2007 became a Group Director of the newly formed Thomas Cook Group plc in 2007. In 2009, John moved to ABTA, where he is a Director of the trade association, Travelife (ABTA's Sustainability System) and ABTA's charity, the ABTA Benevolent Fund. John has been closely involved in the completion of the ABTA and FTO merger, the subsequent organisational change and restructuring of the new ABTA and the creation of ABTA's new strategic Vision. Sustainability and Responsibility are at the heart of that vision for a successful industry. John also Chairs ABTA's disciplinary committee, responsible for the ABTA Code of Conduct, a key element of ABTA's self regulation and consumer protection. John is a Fellow of the Institute of Travel & Tourism; a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators; an Associate of the Chartered Quality Institute and a Fellow of the Institute of Directors. He is also Director of External Affairs at the Shearings Group (Shearings, National Holidays, Caledonian Travel, Wallace Arnold Travel, Coast and Country Hotels and Bay Hotels.)
- Ian Reynolds was the Chief Executive of the Association of British Travel Agents (ABTA) from 1994 until September 2005, following a 25 year career with IBM. He is currently non-executive chairman of Citybond Holdings PLC, a director of General Industries PLC and NTP Limited, which provides training throughout the travel industry. He is also a trustee of the Travel Foundation, the Family Holiday Association and St Mary's Paddington Charitable Trust. Ian is a member of the British Computer Society, a Fellow of the Institute of Directors, the Royal Society for Arts, the Institute of Travel and Tourism, the Tourism Society and a Companion of the Institute of Management.
Tricia Barnett Tricia Barnett is the Director of Tourism Concern, the UK-based charity that campaigns for ethical and fairly-traded tourism. Tricia says "Tourism Concern is not against travel and tourism - it's just about how it to do so that local people benefit too. Tourism Concern campaigns against exploitation in tourism and to ensure that local people in destinations benefit from it. Too often people are embedded in poverty through tourism and their human rights are compromised by it. Having mounted several successful campaigns to support people in destinations, Tourism Concern welcomes new members and supporters to work with it towards a more balanced future for tourism." Tricia has travelled the world, working as a social worker, as a trade union activist, with her work on newspapers and being an anthropologist. She says her job as director "has been privileged in many ways" as she has been invited to talk to grassroots groups "suffering from the negative consequences of tourism and enabled them to understand and deal with the global trade they are part of". She has spoken in places as diverse as the UN, at the European Union and schools and churches. Her passion about the issues is undiminished after fifteen years!
Sue Hurdle Sue Hurdle is the Chief Executive of The Travel Foundation, the government & industry-backed sustainable tourism charity that helps the UK travel industry to take effective action on sustainable tourism. It offers a unique resource to the tourism industry, helping to safeguard resources on which business depends and balancing the need for sustainability with profitability. The Foundation's focus is on protecting and enhancing the environment and improving the well-being of destination communities. Enriching the tourism experience, now and in to the future. Sue's career began with Thomas Cook, which in 1993, sponsored her Master's degree in "Tourism & Social Responsibility". Inspired by what she learned, Sue set about persuading leading travel companies that sustainability is good for business and five years later, The Travel Foundation was launched - the world's first industry partnership to help companies put sustainable tourism into practice.
Debbie Hindle Debbie Hindle is the Managing Director and a founder of bgb communications and has worked on sustainable travel issues for organisations ranging from tourist boards to NGOs. She is also a Member of the United Nations World Tourism Organisation's Crisis Action Team, the UNWTO Global Business Leaders Forum and represents bgb as a member of the Travel Foundation's Forum. Debbie says "bgb communications was founded in 1991 and is now the UK's leading specialist travel and leisure communications company. bgb's clients range from destinations such as the Caribbean, Wales and Lisbon, through to hotels, online travel companies, airlines, ferry and cruise companies. bgb is a wholehearted advocate of harnessing responsible tourism to protect and support local people and wildlife in the places we visit. All bgb's staff travel is carbon offset through Friends of Conservation."
Dr Matt Walpole is Head of Ecosystem Assessment at the World Conservation Monitoring Centre for the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP-WCMC). After graduating from Cambridge, Matt spent ten years with the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology (DICE), where he undertook a range of research and consultancy focusing on the role of nature-based tourism as a tool for conservation and local development in and around national parks and protected areas in Africa and Asia. His PhD, on the impacts of dragon tourism in Komodo National Park, Indonesia, was one of the first inter-disciplinary studies of its kind. His later time in Kenya's Masai Mara National Reserve included working with safari tour drivers to map their patterns of use of the park, examining the impact of tourism on wildlife including the endangered black rhino, and bringing together local Maasai communities and eco-friendly tour operators to explore options for small-scale community-driven tourism. He also helped to research and develop strategic tourism plans for various parks in Africa, and taught and supervised dozens of international postgraduate students in tourism and conservation. In 2004 Matt moved back to Cambridge and into the NGO sector to direct Fauna and Flora International's Biodiversity and Human Needs programme, exploring the widespread links between poverty and conservation and developing staff and organizational capacity to deliver multiple benefits from FFI's field programmes. Matt joined the UNEP-World Conservation Monitoring Centre at the beginning of 2008 to lead the Ecosystem Assessment Programme. This encompasses a broad range of work on biodiversity indicators, ecosystem services and linkages to human wellbeing. A major emphasis of current work is the coordination of the 2010 Biodiversity Indicators Partnership (2010BIP), which is tracking global progress towards achieving the internationally agreed target to significantly reduce the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010. Amongst other things, Matt sits on the Inter-Agency and Expert Group on indicators for the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), responsible for ensuring that biodiversity and environmental trends are fully incorporated in reports to the UN General Assembly. Matt still finds time to publish research on protected area tourism patterns, and is often called upon to provide expert input to tourism environmental impact assessments. He also lectures and supervises students studying people-parks interactions and the role of tourism therein. His work has allowed him to travel in over 50 countries worldwide, gaining first-hand experience of tourism, particularly nature-based tourism, in all its guises.

Lisa Scott

 Lisa Scott is Travel Editor of the Metro Newspaper now read by over 3.5million people each weekday. She took on the role last October so is relatively new to the post (although enjoying it immensely) and is keen to remind her readers that responsible travel is now a sexy, viable holiday option. Her favourite responsible travel trip was to La Combe farm in southern France which has an outdoor compost toilet and raises all its own beef, lamb, chickens and eggs. A wind turbine provides the farm with electricity while solar panels heat their water. By day Lisa rode the farm’s horses and by night she drank the local wine (making the outdoor compost toilet quite a challenge). It is these kinds of hard-working places she is looking forward to learning about while working on the Awards.
Graham Gourlay Graeme Gourlay is the publisher of Geographical magazine and runs Circle Publishing which also produces DIVE magazine, Go Active, Business Franchise and Christian Aid News. He launched Circle 10 years ago after a successful career as a national newspaper journalist - he has been news editor of The Sunday Times and features editor and news editor of The Mail on Sunday. Established in 1935, Geographical is an award-winning lively, colourful monthly magazine of the Royal Geographical Society (with the IBG), presenting geography in its broadest sense. It has exciting and beautifully illustrated articles on people, places, cultures, adventure, responsible travel, history, science and environmental issues.
Dr Rebecca Hawkins Dr Rebecca Hawkins is Research and Consultancy Fellow to the Department of Hospitality, Leisure and Tourism Management at Oxford Brookes University; Visiting Professor to the International Centre for Responsible Tourism at Leeds Metropolitan University, a core member of the Considerate Hoteliers Association management team and Director of the consultancy group CESHI Ltd. Rebecca has worked in the field of sustainable tourism for more than 15 years and has played a key role in the development of a number of the publications and tools that have driven this agenda. Rebecca was the main author of Agenda 21 for the Travel & Tourism Industry (published by the World Travel & Tourism Council, World Tourism Organisation and Earth Council), has worked extensively with the International Hotels Environment Initiative, was one of the consultants that devised the criteria that underpin what is now the Travelife standard, was the author of the WWF analysis of the credentials of sustainable tourism certification programmes and has written much of the guidance available to hotels in the UK on issues regarding energy and waste management and sustainable procurement.





Privacy policy | Join us on Twitter and Facebook | Share this with your friends: more
Our other sites: responsibletravel.com | responsiblevacation.com | iknowagreatplace.com