I'm just back from Madrid and Fitur, one of the world's most important tourism fairs. Parallel to Fitur was Tourcom, a conference about tourism and communications, organized by the World Tourism Organization.
As usual with the WTO events, Tourcom was a mixed bag. I just want to relay two things from the meeting to this list. Jonathan Tourtellot of the Sustainable Tourism Initiative at the National Geographic Society used the meeting to launch "A Travel Writer's Guide to Sustainable Tourism and Destination Stewardship." Written by guidebook author Bradley Weiss, now employed at the World Tourism Organization, the 20-page booklet contains checklists to help travel writers determine where destinations and operators stand on the sustainability issue. They're looking for travel writers to "field-test" the manual. To obtain a copy, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] I also learned more about the proposed World Tourism Forum, modeled on the World Economic Forum and its copycat, the World Social Forum. This idea emerged from Brazil, where Cultural Minister Gilberto Gil had originally proposed a World Cultural Forum. That has been blended into the WTF as one of a handful of tracks that include biodiversity, "tangible and intangible heritage," and peace and conflict. The WTF is slated to take place in Brazil, perhaps in Salvador, by the end of the year. But there's lots of work to do. They have support from Brazilian President Lula and a few Brazilian corporations, but they don't even have an office or a contact person yet. I'll post more here as new developments emerge. Bill Hinchberger Editor & Publisher BrazilMax http://www.BrazilMax.com
