| Gorilla & Hollywood STARs Build Conservation Awareness for Uganda |
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11/013/09 – Kampala, Uganda
In a bid to raise awareness of conservation at a national and global level as well as build Uganda’s image as a prime sustainable tourism destination, the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) with support from the USAID funded STAR - Uganda (Sustainable Tourism in the Albertine Rift) program, launched an awareness and promotional campaign, Friend-a-Gorilla(www.friendagorilla.org). The campaign uses social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) to inform people about the Gorilla’s activities and build awareness of these unique animals. People can ‘friend’ a gorilla, learn about their gorilla, see video’s and pictures, and get updates from the rangers on their activities. The program officially launched on September 26th and already has 13,000 followers on Facebook. The program was also covered by hundreds media outlets, including CNN International,USA Today and BBC News.
 To assist UWA in this effort, STAR mobilized Hollywood stars JasonBiggs, Kristy Wu, and Simon Curtis, to help launch the campaign and act as Uganda’s spokespeople for conservation. The stars joined in the gorilla trekking as part of the launch along with the Uganda cabinet Minister of Tourism Kahinda Otafire. Ultimately the campaign stands as a tool to achieve conservation goals while at the same time raising awareness and funds for conservation.
STAR - Uganda (Sustainable Tourism in the Albertine Rift) is a 5-year program of the Global Sustainable Tourism Alliance, started in August 2009 and Solimar International is the lead organization driving the program. The approach embraced by STAR is to build collaboration among tourism and conservation partners by engaging the whole tourism industry in the process and building momentum through catalytic activities identified by the partners. STAR was able to realize fast action by meeting with partners such as UWA, identifying quick activities that could build large-scale support and awareness and then injecting targeted assistance to help catalyze action by these partners. UWA had the great concept of Friend-a-Gorilla, STAR helped to take it to scale so that the program could have maximum impact for conservation.
For more information CLICK HERE
To 'friend' your own gorilla visit www.friendagorilla.org
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| 2009 National Geographic Traveler Destination Scorecard Released |
| 11/03/09 – Washington, DC
WORLD’S ICONIC DESTINATIONS RATED
In conjunction with the National Geographic Society's Center for Sustainable Destinations, National Geographic Traveler Magazine
National Geographic Traveler has devoted its sixth annual “Places
Rated” Destination Stewardship survey to the world’s most celebrated
and iconic travel destinations and how well they have weathered the
pressures of mass tourism and other threats. The survey is the cover
story of the November-December 2009 issue of National Geographic Traveler magazine, on newsstands Nov. 3rd.
A total of 133 destinations were surveyed by a panel of 437
well-traveled experts in a variety of fields related to sustainable
tourism. Chris Seek and David Brown of Solimar International were among the experts in the panel.
See more details on the 133 iconic destinations ranked for wisely managed tourism at http://traveler.nationalgeographic.com/2009/11/destinations-rated/list-text.
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| Operations Training Program Conducted for New Enterprises in Ecuador |
| 4/05/09 – Yachana Lodge, Ecuador
In an effort to fill a void of understanding regarding
community tourism enterprise operations, Solimar International has recently
completed the first of four modules in the ESTA Operations Training
Program. This training program
takes a comprehensive approach to tourism product development, focusing on
building capacity of community members to manage and promote the end
product. The course participants
include four local community “Managers”, each from a place where the ESTA is
either establishing a new community tourism enterprise or supporting an
existing one. The training
will culminate in each participating Manager receiving their own customized
Operations Manual for their enterprise, including financial procedures, tour
and job-specific “checklists”, reservations forms, annual training calendars,
and job descriptions, among other critical resources. Given the participants’ positive response to the first
training module, great things are expected from future sessions. |
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| Launch of Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria |
| 10/06/08 – Barcelona, Spain
United Nations Foundation Founder and Chairman Ted Turner
today announced the launch of The Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria (GSTC) at
the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) conference in
Barcelona, Spain. Solimar played a
central role in the development of the criteria, which offer a common framework
for implementing sustainability in the tourism industry. Specifically, Solimar led efforts to aggregate,
weigh, and vet over 1,000 criteria used worldwide. Solimar also provided
comprehensive private sector outreach to acquire feedback on the applicability
and utility of each criterion, and to better understand what is needed to
mainstream sustainable tourism and foment criteria compliance. Efforts to implement the Criteria are
ongoing on several fronts: education and training resources, marketing and
distribution solutions, indicator development, and communications. Given the
overwhelmingly positive response to the Criteria received at the IUCN conference
and the growing number of businesses and organizations interested in joining
the GSTC Partnership, the GSTC will continue to play an increasingly important
role in the mainstreaming of sustainable tourism.
To learn more, visit www.sustainabletourismcriteria.org |
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| Launch of Geotourism MapGuide for Northern Mozambique |
| 3/1/09 – Maputo, Mozambique
Solimar is pleased to announce the launch of the Geotourism
MapGuide for Northern Mozambique. The MapGuide highlights the North’s unique tourism attractions and is
being distributed to inbound and outbound tour operators all over the world.
The launch event coincided with the unveiling of a new national brand for
Mozambique’s tourism industry, and was attended by a host of dignitaries,
including the President of Mozambique, Armando Guebuza. Jonathan Tourtellot, director of
National Geographic’s Center for Sustainable Destinations, demonstrated both
the online-interactive and printed versions of the MapGuide, each of which
elicited very positive feedback from those in attendance.
To learn more, please visit
www.northern-mozambique.com/geotourism |
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