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Responsible Travel Report

The Sustainable Tourism e-Newsletter
August 2006

A Message from STI's President

Changes in public attitudes are essential for changing business practices. The public has responsibility for responsible business behavior, and vice versa. The fact that we're all empowered to change the world for the better is cause for hope.

Seeing major shifts in public and business attitudes toward a more sustainable future occurring everywhere is extremely encouraging. In the last year alone, addressing global warming went from being an obscure grassroots initiative to becoming a mainstream phenomenon, with the likes of even Walmart pursuing sustainability and addressing climate change. Hybrid vehicles are starting to become commonplace on our highways. And conscientious consumers and travelers are increasingly looking for eco-friendly products and services.

At STI, we feel the momentum of the so called green movement on a daily basis. The number of inquiries we receive from consumers and the media about sustainable tourism, and the volume of carbon offsets we sell continues to exceed our expectations, as does the demand for our other programs and services.

In summary, we're decidedly optimistic about the future and want to take this opportunity to thank our audience for making the world a better place and all of our supporters for helping STI to become a going concern.

Most sincerely,

Brian T. Mullis
President

Climate Corner: Proactively Addressing Global Climate Change

The travel and tourism industry is catching on quickly about how to neutralize its own global warming related impacts from greenhouse gas emissions. In doing so, many providers have already joined STI and now support our carbon offset initiative. One industry, however, has remained relatively silent, so much so that recently we asked, "Where does the cruise ship industry stand on all of this?" Well, one expedition cruise company in particular stepped up to the challenge and answered us.

AdventureSmith Explorations offers expedition cruises and wilderness adventures in a pioneering approach that utilizes small ships and yachts to explore nature and wildlife up close. The company is the first North American-based small cruise ship operator to offset it passengers' fuel consumption related emissions through MyClimate. Equally important, the company is working toward implementing a system wide program focused on educating its guests about global warming and related impacts on the regions they visit. So a big thank you to Adventure Smith Explorations for answering our challenge and best of luck!