Registration Now Open for Travelers’ Philanthropy Conference

Scheduled for Arusha, Tanzania, December 3-5, 2008

Online registration is now open for the 2008 Travelers’ Philanthropy conference to be held in Arusha, Tanzania, on December 3-5, 2008. Website www.travelersphilanthropy.org links to the special conference registration site. It also contains information about the program and speakers, hotel and meeting venue, flight information, pre- and post- conference trips, list of co-sponsors, and latest updates.

Under the banner of “Making Travelers’ Philanthropy Work for Development, Business, and Conservation,” this international conference with a focus on Africa will examine the growing trend among responsible tourism businesses to support community and conservation projects in the host countries where they operate.

The 200 to 300 conference international attendees will include representatives from tourism companies, as well as experts from development and conservation organizations, representatives from the UN and other international agencies, academics, government officials, the media, and others interested in how responsible tourism can contribute to poverty alleviation and biodiversity conservation.

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Wangari Maathai, founder of Kenya’s Greenbelt Movement, has been invited to give the keynote address. Via plenary sessions and workshops the conference will cover a range of current issues including:

  • The role of tourism businesses in supporting HIV-AIDS education and prevention.
  • Raising travel funds for conservation of wildlife, biodiversity, and parks and protected areas.
  • Travelers Philanthropy initiatives to address climate change.
  • Developing business models that incorporate Travelers’ Philanthropy as a central element.

The conference will be held at the Ngurdoto Mountain Lodge in Arusha, a vibrant tourism town near the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro and Mt. Meru that serves as at gateway to Tanzania’s world renowned game parks. In addition, leading tour operators in East Africa are providing a variety of specially designed safaris that will include game viewing and visits to community projects. Details of these pre- and post- conference trips – which are open for conference attendees and their friends and families — will be posted soon on the website.

The conference is attracting a growing list of co-sponsors including leading tourism operators (Intrepid Travel, CCAfrica, and Micato Safaris) and NGOs (WWF, Jane Goodall Institute, Counterpart International, Ecotourism Kenya). Other sponsors are being arranged.

The 2008 conference is organized by the Center on Ecotourism and Sustainable Development (CESD), a US-based nonprofit which hosted a highly successful Travelers’ Philanthropy conference at Stanford University in 2004.

For More Information

Contact: Whitney Cooper, CESD Washington, DC
Tel: 202-347-9203 x414
Email: wcooper@ecotourismcesd.org