Wilderness wins first Virtuoso Sustainable Tourism Leadership Award

September 2011 – Wilderness is both thrilled and humbled to be the recipient of the first Virtuoso® Sustainable Tourism Leadership Award. This award recognises outstanding leadership and commitment to sustainable tourism principles and practices within the Virtuoso travel network.

The judging criteria were based on globally recognised sustainable tourism standards by the United Nations Foundation's Tourism Sustainability Council. These reflect the core principles of sustainable tourism: environmentally sensitive operations, support for the protection of cultural and natural heritage, and direct and tangible economic and social benefits to local people. In addition, a successful business model and financial viability was also considered.

All these criteria are important elements of Wilderness’ sustainability model, as framed under its “4Cs” strategy,
the 4Cs being Conservation, Community, Culture and Commerce.

The Award was open to all Virtuoso preferred suppliers (tours, hotels, on-sites, cruise lines, airlines), and nearly
100 companies submitted applications. The judges included Virtuoso’s Director of Sustainability, VIRTUOSO LIFE magazine’s Editorial Director as well as two Virtuoso Member advisors.

Virtuoso CEO Matthew Upchurch and Virtuoso President and COO Kristi Jones presented the award to Keith Vincent, Managing Director of Wilderness, in front of nearly 2 000 top level Virtuoso travel advisors at the Travel Mart Gala Dinner.

This award, newly launched in 2011, is a prestigious distinction offered to only a handful of network participants. According to Virtuoso, “Wilderness was selected above other nominees as the very best in a given category, demonstrating dedication, innovation, hospitality and overall performance.”

Ends.

Notes to editor:

WILDERNESS

• Wilderness is a conservation organisation made up of ecotourism companies and non-profit trusts that believes in using responsible tourism to build sustainable conservation economies in Africa. We do this by creating journeys through the most remote and beautiful wild areas in southern Africa for our guests while at the same time sharing the benefits of tourism with local communities.
• Through our travel divisions – Wilderness Safaris, Wilderness Adventures, Wilderness Explorations and Wilderness Air – we operate a portfolio of some 70 lodges, camps and safaris in nine African countries: Botswana, Congo, Kenya, Namibia, Malawi, Seychelles, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
• Our non-profit trusts – Children in the Wilderness and the Wilderness Wildlife Trust – ensure we make a difference in Africa, benefiting its people, places and wildlife.

VIRTUOSO
Virtuoso® is the industry’s leading luxury travel network.  This by-invitation-only organization comprises over 300 agencies with more than 6 000 elite travel specialists in 22 countries in North and South America, the Caribbean, Australia and New Zealand, as well as over 1 200 of the world’s best travel providers and premier destinations.  The network’s member agencies generate over $9.6 billion annually in travel sales, making the group the most powerful in the luxury travel segment.  Their relationships with the finest travel companies provide the network’s affluent clientele with exclusive amenities, rare experiences and privileged access. Virtuoso is the exclusive network of travel services and benefits provided by MasterCard® for participating World Elite MasterCard® programmes.  To learn more about Virtuoso, visit www.virtuoso.com [2]. 
To view Virtuoso’s latest video content, visit http://www.youtube.com/user/VirtuosoTraveler [3].