Coral Cay Conservation - CCC Highly Commended at the Responsible Travel Awards

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CCC Highly Commended at the Responsible Travel Awards

After a long and nerve-racking wait the Virgin Holidays Responsible Tourism Awards 2009, kicked off at the World Travel Market on the 11th November. It was a day shrouded in mystery and suspense as we at CCC didn’t know whether we had been shortlisted for the ‘Best in a Marine Environment’ category or the ‘Best Volunteering Organisation’category and therefore had no idea who we were up against!

Taleb Rifai, Deputy Secretary-General of the UNWTO

Stephen Sackur of the BBC World Service hosted the day’s events and brought a verve and vitality to proceedings. He invited Fiona Jeffery, Chairman of the World Travel Market onto the stage to officially open World Responsible Tourism Day 2009 and Taleb Rifai, Deputy Secretary-General of the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), followed her up on stage and he stressed that “Travel and tourism stakeholders must work together in same way as world leaders, we have to move forward on the spirit of global cooperation” (Travel Daily News.com ). 2009 was the first year that the UNWTO was represented at the event and it was an honour for all in attendance to see such an important global player at the event. The final and morbidly inspiring speech was from the guest of honour, Andrew Mitchell, the senior advisor of The Prince's Rainforest Project and Director of the Global Canopy Programme. Who highlighted a countless number of issues facing the world's rainforests and to try and get that message across to the general public, next week there will be a transplanted section of deforested Amazonian Rainforest for all to see in Trafalgar Square, London.

CCC as a conservation organisation working on the reefs and in the rainforests of the world encourages you to head down and see the destruction that is going on in these fragile ecosystems.

Once all the speeches were done it was time for the Virgin Holidays Responsible Tourism Awards 2009 to begin. The entire ceremony went flawlessly and CCC was honoured to be amongst the ‘Best 3 Volunteering Organisations' across the globe. Unfortunately we didn't fill the top spot, however to make it this far was truly memorable and means there is room for improvement, so it's back to the drawing board and we look forward to next years awards.

CCC Highly Recommend Volunteering Organisation - Peter Mandara (CCC) and Dr. Harold Goodwin (Chair of the Judges and Professor of Responsible Tourism Management at Leeds Metropolitan University)

CCC would like to congratulate the Winner of winners - Whale Watch Kaikoura, New Zealand, all the Winners and Highly Commended organisations nominated at the Virgin Holiday Responsible Travel Awards 2009. Although we may have been in competition for a single day, the other 364 days of the year each organisation is working hard to make the travel industry more responsible and better for all involved!

To see the winners of all 13 categories click the following links:

The Response Travel Website >>
The Telegraph >>