About the Partners

Expedia, Inc. is one of the world's leading travel services companies. With its portfolio of leading travel brands, Expedia, Inc. empowers business and leisure travelers with the tools and information they need to easily research, plan, book and experience travel. The company also provides wholesale travel to offline retail travel agents. Expedia, Inc.'s main businesses and brands include: Expedia.com®, Hotels.com™, Hotwire®, Expedia® Corporate Travel, Trip Advisor™ and Classic Vacations™. Expedia, Inc.’s companies also operate internationally with sites in Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Netherlands and China, through its investment in eLong™.
http://www.expediainc.com

The UN Foundation is a public charity created in 1998 with philanthropist Ted Turner’s historic gift of $1 billion to support UN causes. It is the world’s largest private supporter of World Heritage. Since 1999, the UN Foundation has contributed more than $40 million, and catalyzed an additional $150 million, in support of World Heritage conservation and sustainable development in the developing world.
http://www.unfoundation.org

World Heritage Centre at UNESCO
For more than 30 years, UNESCO and its partners have worked through the World Heritage Centre to identify, assess and protect places of outstanding universal value. To date, 184 countries have adhered to the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, making it one of the most universal international legal instruments for the protection of cultural and natural heritage. Whilst fully respecting the national sovereignty, the States Parties to the World Heritage Convention recognize that the protection of our World Heritage is the duty of the international community as a whole. There are currently 851 properties including 660 cultural, 166 natural and 25 mixed properties in 141 countries.
http://whc.unesco.org