Expedia Employee Community Service Program
Expedia and the UN Foundation partnered in August 2005 to promote sustainable tourism and awareness of UNESCO World Heritage sites and communities around the world. An important component of Expedia’s commitment to sustainable tourism is the Expedia Employee Community Service Program, through which Expedia employees volunteer to help develop sustainable, locally-owned and locally-managed tourism businesses in and around UNESCO World Heritage sites.
Expedia employees donate their time and expertise to provide local communities and community-based tourism companies with the tools and the skills they need to promote sustainable tourism and awareness of World Heritage sites. These unique partnerships produce business plans that include product and website development, and sales and marketing strategies.
Prior to the fall 2007 Expedia Employee Community Service Program in Dominica, two Expedia Employee Service Program teams spent time in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula.
| Expedia Employees in Baja del Sur |
| The world’s aquarium. That’s how marine biologist Jacques Cousteau famously called the Gulf of California, which lies between the Baja California Peninsula and the mainland of Mexico. Home to almost a thousand different fish species more than one-third of the world’s marine mammals, the Islands and Protected Areas of the Gulf of California, inscribed in 2005, are one of three World Heritage sites in the Baja California region. And the other two are no less impressive: • El Vizcaino Whale Sanctuary, along the Pacific coast of the Baja California Peninsula, is part of the largest wildlife refuge in Latin America. Up to 21,000 grey whales migrate to this World Heritage site each year to calve their young. • Rock Paintings of the Sierra de San Francisco, the only cultural World Heritage site in the peninsula, which has some of the most well-preserved and impressive rock paintings in the world. To help local communities preserve these sites and provide opportunity for sustainable tourism development in the region, the Expedia Employee Service Program will send six Expedia employees to Baja California Sur between March 31 and April 13, 2008. These employees will work hand-in-hand with a local tourism alliance – Laguna ARIC – operating around the El Vizcaino Whale Sanctuary, to help build and market their tourism businesses. |
| Expedia Employees in El Señor |
| In March 2007, employee volunteers went to El Señor, Mexico. There, the employees and UN Foundation representatives partnered with a local tourism cooperative by the name of Xyaat (the Mayan name of a local palm plant) to develop two cultural and ecological tours that provide much-needed economic benefit to the community while simultaneously conserving and celebrating local cultures and ecosystems. The first Xyaat tour is a traditional tour of the Laguna Azul (Blue Lagoon), with interpretive trails, canoeing, camping, swimming, and observation of the local plants and animals. The second tour — a culture and community tour around Senor — offers an immersion experience in indigenous medicine, fire-making, cooking, storytelling, dances and spirituality of the Maya culture, and the manufacturing of local products such as “henequen” (rope), honey, hammocks, and arts and crafts. |
| Expedia Employees in Sian Ka'an |
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In June 2006, Expedia employees went to Sian Ka’an – one of three natural World Heritage sites in Mexico. There, Expedia employees partnered with Community Tours Sian Ka'an (CTSK)—a local, predominantly Mayan-owned tourism cooperative. CTSK works to protect the delicate mix of coral reefs, mangroves, clear deep water pools, and forests, which are increasingly drawing tourists southward from nearby Cancun and the Riviera Maya. Since the project kickoff, CTSK has experienced revenue growth of more than 125 percent, and was recognized as a finalist for the prestigious Equator Prize, given biannually to the world’s most innovative community sustainable development project initiatives. |
For more information on World Heritage, please visit http://whc.unesco.org.
