eTourism : Marcus Endicott, interview d’un grand pionnier !
La Vie est incroyable !
J'ai commencé à apprendre le eTourism en 1994 grâce aux newsletters de Marcus Endicott et sur le tas en utilisant les systèmes de réservations.
Et maintenant je fais son interview par mail de Marseille à Byron Bay en Australie ou réside Marcus. Et tout çà comme un simple petit soufle….!!!!!
I am please to introduced to you, Marcus Endicott, a pioneer in eTourism, eco-tourism and digital information World.
>Marcus, can you tell some information about you?
I was born in Australia of American parents and grew up in Switzerland. I studied tourism and psychology at university. I have produced a number of books, and have been online since 1985.
>You manage two great newsletter, Infotec-travel and Green-Travel,
Can you tell us some fact about it and the profil of people who read this ?
The green-travel group was first started in 1991 at IGC.org, making it the oldest specialty travel group of any kind still on the Internet. At about 1300 subscribed members, it is also the largest sustainable tourism community online today. Membership is truly global and about evenly divided between tourism professionals and avid consumers.
The infotec-travel group was first started in 1994 as a companion group to my second book, The Electronic Traveler which was the first book to appear about travel information on the Internet.
infotec-travel quickly became very popular, but has slowed dramatically since 2001. infotec-travel still has almost 800 loyal members, mostly involved travel and technology.
>You are involve in some eco-tourism project, some news about this ?
One of my main interests over the years has been the ecotouristic aspects of the highly experimental Rainbow gatherings worldwide. I have found these unique events to be a valuable laboratory in the interactions among diverse groups, as well as interactions between people and the environment.
>What are your taste for:
>Travel:
I have been primarily a budget traveler and backpacker all my life, however as I get older I find myself moving toward more mid-range comfort. I have done a lot of bicycle touring in the past, as well as canoeing, kayaking and trekking.
>Travel destination
I spent a lot of my early life visiting popular high-end destinations with my family, so today prefer more affordable developing countries.
I love traveling in Africa and Latin America.
>Hotel :
I'm a life member of Hosteling International, so often look for official hostels first. Now that I'm getting older, I prefer the official member hostels to the often more unpredictable independent backpacker hostels. When traveling alone for extended periods, I actually like sleeping in dorm rooms with others around. Otherwise, I usually look for mid-level local accommodation, such as bed and breakfast inns.
>Business:
I spent a lot of time on the international travel technology conference circuit, speaking and consulting. Today I've grown weary of lugging lots of expensive equipment around, laptops, satphones, and solar power rigs. Not only is it not fun to haul round, but also more expensive to take taxis instead of public busses and staying in more costly secure places with telephone or wireless connections.
I've found that even throughout Africa and Latin America public Internet access is proliferating adequately.
>For Travel and e-tourism, do you think Men are from Mars and women
from Jupiter 
)
In any case men and women are like cats and dogs, for instance you don't usually find a lot of women on the adventure periphery unless with organized groups. Women seem to prefer the company of others, whereas men are often loners. Women also seem to prefer the security of urban culture to life in the wilderness. I would also say that from my experience, women seem less predisposed to use computers and book online than men….
>Internet is going faster and we talk now about Web 2.0, what do you
think about this evolution in the tourism market place ?
More than Web 2.0, I tend to think in terms of increasing digital convergence. Certainly the increasing bandwidth is making a difference particularly with multimedia and realtime applications, however in the medium term I think the real advances on the ground will come with mobile phone integration still just in its infancy.
>We see important impact of news technologies (RSS, AJAX, podcast,
etc), what is your point of view ?
My father is fond of saying that information keeps like fish; so, what would we do with too much fish? Now that I spend sometimes 40 hours a week online, I have given up reading. I no longer care to read books, and have certainly stopped buying books I don't read, as well as cancelled all magazine subscriptions. I even tire of the evening television newscast, as I've read all the headlines online already.
>Blogs are also a new media and new part of Internet, we talk about
"blogosphère". With 7 bloggers (all from e-tourism) we lunch "les Trophées du e-tourism 2006" only with our passion.
http://www.actuvoyage.com/trophees-etourisme
What about you and the blogs trend ?
Blogs are a technology, a form of CMS. Actually my yahoogroups with RSS are more or less proto-blogs. One of the reasons I sold my green-travel.com domain was that I was tired of endlessly keeping myriad pages up to date, now preferring to create group postings on the fly instead. I think blogs are over-rated though; now that everyone can have their own "channel", they are focusing more on themselves and less on others, like a virtual tower of Babel.
>Ecotourism seem a trend in tourism industry and we see some great
initiative like EcoMilles
>
or other Tour Operator who have specialized their products.
What do you think about this trend ? Do you think this trend will change the way of how we buy tourism product from big travel agencies?
My philosophy has always been that what is more green tomorrow than it was yesterday is progress and should be encouraged. However, there seems to be an inexorable trend toward "greenwashing", using the appearance of cultural and environmental friendliness to market or sell. Tourism is nothing if not business, in other words there seems to be little point to it if not fair economic exchange; however, I'm not convinced the commoditization of the travel experience is the best way.
>Can you give us some higlights about eco-tourismin Australia, they
seems to be in advance in many cases about this !
I would say that perhaps Costa Rica and New Zealand are the best examples of economies dominated by ecotourism. Australia seems to be on track to extend the New Zealand model to another level, a larger playing field. Certainly backpacker tourism if not invented by Australia is a natural in the land of Lonely Planet. One of the odd things about Australia is that for such a large and relatively uninhabited land, camping seems to be forbidden in most places, which must be a reflection of industry protectionism common in Australia.
>DMO's are in process to re-invented themselves, what is your vision
about it and the trend we see about more and more booking engine in their web site?
I have long thought DMOs to be highly under-valued. From the consumer perspective, DMOs are a natural umbrella to make decision making easier. In the future I believe these kind of realtime resources will supercede published guidebooks. In their current form, booking engines are not the be all and end all, but simply a convenience.
>I am an entrepreneur mind and men, you are more independant mind and
pioner, what can be the bridge between this 2 worlds to build together the next e-tourism and eco-tourism?
Certainly collaboration and cooperation is the way forward, working together, which is what my groups were originally intended for.
Ultimately, the market will be driven by consumer demand. I am less enthusiastic about fielding big projects of my own now than when I was younger, preferring instead to help others.
Merci Marcus.
Je vous recommande une inscription dans les newsletter de Marcus sur YahooGroups, Infotec-Travel et Green-Travel.
C'est une vrai source d'information et d'échange et un network mondial.
Et vous recommande son dernier livre : Vagabond Globetrotting 3
Buy now: Marcus L. Endicott's new book, Vagabond Globetrotting 3: The Electronic Traveler in the New Millennium
Marcus Endicott is one of the pioneers in the field of sustainable travel. Travelers seeking an eco-friendly, people-friendly vacation need to read this new edition of Vagabond Globetrotting. Based on 30 years of global travel and the reflections generated in the popular green-travel forum, this book stimulates and educates. Highly recommended.
Ron Mader, Founder, Planeta.com
December 9th, 2009 at 10:04 am
banjour et merci