29 September, 2012

Tourism and Sustainable Energy


Today’s session of the Gabfest Club (Window on America center Dnipropetrovsk) started with a surprise visit of our Peace Corp friend Patrick. He greeted all the new comers and told them about his projects in Ukraine.
The official topic of the session was World Tourism Day. World Tourism Day (WTD) 2012 is being held under the theme Tourism & Sustainable Energy: Powering Sustainable Development. Official celebrations took place in Maspalomas, Spain on September 27.
This year’s theme aims to highlight tourism’s role in a brighter energy future; a future in which the world’s entire population has access to modern, efficient and affordable energy services.
Tourism today is at the forefront of some of the world’s most ambitious and innovative clean energy solutions:
the aviation industry is implementing cutting-edge technologies to make aircraft lighter than ever before;
commercial flights are beginning to use bio fuels in their fuel mix;
 key card systems and energy saving light bulbs are increasingly being implemented in hotel rooms worldwide;
 tour operators are asking for energy efficiency throughout their supply chains.
We have watched and discussed several videos about hotels using green technologies. The most impressive was a row of videos about the USA hotel chain MARRIOTT and its efforts to run sustainable hotels. The details of eco technologies in all the hotel departments revealed new amazing facts to the club members who do not travel much.
During the second part of the session the club members combined their introductions with the brief stories about their summer travels. The most surprising fact was that the new club member Eugene during his Work & Travel trip to the USA was employed at a Marriott hotel as a pool lifeguard. He shared some of his impressions with the club.
Once again the session attracted so many people that the room could hardly accommodate the audience.
Number of participants – 35 persons.
Have a look at more pictures, please 

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