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Independent operators launch award in memory of Roger Diski
AITO has launched an award in memory of council member and champion of sustainable tourism Roger Diski, who died earlier this year.
Details still have to be finalised but the award will go to the tour operator with the best community project and it will be presented at AITO’s first awards ceremony in London on November 23.
AITO chairman Derek Moore said: “We don’t know yet how much the award will be for or how we will raise the money, but this feels like the right thing to do in memory of Roger and it was right to announce it now, at the AITO conference.”
Roger founded the ethical travel company Rainbow Tours, which he later sold to Western & Oriental Travel. He was working for the tour operator Bridge & Wickers when he died while swimming off the coast of Sierre Leone in March.
Moore added: “Roger was a larger than life character, someone who was pa and we wanted to do something to remember him.”
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By Linsey McNeill
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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