Masterclass swings from height of success to depth of despair

Sustainable businesses built on Love: Airlines dishonest about carbon

This year’s masterclass on sustainable tourism couldn’t have cut a broader swathe of emotions if it had tried. And it was jam packed with a wide variety of sustainable idiosyncracies.

The meeting kicked off with Mark Sainsbury interviewed by Valere Tjolle. Although the “incredibly profitable” and successful Moro restaurant business was run almost entirely on sustainable principles – the word ‘sustainable’ appeared exactly nowhere.  “We really love all our staff” Mark said “and this love transfers itself to our customers”. Obviously successfully.

It proves what can be done – after packing himself off to cookery school in France, Mark set up the world-renowned Moro and has now embarked on a growing up market hotel business with the Green/Gold certified Zetter Hotel and the newly-opened Zetter Townhouse.

Next up was Mark Linehan Managing Director of the Sustainable Restaurant Association – broadening its footprint with hundreds of UK restaurants under its wing. Current boost to success – the famous restaurant critic Giles Coren now rates restaurants in his Times column with the SRA sustainable stars.

CEO of Jury Inns, John Brennan and Sustainable Manager Sean Twohig gave an impassioned presentation about the strides that Jurys Inn was making in the sustainable arena – profitably. The organization, which now runs over 30 three star hotels differentiates itself with all the high-level green accolades it is working for and is clearly extremely successful.

A deliciously sustainable buffet lunch may have lulled participants into warm feelings of happiness.
But a ‘No Holds Barred’ presentation by Professor Stefan Gossling certainly poured cold water over it. The Carbon Guru lauded the UK Air Passenger Duty as being the world’s best government response to man made global warming,; slammed airlines for being “dishonest” about their emissions and wondered why the man in the street felt he had to have an opinion without knowledge of the problem.

Said Prof Gossling “4% is on the cards” meaning world apocalypse soon. In his opinion any post-Kyoto deal is DEAD.

Presentations wound up with a mind-challenging offering from Roy Graff, based on his experience of working in China and with Expedia.

Roy foresees a very different world of travel within the next 20 years with source markets changing dramatically and distribution methods radically re-positioning. Opportunities abounded.

Masterclass discussions embraced all-inclusives (“how can they be sustainable by nature?”) the Couchsurfers phenomenon (“what will happen when it’s taxed?”) and touched on many other areas of passionate discussion.

Talking continued through supper at Leon (http://www.leonrestaurants.co.uk/ Sustainable Restaurant in the Strand). Finally silence reigned as ice cream was consumed at http://www.theicecreamists.com/
A full synthesis report has now been circulated to all attendees

Valere Tjolle
Valere is editor of the Sustainable Tourism Report Suite 2011 Special Offers HERE