As a MA in tourism management, I chose some 10 years ago to enter into the development aid sector as a consultant on sustainable tourism development. My jobs took me to Chile /Argentina, Central America, and most recently Sri Lanka where I worked in a PostTsunami livelihood project in the east.
Since Jan-2007, I found kind of a much wanted job as marketing and programming coordinator of the ECOT network, a global inistiative launched 25 years ago which is advocating for human rights in tourism development. That organization recently moved to Norther Thailand.
Here, busy in the office, I managed to get in touch with the ecovillage movement and am connected with the alternative life style community. Also, having stared with Yoga, and continue to bike around the district, I found that inner peace I was looking for all these years. That state of mind helps to overcome the challenges we are facing within ECOT. But the idea is to re-vitalize the global network and bring tourism onto the world agenda of 'development' - how ever one defines that.
I am interested in people and groups all over the world who watn to share their experience re tourism and human rights (from a very broad definition), and invite all to ehcek our (soon to be relaunched) website www.ecotonline.org