Managing Director - Jenefer Bobbin

Jenefer has worked in tourism for 10 years with executive roles in London and New York before she became disenchanted over a lack of responsible tourism as a business ethos and in 2007 gave up her job as a web developer for a lead UK travel agency to complete a Masters in Responsible Tourism Management.

She has spent the last two years fine-tuning the Responsible Tourism Reporting Initiative in-between contracts for a volunteering company in the UK and a trekking company in Nepal. She is now firmly focused on the system of verification which she hope will give responsible tourism businesses the opportunity to showcase their achievements and gain credit and acclaim for what they rightly deserve.

Currently she is in Nepal for the third time road-testing the verification progress on a variety of businesses and is now at the start of an 'all-systems-go' campaign to have it recognised, adopted and followed.

Director - Lisa Choegyal

Based in Kathmandu since 1974, Lisa is a specialist in planning, developing, operating and marketing pro-poor sustainable tourism. With a passion for tourism and conservation and a wide range of affiliations, Lisa's background is in the private sector. She worked for over 20 years as marketing and communications director with the Tiger Mountain Group, specialised nature, adventure and village tourism pioneers in Nepal, India and Tibet. Since the early 1990s she has undertaken tourism consultancy roles throughout the Asia Pacific region, mainly in association with TRC Tourism (formerly Tourism Resource Consultants) of Wellington, New Zealand, and for clients that include governments, tourism boards, development agencies, NGOs, local communities and private sector operators.

As examples of her Nepal work, Lisa was Team Leader of the ADB Ecotourism Project 2000-2001, DFID tourism specialist monitoring TRPAP 2001-2005, tourism consultant for the ADB SASEC programme 2004-2008, and for SNV Nepal prepared the Great Himalaya Trail concept and development programme design for UKAid DFID 2006-2010.

Lisa has worked on related areas of environmental preservation, conservation awareness, community development, government and media liaison. She serves on a number of boards including GlacierWorks Inc, Chance for Change, International Trust for Nature Conservation, Rotary Kathmandu Mid-Town and Nepal Heritage Society. Lisa is a writer, photographer, editor of travel and guidebook publications, and is experienced in production liaison for filmmakers. Since 2010, Lisa is New Zealand Honorary Consul to Nepal.

Director - Sharon Wiley

Sharon has an Honours BA in Cultural Anthropology with a minor in Environmental Geography. Her interest in both of those topics began when she left England with her family at 10 years old, spending time in Oman, living for 5 years in South Africa and ultimately moving to Canada where she currently resides. Through those travels Sharon developed a respect for diversity and an awareness of the impact that people have on the environments we live in.

Her business career started out in Marketing Research, understanding how and why people react to things differently and how to interpret those reactions to drive business results. After 10 years in Marketing Research, Sharon was provided the opportunity to explore a broader career in banking with one of the largest Canadian Financial Institutions. Since then her career has spanned branch management, business analysis, product management and she is currently vice president of Marketing.

Being engaged with Responsible Tourism Reporting came about after several of conversations with Jenefer and the opportunity to be a part of the company struck a chord with Sharon's interests in culture and the environment.

Advisor - Harold Goodwin

This is what Harold has to say about Responsible Tourism Reporting

"One of the major challenges for Responsible Tourism is to evolve an alternative to certification, an alternative which enables businesses to transparently record and verifiably report their progress year by year in realising their Responsible Tourism aspirations and to share those achievements with others. RTreporting www.rtreporting.com is being developed by one of our ICRT alumni Jenefer Bobbin, with a little advice from me. The process is simple but really effective: develop a policy based on local priorities, monitor and report progress year by year and prove that performance with an independent verification."

For more information see www.haroldgoodwin.info.

Country Director Nepal - Sumit Baral

Sumit brings a decade long experience in tourism sector in South Asia in areas of planning and evaluation, project management and capacity building with focus on poverty reduction and sustainable development. Prior to joining Responsible Tourism Reporting, he worked as consultant for project funded by SAARC Development Fund across the region since March 2011. During 2010-11, he worked as Tourism Advisor for SNV Nepal and was responsible for designing and implementing tourism programmes. Before, SNV he worked as Regional Planning and Evaluation Manager in the British Council’s Regional Directorate for Central and South Asia covering six countries in the region. He also worked with Nepal Tourism Board for six years mainly in the role of programme planning, management and research and development. He has a Master’s Degree in Business Administration with specialisation in Market Research and has done number of international trainings and short courses.

Tourism Advisor - Ester Kruk

Ester Kruk has over twelve years of professional experience in responsible and pro-poor tourism development in Europe, Asia and America. She has a proven track record in tourism programme development,; project planning, coordination and management; monitoring and evaluation; research; capacity building and training; institutional and organizational development; policy and strategy development; market analysis; (pre)feasibility studies; public-private partnerships and regional collaboration.

She currently works as a regional tourism expert for ICIMOD, an intergovernmental organization working in eight Himalayan countries. Previously, she worked as tourism consultant, expert and/or advisor for different international organizations, including UNDP, World Bank and SNV Netherlands development organization, as well as for different governmental and non-governmental organizations. She has designed and conducted several tourism workshops, conferences and training programmes, and published a variety of books, manuals and papers on tourism topics. Her training materials have been integrated in the curricula of various institutes, including the Institute of Development Studies, Sussex, UK; UNESCO Open Training Platform; Wageningen University and Maastricht School of Management, Netherlands and Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium; and several universities in Asia.

Industry Advisor Nepal - Marcus Cotton

Marcus came to Nepal from England in 1987 and has worked with the then King Mahendra Trust for Nature Conservation (now National Trust) and with Tiger Mountain Nepal since 1990. He retired as the Group Chief Executive in September 2011. From a background of land and estate management in England and work at Lloyds of London, Marcus has always been committed to sustainable environmental systems and ethical business best practice. He pioneered the Tiger Mountain concept of Responsible Conservation Tourism at the famous Tiger Tops Jungle Lodge in Chitwan and the award-winning Tiger Mountain Pokhara Lodge. Initiating the group’s foray into Responsible Tourism Reporting, he saw the enormous potential of the scalable, flexible, verification system developed by Jenefer Bobbin under the guidance of Harold Goodwin. Based at the Tiger Mountain Pokhara Lodge, Marcus is a trustee of the UK Trust for Nature Conservation in Nepal, International Trust for Nature Conservation, Patron/Advisor to the Tilden Project in Aruchour, Nepal, Coordinator in Nepal for the CAIRN Trust (Child Aid in Rural Nepal) UK and member of the Institute of Directors, UK.

Industry Advisor Nepal - Raj Gyawali

With a background education in development through business, Raj Gyawali founded socialtours in 2002 after working in market research, fair trade handicrafts and export manufacturing. Over the years, socialtours has sought to have vision and commitment towards Responsible Tourism, doing things their own way as Raj believes that responsibility is something felt individually. Through his company, socialtours, Raj has been involved in several initiatives – energy usage, continuous staff development, and liaisons with national and international partners – all to broaden his knowledge and develop the behaviour of his company. Nonetheless he felt it was high time to measure actual progress against preaching and find future direction. There were always questions: ‘What are you doing? How much responsibility is practised? Raj wanted to go deeper and prove that Responsible Tourism makes perfect business sense and in 2008 socialtours became the pilot of Responsible Tourism Reporting when the scheme was brought into practice for the first time. Raj feels without doubt, auditing has benefits, provides proof and has tremendous market advantages.

Raj works on national, regional and international network levels trying to promote and bring responsible tourism to the masses. He also provides advisory services for international organisations with sustainable tourism programs.

Industry Advisor Nepal - Subechhya Basnet

Subechhya returned to Nepal after completing her MBA in Germany to work for the family business and is now responsible for the sustainable tourism division of The Explore Nepal Group and for the eco-conscious hotel Kantipur Temple House. Her interest in responsible tourism stems from her father, an environmental activist, who is a pioneer in advocating sustainable tourism throughout the industry in Nepal.

Subechhya represented The Explore Nepal Group, in MAST Nepal - training for tourism enterprises towards sustainability initiated by the development organization SNV together with the Nepal Tourism Board. She participated in the Sustainable Tourism Conference in Cambodia in 2010 representing Nepal’s private tourism sector and presented on the importance of sustainability in tourism and the MAST project.

Subechhya is a great believer that little steps make a difference in saving the environment and the culture of the destination.

What's in it For Me?