Awards
The Blackstone
Valley Tourism Council has won a number
of local and international awards for
their efforts at promoting and
developing tourism programs in the
Blackstone Valley region. International
and local
awards include:
-
UNWTO.Sbest
Certifcation of Excellence - United
Nations World Tourism Organization -
September 2006
-
North American
Travel Personality of the Year -
World Travel Awards - Sept. 2008
-
Tourism for
Tomorrow Destination Award - World
Travel & Tourism Council - April
2008
-
Tom Roberts
Prize for Creative Achievement - RI
Council for the Humanities - October
2008
-
Mary Brennan
"Stars of the Industry" Tourism
Award by Rhode Island Hospitality
Association - December 8, 2008
-
Heritage Award -
Pawtucket Foundation - April 2008
-
Ulysses Award from
the United Nations World Tourism
Organization - May 2006
Testimonials
Read what people
have to say about the Sustainable
Tourism Lab:
Dear Robert,
Thank you so
much for organizing and hosting the
Sustainable Tourism forum. I found it to
be most thought provoking and useful. My
only regret is that I was unable to
bring a larger contingent from
Newburyport to hear such professional
and educational speakers. Should you
find your self heading to Newburyport,
please give me a shout. I would be
honored to give you the insiders nickel
tour.
Warmest Regards,
James Shanley
Newburyport
Thank you for
taking time to brain-storm ideas for
indicators for sustainable tourism. Your
creative thoughts and knowledge on the
topic has provided us with a starting
point for a sustainable tourism
monitoring system.
Norma Nickerson
Director, Institute for Tourism &
Recreation Research
College of Forestry and Conservation
The University of Montana
We were amazed
at how many people from all sectors of
the community were around the table.
These people understood that heritage
tourism is economic development, it is
preservation, but it is also community
development. Their efforts to reclaim
the Blackstone River Valley have brought
all of those people together around a
common table and they all got it.
Mary Steinmaus
Participant from Appalachian Ohio at the
Sustainable Tourism Summit
As you know, I
have been very supportive of your
efforts to create a sustainable tourism
planning and development laboratory and
I would be delighted to provide a strong
positive recommendation on this proposed
project to the Rhode Island Foundation.
In the 14 years that I have been working
with the National Trust's Heritage
Tourism Program, we have seen a growing
interest in not just tourism marketing
and development but also in tourism
management---managing the impacts of
tourism to ensure long term
sustainability. While there is a growing
need for good information on sustainable
tourism practices, there are only a
limited number of places for those in
the tourism industry to find this kind
of information. To the best of my
knowledge, no other comparable project
currently exists. Thus the Blackstone
Valley Tourism Council's project is very
much needed and relevant, and the work
that you have been doing with the
Blackstone Valley Heritage Corridor
provides a wonderful laboratory for
others to benefit from what you have
learned over the years. Bob, your own
enthusiasm and in-depth knowledge have
proven to be truly inspirational when
you have the opportunity to share your
experiences with others working on
sustainable tourism development. The
laboratory is an important project that
will fill a much needed gap in current
tourism training offerings---and
position the Blackstone Valley as a
national model for others to emulate.
Amy Webb
National Trust Historical for
Preservation
Thanks for
asking for my input on the BVTCSTPDL.
The first task, of course, will be to
shorten the acronym!
In all seriousness, I want to commend
the work the BVTC is doing in this
regard. The sustainable tourism approach
is gaining momentum across the country.
However, there are few actual tourism
districts to have developed relevant,
actionable program curriculum around the
subject. Obtaining the grant in question
will help all of us in NE, through
Blackstone’s Sustainable Tourism
Laboratory, focus on key issues and
initiatives going forward. We in Mystic
are actually looking to your
organization for help in developing
Mystic as a sustainable destination.
Many of us will be coming to the
Blackstone Place-Making workshop on
October 25 from all around New England
to listen, learn and share ideas.
Sustainable tourism and the development
of sustainable tourism models in places
like Blackstone Valley, Mystic and
points north, are vehicles for building
collaborative regional approaches to
preserving a sense of community and
sense of place that endures. We consider
the Blackstone Valley Tourism Council to
be a pioneer and leader in this
important work. You can count on our
enthusiastic support and continuing
collaboration in the months and years
ahead.
Peter Glankoff
Senior Vice President
Development and Public Affairs
Mystic Aquarium & Institute for
Exploration
To whom it may
concern,
The tourist
industry, while it is the world's largest
and Rhode Island's second largest industry,
has never had the "gravitas" or been taken
as seriously as urban and/or regional
development planners and governmental
officials as other, smaller industries as
High-tech, Biotech, Medtech, energy, etc.
Therefore, unlike the other industries,
there has been relatively few research
and educational programs that can show
people how to take a potential tourist
asset or region (be it in the areas of
culture, heritage, nature, sports, etc.)
and turn it into a profitable tourism
product that will both attract tourists,
and thereby create wealth and jobs, as
well as conserve the asset for the
future. Very often, new tourism ideas
are developed by local "boosters" who do
not have the knowledge or experience in
the tourism industry or people from the
hospitality industry which is different
from the tourist industry.
The Blackstone
Valley Tourism Council's Tourism
Laboratory helps fill such a need. Its
laboratory provides an excellent
educational experience for individuals
and groups who need to learn about the
tourism industry, how it functions and
how to develop a tourism asset into a
tourism product at both the single site
and regional level. Its 5-day program
for achieving the above goal is one of
the best that I know of either in
academia or out. Its other programs fill
an important niche in the New England
area. It not only has a national
reputation for excellence in education
and training in tourism, but also at the
international level. I often use its
facilities and personal to help educate
my graduate students at Boston
University's program in Tourism
Management. I highly recommend it.
Prof. Samuel
Mendlinger
Boston University
Highly innovative in scope and
ambition, the Blackstone Valley Tourism
Council's Sustainable Tourism Planning
and Development Laboratory is a unique,
hands-on approach to working with
relevant stakeholders. Indeed, the
Laboratory has successfully managed to
bridge the gap between academia and
practice in their efforts towards
sustainable destination management.
As Chair of
the Business Enterprises for Sustainable
Travel Education Network (BEST EN), an
international consortium of educators
committed to furthering the development
and dissemination of knowledge in the
field of sustainable tourism, it is my
pleasure to express our full support of
the Blackstone Valley Tourism Council's
Sustainable Tourism Planning and
Development Laboratory.
BEST EN and
the Blackstone Valley Tourism Council
have worked together since 2005, among
others, during BEST EN’s annual Think
Tanks, where research and education in
sustainable tourism are advanced. At
each Think Tank, the most excellent
research papers are recognized with the
BEST EN Outstanding Paper Award. In
2006, the paper by Robert Billington Ed.
D, Natalie Carter, MS and Veronica
Cadoppi, MBA entitled “Stakeholder
Involvement, Culture and Accountability
in the Blackstone Valley: A Work in
Progress” was presented with the BEST EN
Outstanding Paper Award in Girona,
Spain. Subsequently, the paper has been
published in the conference proceedings
and special issue of Tourism Research
International.
It is with
real pleasure and confidence in the
Blackstone Valley Tourism Council's
Sustainable Tourism Planning and
Development Laboratory that I forward
our strongest recommendations. Should
you have any questions please feel free
to contact me at
liburd@sitkom.sdu.dk
Dr. Janne J. Liburd
Chair, BEST Education Network
Associate Professor
University of Southern Denmark
It is a pleasure to articulate
support of the The Blackstone Valley
Tourism Council's work to establish the
Sustainable Tourism Planning and
Development Laboratory, personally and
on behalf of the College. The Laboratory
is a natural outgrowth of the Council's
continued work to draw in and engage
great thinkers, learners, and doers
around the notion of Sustainable Place
Making. Through participation, I know
that many of those great thinkers,
learners and doers are "discovered" by
themselves and other through their
interaction with the Laboratory. The
result will be viable place making and
orchestration of tourism experiences
that perpetuate place value and
sustainability.
Paul Harper,
Director of Development
Hocking College
The Blackstone Valley Tourism
Council's Sustainable Tourism Planning
and Development Laboratory initiative is
an innovative approach to provide
operational assistance to key
stakeholders at the local and regional
destination levels. As a complex network
of public, commercial and civil society
players, destinations need access to
action oriented learning tools, best
practices and benchmarks in order to be
sustainable. The Laboratory is a
concrete way to engage these key actors
in a continuous learning and performance
improvement process that can achieve
"triple bottom line" outcomes--i.e. a
reasonable ROI and profits for
businesses, community benefit sharing
and the conservation of cultural and
natural resources. At George Washington
University, we have been involved in the
general assessment of the Laboratory's
pilot testing phase. In our judgment,
the Laboratory meets an urgent need for
tourism destinations in RI and in other
U.S localities.
Dr. Don Hawkins
Eisenhower Professor of Tourism Policy
School of Business
George Washington University
2008 World Travel
and Tourism Council, Tourism for
Tomorrow Destination Award Winner
Think ‘tourism
destination’ and the image that comes to
mind is not likely to be a place known
for its polluted rivers, abandoned
businesses, high unemployment and
disenfranchised local communities. Yet,
that is exactly what the Blackstone
River Valley was when local community
members launched the Blackstone Valley
Tourism Council (BVTC) in 1985. Their
goal was to revitalize the nine
communities along the Blackstone River
Valley in Rhode Island that formed the
birthplace of the American Industrial
Revolution and then ultimately became a
victim of it when the Blackstone became
the first polluted river in the Western
Hemisphere and its industrial mill
economy collapsed. Working with a wide
range of multi-stakeholders, BVTC has
shown that tourism can play a valuable
role in helping to revitalize a
downtrodden economy and bring back a
river once declared "dead" to the
benefit of local people, business, and
nature. Through a destination
stewardship approach to economic
development, including the preservation
of the area’s natural, cultural and
historical heritage, BVTC has succeeded
in helping to rebuild a sense of pride
among communities in the Blackstone
Valley and linking its history to new
economic opportunities. With innovative
projects like the Sustainable Tourism
Development and Planning Laboratory, the
Council continues to grow and share the
lessons it has learned with other
tourism destinations.