Islamic Tourism: More than 250 travel operators and equipment manufacturers took part in the Daily Telegraph’s annual three day Adventure Travel Show held in mid-January in London’s Olympia Exhibition Centre. There were more than 100 free talks by celebrity speakers, explorers, photographers, film makers and travel experts. Topics included China to the UK – overland across the Silk Route, the Trans-Siberian Express, the Himalayan Summits, the Sahara- the Empty Quarter and Afghanistan which is gradually opening up to tourists.
Despite their marvellous scenery and unparallel potential for mountaineering, hunting, fishing and adventure sports, Central Asian states were not well represented leaving Western tour companies to market the Silk Route . And sadly Middle Eastern countries did little to promote their unique desert environment.
It was a travel show with a conscience. Voluntary Service Overseas introduced its vision: instead of sending food or money it sends women and men from a wide range of professions who want the chance to make a real difference in the fight against poverty. But as Gap Year For Grown Ups, the only UK company specialising in volunteer work for the over 30s demonstrated, volunteering is not only for the young. Coral Cay Conservation organises expeditions to assist in the conservation of fragile and exotic tropical marine and terrestrial environments in the Caribbean, Oceania, Australasia and South East Asia. African Impact facilitates conservation and community development volunteer programmes in Southern and East Africa.
Tree houses that sit like birdcages on century old pine trees in Olympos, Antalya, Mongolia’s Lake Hovsgol, the purest lake in the world, and a unique trek from Jordan’s Dana Nature Reserve with ten star views which finishes in Petra, were among the attractions with a difference.
Exhibitions by Wilderness Adventures Mongolia, Mongolian Resorts and Mongolian Ways, showed that the country is determined to exploit its tremendous potential as an adventure travel destination.
Kootch Adventure Travel, the only Western company to specialise in Iran, offered the finest trekking and mountain biking adventures in spectacular mountains, prehistoric deserts and ice age forests, most of them remote and unexplored.
Sohail Azhar, Director of TravelPak, spoke enthusiastically about ‘Destination Pakistan 2007’ a major promotion by the Ministry of Tourism. “They have seen the billions India is making out of tourism and are realising they could do the same. But Pakistan is free from the impact of mass tourismâ€Â.
Always an innovator veteran overland tour operator, Geoff Hann is organising a road tour via Pakistan, the Khyber Pass and Iran and Uzbekistan and the lapis lazuli mines of Afghanistan.
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