After 33 years leading Bradt Travel Guides along the road less travelled Hilary Bradt has finally allowed herself to be diverted away from the office and towards a future of more travel, more writing, more sculpture and maybe even some relaxation.
This month she hands the Managing Director's reins to Donald Greig, formerly Publishing Director, and takes the position of chairman.
Under Hilary's leadership Bradt Travel Guides has never followed the crowd, rather identifying editorial direction using criteria that extend beyond economics.
From the initial typewritten booklets to recent offerings which include such ground-breaking guides as Iran, Burkina Faso, Benin, Turkmenistan and North Korea, Bradt's current list of over 100 titles is testament to Hilary's courage and conviction that adventurous travel can benefit both traveller and host country. In 2002 Bradt published a travel guide to Iraq and a subsequent edition is planned when the security situation permits.
This extends to the current discussion about carbon emissions. In the introduction to the latest Bradt catalogue Hilary writes: 'We are right to be concerned. However, the question of travelling sustainably involves far more than carbon emissions as a result of air travel and I think that we need to look more carefully at the issue. Consider the facts: scientists believe that deforestation has a much bigger impact on global warming than aircraft emissions, and deforestation is largely caused by poverty in the developing world. However, tourism is one of the pillars that support their economies. The other is mining. Which do you think is more likely to discourage deforestation?'
Announcing her retirement Hilary said: After 33 years of publishing, I am stepping down from the position of Managing Director in April. This has not been an impulsive decision: for some years I have been looking for someone with the business skills to take over the day-to-day running of the company, yet who has a deep-down emotional understanding of what makes Bradt unique. Donald Greig fits the bill and I’m delighted that he will be Managing Director while I move to Chairman, retaining all the fun parts like helping to decide what books we will publish.
In retirement I’ll continue to write articles and the occasional Bradt guide, and give lectures on different aspects of travel. Madagascar will, as always, crop up as my favourite theme but I’m sure I’ll increasingly get involved in the debate on ethical travel. I’ve been writing and talking about this since the early 1990s when I joined the newly-formed charity Tourism Concern and wrote an article for The Daily Telegraph on ‘The Human Cost of Tourism’. One of the pleasures of working in tourism for so many years is observing how interested and well-informed people have become about the ethical debate. In the 1970s, when I backpacked halfway round the world, one of the topics of conversation amongst travellers was how to save money by sneaking into national parks or other attractions without paying. Now they discuss how to volunteer for a worthwhile local project or even whether they should travel at all.
I’ve watched the company grow from a handful of self-published backpacking guides riddled with typos, to over 100 titles written and produced by a dedicated team of authors and editors, not to mention the people who publicise and sell them. Looking back, I think my biggest achievement has been to delegate the most important aspects of publishing to professionals who could so ably put my vision of Real Travel between covers."
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