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.
Address: Bradt Travel Guides, 23 High Street, Chalfont St. Peter, Bucks SL9 9QE, United Kingdom
Telephone: 00 44 (0)1753 893444
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Website: http://www.bradt-travelguides.com/