7th October 2014
This year luxury cruise company, Seabourn entered a new partnership with UNESCO to support and promote sustainable tourism principles at the world heritage sites visited by its 5 ships.
As part of the connection, Seabourn invites ‘distinguished speakers and expert guest lecturers’ to provide its passengers with in-depth insights into the sites visited and around the themes touched in those significant heritage locations. In the inaugural year, Touch TD has provided this expertise on 3 separate cruise itineraries:
In May, Julie Scott set sail in the Eastern Mediterranean and brought a closer examination of not only the built heritage, but also the vibrant intangible cultural heritage that animates the spaces between the tangible blocks of brick and stone. Next in July, John Bell travelled around the Western Mediterranean and presented on the ways in which world heritage is sustained in the ports visited on that occasion by the Seabourn Odyssey. Then in August, Jonathan Karkut took in the longest and most Northerly route, following the Viking trail across the North Atlantic from the United Kingdom to Canada. Befitting his geology experience, the world heritage sites Jonathan gave insight in to were mainly natural heritage localities, including the Giant’s Causeway, Surtsey volcanic island, Ilulissat ice fjord, and Gros Mourne world heritage site in Newfoundland. Of course he couldn’t resist explaining to the guests about the UNESCO endorsed geoparks they sailed past, including the infamous Eyjafjallajökull volcano and ice cap within Iceland’s Katla global geopark!