Selena
Travel LLC has won in the Best for Conservation of Cultural
Heritage category at this year's Virgin Holidays Responsible
Tourism Awards organised by responsibletravel.com. At a ceremony
hosted at World Travel Market (WTM), Docklands, London, on
Wednesday 11th November, the Awards were handed out by Justin
Francis, managing director of responsibletravel.com, organisers
and founders of the Awards, and Amanda Wills, managing director
of Virgin Holidays, headline sponsor of the Awards.
Then we celebrated our new year with many successes.
Young
Tourism Pro first national annual students competition is
held among 3rd year university students majoring in Tourism
management or English language arts between 22-29 March 2008.
The purposes of organizing this competition are to support
students to become real tourism professionals from their student
years and at the same time to solve one of the biggest issues
of Mongolian tourism industry "lack of qualified human
resource". The winners and all the qualified participants
will be registered in Human Resource Database of Tourism and
it will give the tourism students a great opportunity to challenge
themselves and moreover, they will be introduced to the industry
pros. Written by N.Suvdaa
Thursday, September 27, 2007 issue of UB POST.
THIS was something different for tourists. The 60 or so
people from various countries who were there at Aygiin Am
in Bayandelger soum, Tuv aimag for the annual Nomads'
Day Festival on September 17 and 18, would wholeheartedly
agree. The organizer of the two- day event was Selena Travel
Company and this was the third year that it was being held.
The first day saw several non-competitive events where nomadic people presented their traditional culture and music. It was fitting that the day was very windy as the tourists got to realize how harsh the weather conditions usually are for nomadic herders.
An extraordinary range of skills was on display. Riders caught roaming horses with lassos, picked up things while riding on a galloping horse, showed how a horse is broken in, described the different ways to count sheep, showed how camel wool is made into strands. It was shown how hard existence could be on a daily basis. Children played a game in which they had to guess how many anklebones someone had in their hands. The prize for the winning team was an invitation to the "Chinggis Khaan's meal" on the last day of the event. That final day also saw a riding contest for couples. A mini Naadam was organized and Mongolian cuisine was offered. On the first day tourists took part in setting up a ger, and learnt the proper way to greet someone with Mongolian dairy products. There were contests for them to show the skills they had learnt, such as putting up part of a ger wall, picking cowpats from the steppe, and saddling a horse. A team with Swiss tourists was the best of the six teams who joined in this.
This annual festival gives a chance to those who come to Mongolia too late for the annual Naadam to see what they missed. They also get to see nomadic life from close quarters. According to an organizer they have to cater to two types of tourists. Usually those from the USA and Europe want to taste the adventures that mark nomadic life, while Asian tourists generally want to relax and demand comfort.
