Harold’s career in tourism began as a tour leader and special interest tour operator. He has worked on four continents with local communities, their governments and the inbound and outbound tourism industry including ABTA and the Association of Independent Tour Operators. He co-founded Responsible Travel with Justin Francis, selling his stake in the company when he moved into consultancy to avoid any conflict of interest. He took his practical experience into academia to enable to train at Masters level some of the next generation of tourism professionals and to undertake research on tourism, responsibility and local economic development.
Harold drafted the Cape Town Declaration on Responsible Tourism in 2002, which laid the foundation of the movement. He is Managing Director of the Responsible Tourism Partnership and chairs the panels of judges for the World Responsible Tourism Awards in London and the other Awards in the family, Africa, India and new in 2020, Latin America. Harold is WTM’s Responsible Tourism Advisor, he puts together the flagship Responsible Tourism programme at WTM London which attracts 2000 participants each year, and the programmes run at WTM Africa, WTM Latin America and Arabian Travel Market.
Harold will be delivering a talk titled: The Business Advantage of Responsible Tourism.