Hiring travel writers with a passion for discovering destinations, plenty of travel experience, able to work independently, equipped with computer and digital camera and with sound knowledge of a foreign language
|
|
|||
|
Courtesy Vince Alongi @ Flickr You just arrived to your destination. First walk out of your quarters to explore the neighbourhood and this traditional fruit shop is the first thing to get your attention. More than a convenient shop for your immediate cravings it is an icon of the type of neighbourhood to which you’ve arrived. Things are going to be interesting. Now, how do you say ‘apple’ in Spanish? ‘Manzana’. Thanks to all the conversations that have made this possible. A revamped Global Culture site gets closer to reality as we get a first draft of our new Creative Brief and start to move content around to give it a purpose. Here is are some relevant fragments from the document: Global Culture enables memorable experiences through the continuous exploration of regions that provide a culturally rich environment for the urbanite on a livability quest. What started as a blog about Global Culture and its actors has evolved into a source of great travel experiences. Sustainable There is a new generation of discerning travelers that have already seen the world and are aware of the myriad of frivolous options that plague the industry. They are looking for meaning in every opportunity they have to interact with the world and want to make sure they leave the best of themselves at each destination. Memorable An experience will have a lasting impact if it proves to be unique and authentic. But its discovery starts way ahead of the trip and requires the traveler to get acquainted with the story of a destination, using for that purpose any means of interaction available. Livable In opposition to mass-tourism and [...] Summer’s solstice, the longest day of the year seems to be a great day to sit in the backyard to read the usual weekly magazines and catch up on some writing. In a typical residential area in the middle of the city, my macbook detects almost a dozen different wireless networks including mine, of course. With a broadband connection and a high-end wireless router, there is no difference between what I can accomplish here or at the office on any given day. I’ll take the backyard every time I can. Already in hackers & work culture I had discussed how the boundaries between professional and private live were blurred. First with a wave of mobile communication devices that made everyone accessible to attend business at any time of the day and now with ubiquitous wireless access points that are now converting everyone into a local nomad, pushing us away from our desks into third spaces, far more amenable and with a twist of social. Connectivity seems to be an increasingly important factor when deciding where we are going to travel. After all, you wouldn’t want to be disconnected from twitter while travelling… or [...] On the trail of liveability rankings released recently by both The Economist Intelligence Unit and Mercer, and just a couple of weeks until Monocle’s Global Quality of Life Survey is out, I thought it would be interesting to question why we care so much about liveability? But first here are some thoughts from a friend on why we don’t want to live in a ‘liveable’ city: This hurts Vancouver so much… It is great that you can ski and go to the (cold) beach on the same day, but that does not mean it would be bad if you could ski and go to see ‘Wicked’ or a Monet on the same day….. Is it possible that a city can hypnotize its inhabitants into such a state of apathy that liveability is [...] Not much has changed since the last time I reported on the Liveability report from The Economist Intelligence Unit in 2007. Vancouver is still the best place to live overall according to the 2009 ranking: Vancouver, Canada I’m finding the Mercer’s 2009 Quality of Living survey much more useful as it provides a special ranking for hubs with the best infrastructure. Note that Mercer’ survey is meant to be used as a comparison tool to determine compensation packages for companies with personnel abroad. Yet, as usual, it is fun to make a list of the cities where you would want to live next, right? Here are the Top 5 cities in each region, according to the Mercer survey: Americas Vancouver Toronto Ottawa Montreal Calgary Via Stephen Joyce and his T4 blog (Travel & Tourism Technology Trends) I found a brief but great summary of what constitutes a meaningful experience. It comes from the people at the Lapland Centre of Expertise for the Experience Industry in Finland. But before I repost an abstract of their model it is worth revisiting where this quest comes from: in give up your urban “devil” I suggest that some sort of experimentation is needed for the global citizen to learn of other life-styles… experimentation as in trying various ‘experiences’. Here is a list of the elements of meaningful experiences and how I see them applied to the notion of exploring global cultures: Individuality: how unique and extraordinary a product is. One of the key drivers to explore a Global Culture is the realization that unless we are careful to orchestrate our life-styles according to the highest standards, it is too easy to fall into the common place that groups the majority of people living in large urban centres. The quest to learn about how other people (usually small, unique groups) are finding better ways to conduct their lives without [...] |
 Global Culture Blog by Juan Gonzalez is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License. |
||
|
Copyright © 2012 Global Culture - All Rights Reserved |
|||
Most Popular