New board of The Region Initiative begins work at start of the New Year

The restructuring of The Region Initiative (TRI) was approved during the TRI Tashkent at the November 23, 2011 meeting by its country representatives of South Asia, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia. It was further decided that the new board will be installed this month, in January 2012, to further promote TRI’s philosophy based on the principles that tourism is the biggest tool for peace and interfaith harmony and the world has to be conscious in using energy resources for providing a better world for generations to come.

The TRI Board is comprised of 7 persons – the TRI International Core Group (ICG) comprised of 6 persons and the TRI Business Core Group comprised of 5 persons will work to realize its goals. TRI now works as a bi-structural organization. Its conceptual structure is comprised of the TRI Board and ICG, while the operational structure is comprised of a business core group and its members.

The TRI Board members are: Mr. Louis DAmore, Founder and President of the International Institute for Peace through Tourism (IIPT); Mr. Max Haberstroh, International Tourism Consultant; Mr. Ravshan Turakulov, CEO of Silk Road Destinations Samarkand Uzbekistan; Mr. Tayyab Nisar Mir, Manager of the Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation; Mr. Juergen Thomas Steinmetz, Chairman of the International Council of Tourism Partners (ICTP); Mr. Hasnain Khan, Secretary of the Ecotourism Society Pakistan; and Mr. Agha Iqrar Haroon, Honorary President of The Region Initiative (TRI).

The International Core Group (ICG) is comprised of: Mrs. Sandy Dhuyvetter, Executive Producer and Host of TravelTalkMEDIA; Mr. Burkhard Herbote, Editor of WorldTourismDirectory.com; Mr. Edward L. Beauchamp, Founder of the World Tourism Foundation; Prof. O’Halloran, Professor and the Chair of the Department of Hospitality Management East at Carolina University in the United States; Susanne Becken, Associate Professor and Director of the Land Environment & People Research Centre at Lincoln University, New Zealand; and Mr. Emil Umetaliev, President of Kyrgyz Concept Company, Kyrgyzstan.

The Business Core Group is comprised of tour operators and practitioners including Mr. Ravshan Turakulov, CEO of Silk Road Destinations Uzbekistan; Mr. Hakim Kiebekov of Milal Inter GBAO, Tajikistan; Mr. Palitha Gurusenghe of Sri Lanka Ecotourism Foundation, Sri Lanka; Miss Shahrzad Moayeri of Derakhshesh Tour & Travel Agency; and Mr. Tayyab Nisar Mir of the Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation.

Commercial members that are practitioners of the travel industry include: Geographic Travel Club (Armenia), Ecotourism Society Pakistan and the Bangladesh Tourism Foundation (Bangladesh), Eko Club (Bulgaria), Kerala Travel and Tourism (India), Dream Nepal (Nepal), Sri Lanka Ecotourism Foundation (Sri Lanka), Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation (Pakistan), Derakhshesh Tour (Iran), Kyrgyz Nomads (Kyrgyzstan), Milal Inter (Tajikistan), Silk Road Destinations (Uzbekistan), and Eko Museum (Kazakhstan).