Pioneering publisher and traveller Hilary Bradt received a MBE in this year’s Queen's Birthday Honours List at Buckingham Palace for services to the tourist industry and to charity.
The honour acknowledges Hilary’s achievements in opening up new destinations and encouraging ‘responsible tourism’.
Bradt Travel Guides are known for publishing the first dedicated guides to Vietnam, Madagascar, Tanzania and Uganda, all now firmly established on the travellers’ trail.
Guides to contemporary post-conflict destinations such as Bosnia & Herzegovina and Rwanda are credited with playing a pivotal role in re-starting the countries’ ecotourism industries. Most recently, Bradt published the first guide to Congo for over 10 years and the first dedicated English-language guide to the Republic of Belarus.
As patron of the British charity Money for Madagascar, which receives 10% of her royalties, Hilary has encouraged tourists to get involved with charities in that country, both through the Bradt guide to Madagascar and by harnessing the goodwill of women who knit baby clothes, and of tourists willing to hand-carry them to Madagascar. Hilary estimates that she has sent 2,000 hand-knits to charities that work with destitute children.
Date: 23 June 2008
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