CONTINUITY
Sustainable development - including ecotourism - depends on
communication over time. Continuity
is one of the best tools to overcome the stones
in the road.
One example. Relations among government tourism officials and
media could improve by understanding responsibilities and expectations.
Many travel writers complain that it is difficult to get timely
information from official sources. Other writers take years
to develop books or features, long past the time the officials
are in office. There is no one size fits all solution!
CONNECTING IN REAL TIME
If you are scheduling a real-time conversation with someone
in a different time zone, you might want to set up a clock showing
their time. It might look like a newsroom or hotel lobby, but
it's critical that you're fully aware of the other time so that
you don't make a call in the middle of the night.
Tip - You might also want to take a look at the map.
WORLD CLOCK
Athens
- Banff
- Bangkok
- Brisbane
- Calgary
- Cape
Town - Cardiff
- Cayman
Islands - Christchurch
- Edmonton
- Fort
Wayne - Guatemala
- Hong
Kong - Kuala
Lumpur - Las
Vegas - London
- Melbourne
- Mexico
City - Montevideo
- Oaxaca
- Paris
- Quito
- Sao
Paolo - Toronto
FULL
CLOCK
GMT
Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) is measured on the Earth's zero degree
line of longitude, or meridian. Using the Royal Observatory
in Greenwich, England
as the starting point of determining time zones around the planet,
GMT was established in 1884.
Generally, if you are in a country east of the Greenwich Meridian,
your local time is ahead of GMT. Examples: China is GMT +8 hours.
West of the Greenwich Meridian, local time is behind GMT. Local
time in Mexico City is -6 hours.
A FEW WORDS ABOUT REAL TIME
AND ASYNCHRONOUS
INTERACTION
One example is the television series '24'
in which the events occur in a linear and concurrent fashion
as opposed to cutting to other times earlier or later than the
action depicted or compressing time.
In a real-time computer games, events in the game occur at
the same rate as the events which are being depicted. One example
is a Yankees-Red
Sox baseball game.
An e-conference can include elements of both real time and
asynchronous communication. Online chats can be scheduled for
instantaneous conversation. Conferences can also allow participants
time before and after to read in-depth materials and make comments.
In short, we engage in real time and via asynchronous communication
all the time. We read the news stories that were written less
than a day ago or guidebooks that were sent to print a year
ago. We send an email to a friend or post a message on a public
bulletin board that may be read in 5 minutes or in 5 years by
someone we do not know.
COMMUNITIES AND TIME
A friend in a rural village asks how travelers can enter the
'rhythm' of the community, rather than ask the community attend
to the traveler. Of course, a compromise will be met out in
different ways in different circumstances.
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