Iguassu Falls in Argentina

New 7 Wonders of Nature Controversy

It turns out that the current New 7 Wonders of Nature competition reeks of controversy.

Until recently I’ve been ignoring the buzz around voting for the New 7 Wonders of Nature. The noise has been getting louder and louder in recent weeks, so I wasn’t surprised to see that the competition ends in just over a month. I have visited eight of the final 28 candidates and they’re all great destinations. As a Canadian, I have a soft spot for the Bay of Fundy making it to the winners list. However, at the same time I can’t help but feel the entire process is a bit of a joke.

Iguassu Falls in Argentina
Iguassu Falls, Argentina - A New 7 Wonders of Nature Finalist

Back in 2007 when the New 7 Wonders were announced it was exciting. It wasn’t without controversy though. You see, the Pyramids of Egypt – the sole remaining Ancient Wonder of the World – didn’t make that final list. Egyptian officials said the competition was absurd, so the New 7 Wonders organization made amends by giving the Pyramids an ‘honourary’ title.

It wasn’t long after those winners were announced that the dark side of the New Open World Corporation, who runs the competition, became apparent. I worked for a tour company at the time and we had tours to the Pyramids in Egypt, plus to all of the destinations that won titles as New 7 Wonders of the World. How exciting! Well it only took the New Open World Corporation a month or so to get their lawyers on us and demand us to stop using the ‘New 7 Wonders’ label in any way whatsoever unless we paid them for use of their trademark.

Christ the Redeemer Statue
Christ the Redeemer, Brazil - One of the New Wonders of the World

So much for helping to boost tourism to Chichen Itza in Mexico, the Colosseum in Italy, Christ the Redeemer in Brazil, the Taj Mahal in India, the Great Wall in China, Machu Picchu in Peru and Petra in Jordan. The tourism boards and destination marketing organizations can do that themselves, I suppose. Yet strangely, after such a seemingly prestigious win in 2007, none of these tourism boards prominently mention their ‘New 7 Wonders’ win on their websites.

Shortly after that competition ended, the New Open World Corporation announced a new competition for the New 7 Wonders of Nature.

Fast forward two years to 2009. After hundreds of entries paid their $200 entry fee for being listed as a possible New 7th Wonder of Nature, the voting widdled things down to 28 possible winners. There were supposed to be only 21 finalists announced on July 21, 2009 but New Open World Corporation decided to change the rules so that there would be 28 finalists. No big deal, right? More competition is a good thing!

Except that if we fast forward again to 2011, we start to see the seedy side of what the New 7 Wonders of Nature is all about. Turns out that $200 entry fee was just a drop in the bucket.

Galapagos Islands, Ecuador - Land Iguana
A Land Iguana in the Galapagos - One of the New 7 Wonders of Nature Finalists

Indonesia’s Komodo Island entry created controversy when they revealed that New Open World Corporation was demanding $10million in licensing fees, plus $47million to host a World Tour finale for the competition. Apparently the $944,000 they budgeted to promoting and marketing their efforts in the competition wasn’t enough. Tourism officials in Indonesia had never signed any agreement that hinted at such additional, exorbitant costs. When they tried to contact New Open World Corporation by mail, everything bounced back as undeliverable. The disagreements continued for months and Indonesia withdrew Komodo Island National Park from the competition in mid-August. However, faced with such pressure the New Open World Corporation backed down and Komodo remains as a finalist.

Now let’s add the Maldives Islands to the controversy.

The Maldives also pulled the plug on their bid to become a New 7th Wonder of Nature in May 2011, citing unexpected, unrealistic demands and rising costs from New Open World Corporation.

Picnic Island in Vaavu Atoll, Maldives
The Maldives Islands - Another Finalist in the New 7 Wonders of Nature Competition

In 2009 they paid their $200 entry fee and the agreement had no specifics about incurring future additional fees or financial obligations. But surprise – it’s 2011 now and New Open World Corporation has sent them numerous requests for money including:

  • $350,000 for a platinum level sponsorship licensing fee,
  • two $210,000 requests for gold level licensing fees,
  • a $1million license fee to put the New 7 Wonders of Nature logo on planes,
  • a $1million license fee for their national telecom operator to participate for allowing phone voting and,
  • a request for a ‘World Tour’ stop in the Maldives for the New 7 Wonders delegates to party and enjoy the country at a cost of $500,000.

Needless to say, the Maldives refused and New Open World Corporation accepted their resignation from the competition. But in both cases, the listings were not removed, New Open World Corporation simply said they accepted that the committees that registered Komodo and the Maldives were no longer valid, and that they would entertain finding new ‘Official Supporting Committees’ for each entry. In other words – they would seek money from other businesses or individuals in Indonesia and the Maldives.

Sound sketchy? It sure does. I’ve been involved in many award applications in the travel industry and have never had to pay an extra penny after the initial application process. So then what exactly is the New 7 Wonders Foundation and New Open World Corporation?

Kayaking in Milford Sound
Sailing Kayaks in Milford Sound, NZ - Another Finalist for New 7 Wonders of Nature

The New Open World Corporation is a corporation associated with the non-profit New 7 Wonders Foundation, which is based in Zurich. The foundation is run by Bernard Weber, a Swiss-Canadian who is a self-proclaimed film-maker and adventurer. Mr. Weber is obviously a savvy businessman who has found a way to profit from the global tourism industry, albeit in a shady fashion. Here are a few troubling points about the ‘New 7 Wonders’ campaigns:

  • The New 7 Wonders homepage flaunts a ‘partnership’ with the United Nations, which has mislead some people to believe that the UNESCO World Heritage Site programme supports these competitions. That is not correct. UNESCO does not approve of, nor does it have any association with, these competitions.
  • The rankings and totals on the New 7 Wonders voting website  lack any form of transparency.
  • Curiously, the application contract that many entrants signed came from a law firm in Panama, not Switzerland.
  • There is no physical location or mailing address easily available for contacting the New 7 Wonders Foundation.
  • Where the money goes is a mystery. After accounting for all costs in running the competition and organization, only 50% of surplus revenues from the millions of dollars received, goes towards the efforts of the non-profit organization.

Kind of makes you wonder about the ethics and real purpose behind these New 7 Wonders competitions doesn’t it? Whether you call it extortion or licensing fees, if you imagine that most of the 28 finalists have given in to at least some of the New 7 Wonders monetary requests, plus invested plenty of their own funding towards promoting their entries and creating voting campaigns, there is easily more than $100million in tourism money surrounding this competition.

Is it worth it? These are largely popular destinations that already attract large numbers of tourists from around the world. They’re in guidebooks, they’re already on the backpacker circuit and travel blogger radar. Will the Grand Canyon and Great Barrier Reef really benefit from a surge in tourism if they are named one of nature’s New 7 Wonders? If they do win, will they even be able to afford to promote the new title after they pay new unknown, likely exorbitant, licensing fees?

Grand Canyon, Sunrise near Bright Angel
The Grand Canyon, A Finalist for the New 7 Wonders of Nature

Recently, representatives from 11 of the finalist destinations visited JeJu Island, in South Korea (one of the Natural Wonder finalists). It is probably safe to assume most of those countries paid at least some of their World Tour fees and licensing fees. When the final votes come in next month, I wonder how many of the 7 winners will come from those 11 countries? We’ll find out on November 11th. Oh, and by the way, it doesn’t look like they’ve found anyone willing to pay that $47million price tag to host the finale event yet.

Perhaps one unnamed tourism official in the Maldives summed up this competition best:

“Essentially we’re paying a license fee for the right to throw a party, at our own cost, for an unproven return.”

Measuring ROI when it comes to tourism and travel marketing initiatives isn’t an exact science, but it seems that the only one guaranteed to benefit from this competition is Bernard Weber and New Open World Corporation – hopefully I’m wrong.

Tourism is big business – exciting business. As fun as these competitions are, I encourage you to take a minute to think of the countries and people in the world that don’t have the million-dollar budgets to promote their natural wonders, or the people who don’t have access to computers to even cast a vote. There is a much bigger natural world out there to discover than the eventual 7 winners of this competition.

18 thoughts on “New 7 Wonders of Nature Controversy”

    1. It sure doesn’t seem like the best use of tourism money does it Margaret? I’ll be curious to see what new list of wonders they come up with next!

    1. Since it is essentially run by a private organization, they don’t have to report to anyone…so no investigations. I support the idea and concept but am surprised at the process.

  1. I’ve read quiet a long time ago that Indonesia had withdrawn The Komodo Island from the competition, but this month… they’re back on the mass media telling us to vote for Komodo and if we win it, it will make a good change for the local people of the island and for the conservation of the komodos. What? I thought they didn’t want to join it anymore because they didn’t want to pay for those kind of stuff as you mentioned above, but now?? It’s ironic to hear that komodo population in their nature habitat is threatened by the damage of the nature.. while they keep saying: “wonders of nature” …

  2. Thank you for the info, This self-called Foundation causing uproar in my country (indonesia).
    WTF after asking for $10 million, now they are using SMS (short message service) to vote for The Komodo Island, and it’s Rp 1/ SMS (it was Rp 1000/SMS before).

  3. Thank you for a very well-rounded and informative piece. The claim of support from the UNESCO is scandelous at best, and that alone should be enough to discredit whatever Mr. Webber is doing.

    While the concept has its merits, a better idea might be to promote destinations are still off the radar of the travel community. And the best way to go about it is, probably, by real cooperation of tourism boards the world over where they nominate such destinations and vote on a list of 10 maximum – say every 5 years. That way it will no longer be shoddy business, and more value would be created.

  4. I already vote for Komodo island by SMS when it was still Rp.1000/vote.. Damn!! Now the news in Indonesia is talking about the fake foundation in Zurich.. Some of indonesian tourism officials went to switzerland to discuss with the committee directly, but they found out that the foundation’s address is fake!! It is actually an address of a museum that only opens at summer (june-august) !#*?????*#!

    1. Thanks Karlisa,
      IT dies seem to have sparked some outrage in Indonesia in particular. It sounds like it has been a back and forth struggle over there regarding supporting or discouraging votes for the competition. I think what Ameen has said is great – getting tourism organizations to promote an support an ongoing and changing network of ‘sites in need’ around the world.
      This competition is almost over so we’ll see what the results are soon.

  5. Damn, I just encouraged everyone I know to vote for The Bay of Fundy (being from NB). Has there been any information uncovered by the Canadian media as to how much money the governments of New Brunswick and Canada have put behind this effort? I am assuming it would tally to the numbers you mention above, but is this reflected in any way on public balance sheets?
    Lisa recently posted..I heart The Black Keys

    1. Hey Lisa,
      I haven’t looked into how much money Canada is pumping into it. We’ve ramped things up the past month with TV shows and online campaigns. It must be in the hundreds of thousands.
      Promoting these destinations is normal, I just worry that people are misguided as to where the money goes and what the foundation behind it is all about.

  6. I already thought it was a crap right from the beginning. Look, when Sipadan Island in the North Borneo was nominated to ‘represent’ Malaysia in the competition, our local tourism minister was all over, asking people to vote and all. How can we ever vote when can’t even afford to go there? It’s already so damn expensive to go there even with that little reputation that it has now. All the tour packages offered were too expensive for the locals to afford. It has always been aimed at attracting the more financially-capable tourists from the West and now they want us the locals to vote for it in the run for 7 Wonders? I mean, that is only one simple example why the competition is a crap on our part. Needless to say, it didn’t even make it to the final list.
    jipp recently posted..Natural Born Traveler

    1. Thanks for the insights Jipp. I agree, making popular sights more accessible and affordable to locals has a greater long-term benefit vs catering to tourists only.

  7. Puerto Princessa,Underground river Philippines.. won by having millions of vote around the world and not by paying of any amount. Philippines cant afford to pay!

  8. I think its fair to call it what it is… Extortion. Create a bogus new competiton and charge the participants huge fees, with the threat of them losing their previous dollars if they don’t continue to choke up more money. I’d be willing to bet whomever pays the highest bid for hosting the party at the end will magically also be the winner of the competition. Sad, especially seeing as how a lot of the countries on the list probably don’t really have the money to be blowing on this. By the way… Isn’t this the same way the mob used to make their money?

    Dan
    Dan Thompson recently posted..POTW: Fun with Trains

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