Environmentally-sensitive Road Side Assistance Company Launches
PORTLAND, Ore.--June 4, 2002--Better World Travelers Club Asks Drivers: Now That You Can "Go Green," Why On Earth Would You Stay With Your Current Motor Club?
Travelers wishing to balance their needs for transportation with their interest in preserving the environment can now fulfill that desire.
Better World Travelers Club -- the first roadside assistance and travel club committed to preserving the environment -- begins signing members today from its Portland, Oregon, offices.
Better World Travelers Club provides a full range of travel and roadside assistance benefits to its members coast-to-coast, including emergency roadside assistance, exclusive leisure travel services and home and auto insurance -- similar to organizations like the American Automobile Association (AAA), but that's where any similarities end. The Better World Travelers Club, unlike AAA and other competitors, will help reduce the environmental footprint caused by travel.
"The Better World Travelers Club is meeting the needs of the environmentally-conscious traveler in a way that has never been attempted before," says Mitch Rofsky, Better World Travelers Club's President. "Under our Travel Cool! Program, we give one percent of Club revenues to environmental organizations that seek to reduce fossil fuel usage and fight global warming. We also sponsor a unique carbon offset program to neutralize the impact of air travel. Through our travel agency, members receive discounts on a range of travel services -- from tours to automobiles to electric bicycles to hybrid electric car rentals. Travelers can choose remote wilderness retreats, world-class eco-resorts and "green" hotels (i.e., establishments which utilize energy efficient practices while providing welcoming service). Better World Travelers Club members also have a direct line to expert travel agents and destination specialists."
"AAA has done a good job of providing valuable services. But they're also doing a great job of fouling up the planet by opposing everything from strong air quality controls to mass transit funding," says Rofsky. "For example, in 1999, AAA's press release regarding its report, Clearing the Air, stated that 'Smog produced by automobiles... does not contribute ... to ozone problems in our cities.' After years of watching AAA weigh in against the Clean Air Act, among other things, we decided to take our own action and offer an environmental alternative to the millions of Americans who want to make a difference."
Seasoned Management Team Leads Travel and Roadside Assistance Club With a Conscience
The Better World Travelers Club is the brainchild of boyhood friends, now business partners, Mitch Rofsky and Todd Silberman. Silberman serves as Chair and CEO of Better World Travel, the club's parent company, while Rofsky is the President of the Company and the Club. Rofsky, a former Ralph Nader staffer in Washington, D.C., is the former President of Working Assets Capital Management, where he managed the highly-regarded socially responsible mutual fund, and was the first chair of Business for Social Responsibility. Silberman, a travel industry attorney, was an early creator of what came to be known as the "inplant" travel industry -- travel agencies within large corporations responsible for serving corporate travel needs. His company, Lifeco, became the third-largest travel company in the U.S., prior to its purchase by American Express in 1993.
Cost for a basic membership in the Better World Travelers Club begins at $49.95 a year. To become a member of the Better World Travelers Club or for more information, please call: 866/304-7540 or visit them on the web at www.betterworldclub.com.
Travel Cool
There's another benefit to joining Better World Travelers Club: free participation in Travel Cool's guilt-free carbon offset program. Travel Cool is an innovative set of services and clean air programs that help fight global warming by investing a percentage of air travel dollars into energy saving projects and technologies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Cost of participation in the carbon offset program, normally $11 per domestic round trip flight, is free for members of the Better World Travelers Club. Travel Cool was named one of 2001's best holiday ideas by the Natural Resources Defense Council, a Washington, D.C.-based environmental organization. Travel Cool is also the only air travel program rated as climate neutral by Oregon-based Climate Neutral Network, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping companies, communities and consumers achieve a net zero impact on the Earth's climate.
