About Us, Travel Ethos Ltd.

Travel Ethos Ltd. is registered in England as was formerly called Worldwide Internet Hotel Reservations, Ltd. and before that Bali & Thailand Hotels, Ltd. To understand the changes in company name you have to understand the history of the company and its founder, Mark Austin, a British citizen and human rights victim at the hands of the Indonesian authorities (Balinese police).

Mark Austin formed Bali & Thailand Hotels, Ltd. in 1999 to legitimize and control two web sites he had started, Bali Direct AKA Bali Hotels & Accommodations Company (a direct reservations site for hotels and villas in Bali called Travelideas.net) and the Bali & Lombok Travel Forum (a non-profit travel chat site for these islands). Mark started these web sites as a hobby in early 1999 after he traveled to Bali on holiday; Mark was so disappointed with the ethics and modus operandi of the existing Bali travel forums and hotel reservation sites he decided to build his own. The reservations site then known as Bali Direct was just that, a hotel booking site where guests booked with and paid the hotels directly, not some uninsured travel agent in Indonesia. The forum to cater for the non-mass tourism market to Bali and without undue commercial censorship and / or advantage; many other travel forum owners abuse their forums for commercial gain, often covertly.

Mark traveled to Bali several times and did "walkabout", especially around the areas outside the main mass tourism areas of Kuta and Sanur. He would literally go to an area, ask if he could check out a hotel's rooms and grounds, get a room rate, and then decide which hotel offered the best in quality and price. Mark would go to areas where there was absolutely no information whatsoever believe it or not in the tour books like Lonely Planet or on the other so-called Bali Travel Forums. By traveling around Bali like this Mark not only got a feel for what was genuine Bali, but also which were the better hotels. Naturally Mark photographed the hotels he visited and then invited the ones he likes to join his direct reservations site, using his own photos and hotel write-ups. Mark's approach to his web sites brought him unwittingly into conflict with certain regular Bali holiday makers who did not want to hear their preferred hotel was in Mark's opinion very poor value, and with certain hoteliers; the general manager of one was particularly nasty (see: Waka Shorea Resort Bali). The problem for some was that Mark was approaching his business as a traveler, not as a travel agent.

Despite the problems, Mark continued to do walkabout and organically grow his websites for Bali. At the same time he noticed there was no travel forum for Thailand, he started the Thailand Travel Forum even though he had not been there yet! That was to change though as Mark had walked around Bali just about as much as anyone could, so then he moved onto Thailand, where he actually lived for a number of years. Mark was not alone, his Balinese girlfriend Suci joined him and eventually they were married. Mark did quite a bit of walkabout around Thailand to add hotels to his company's Thai portfolio and to experience / report what he saw on his travel forums. The birth of his and Suci's first child and other business interests restricted Mark's walkabout habit though, plus in December 2002 while on a trip to Bali he became a victim of civil and then human rights abuse at the hands of corrupt members of Bali's police force (see Nasty Bali). Mark stood up for his legal rights and also refused to pay corruption money to make the problem go away, Mark has had an escalating problem with the Indonesian authorities ever since. Because Indonesia has not yet acceded to certain vital components of the International Convention on Human Rights yet, Mark is still waiting to file his formal complaint and request for remedial action against those involved. As a consequence, Mark was no longer able to travel to Bali safely.

Bali & Thailand Hotels Ltd. changed its name to Worldwide Internet Hotel Reservations, Ltd. in 2003 as the company's revenues from other destinations started to outweigh those from Bali and Thailand. As Mark Austin could no longer travel to check out various hotels, we were one of the first to introduce "Guest Ranking and Reporting" where users of our reservations sites could tell the world what they thought about the hotels they booked directly via us after they checked out, so other users would still get current up-to-date appraisals before booking themselves. In 2005 Mark and his family moved to Portugal, partly to avoid further and escalating human rights abuse. We continued to run our Bali and Thailand direct reservations sites but Mark let his worldwide hotels booking service slide as he took a very early semi-retirement.

In 2007, Mark Austin and his family sold their interests in one of Bali's foremost beachfront villa resorts which Mark created and funded before his troubles with Bali's police. As a result of this sale and his ongoing troubles with certain police officers, Mark decided it made sense for him personally and his company to end all direct financial links with Bali, plus also Thailand for continuity. Rather than throw his work promoting and helping what is truly Balinese and worthy away or sell it to a third party who might change the ethos, he decided to turn our reservations site travelideas.net into a charitable site working under the new replacement domain travelethos.com. He also decided to extend the ethos further by inviting hotels and villas to declare if they are 100% legal and ethical in their operation. To mirror these changes, in June 2007 the company changed its name to Travel Ethos Ltd (Registered in England). All direct commissions earned by this web site now go to the noted charities on our charity page. We continue to earn (smaller) commissions to help us with the running, admin, etc. costs from wholesaler bookings, where users on this site elect to book via our preferred wholesale industry partners.

Incidentally, our charitable ethos has existed for some time. After the 2002 Bali bombings / terrorist attacks, we provided free accommodation to the families of the Bali terrorist attacks plus for a long period donated all our direct earnings (hotel and villa commissions) to hotel staff consequently sent home with pay or social benefits. Some people wonder why we continued to market Bali as a holiday destination in light of the problems experienced with one of the world's most corrupt police and judiciary (source: Transparency International). The reason is because we love the Balinese as we hope we have shown in deeds rather than words, to try and support the real Balinese and their supporters in Bali and with it help potential foreign visitors to the island get all the facts which are otherwise withheld from them. We hope our service besides benefiting the decent people of Bali will help tourists make ethical choices as to which hotels and villas benefit from their holiday dollars, and to ultimately help tourists enjoy a vacation of a lifetime the travel industry is too often quick to promise as given in their marketing, yet so rarely delivers. Of course, our ethos extends to the people of Thailand as well, as it will any and all other countries we add in due course.