For journalists & reporters
Press Kit
Michael Kovnick is the founder and CEO of Culture Discovery Vacations. He founded Cyberspace HQ, one of the earliest internet and e-commerce companies, in 1994, left the industry after the dot-com crash and a run of litigation, and founded Culture Discovery Vacations in 2006 with Paola Kovnick. It now operates across eight countries and two continents, and he has spent the years since arguing for anti-extractive travel. He holds the CTIE designation from The Travel Institute, and has made CDV a signatory of the Future of Tourism Coalition.
Expert on
- Anti-extractive & sustainable tourism
- Overtourism
- Experiential & culinary travel
- AI in travel & hospitality
- Digital transformation for travel companies
- Early internet / dot-com era tech history
- Anti-luxury travel (as a media frame)
Key facts
- •70%+ of guest spend retained in local economies (19-year study)
- •One of the largest small-group tour operators in Europe, operating across 8 countries and 2 continents
- •Tripadvisor Hall of Fame
- •Travel Weekly Magellan Gold Award, Best Service (2025)
- •Best of eBusiness, Comdex (2001)
- •"Existential Sustainability: A Structural Approach to Anti-Extractive Tourism" (SSRN, 2025)
Pre-approved quotes
“The luxury travel industry sells you amenities. What people actually remember is the moment they stopped being a tourist and started being a guest.”
“We built the first fully-online tour operator in an industry that still ran on brochures. Twenty years later the lesson hasn't changed: build for what's missing, not for what's already crowded.”
“An anti-extractive business isn't charity. It's just better economics once you measure the right thing.”
“In 1999 I sat on panels telling people the valuations were insane and the bubble was going to crack open. They laughed at me. The internet really was the future. The money just showed up before the business did.”
Fast response for reporters on deadline
Typical response time: within 24 hours.
Contact for press inquiries