ETF/ABS
A PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN
ABOUT MAGELLAN TRAVEL INDEX
The Atlântico Business School (ABS), a polytechnical university in Porto, Portugal, built a new index that tracks the achievements of global travelers, and has partnered with the Extraordinary Travel Festival (ETF) to launch this index. Their collaboration aims to make the ETF/ABS Magellan Travel Index (MTI) a leading benchmark for travelers worldwide. The index is named after the famous Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan (Fernão de Magalhães in Portuguese), who led the first circumnavigation of the globe from 1519 to 1522.
The name was chosen to:
1. Honor the legacy of early explorers, like Magellan and other Portuguese and Spanish navigators, who set out into uncharted territories and, in doing so, kickstarted the age of globalization.
2. Recognize modern-day explorers, whose adventurous spirit often takes them to remote and challenging regions, echoing the bravery of explorers from centuries past.
The ETF/ABS Magellan Travel Index is based on two main factors, each given equal weight: Quantity of Travel (QT) and Quantity of Travel (QL).
• Quantity of Travel (QT) is determined by how many regions a traveler has explored, based on membership in the three most important travel clubs: Most Traveled People (MTP), NomadMania (NM), Travel Century Club (TCC)
• Quality of Travel (QL) is evaluated using four key criterion: UNESCO Sites: number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites (WHS) visited; Tentative List: number of sites on UNESCO’s Tentative List visited; Capitals: number of capitals of countries and territories visited; Borders: number of land or sea borders crossed.
The ETF/ABS Magellan Travel Index will be updated and published annually on the ETF website and other partner platforms.
The index aims to serve as a guideline for assessing the quality of travel for those who wish to explore the largest number of regions on the planet.
It incorporates criterion that measure the number of regions visited (in the QT subcomponent of the MTI) and criterion that evaluate the quality of those visits (in the QL subcomponent of the MTI).
The index value reflects the traveler’s level: the higher the value, the more well-traveled they can consider themselves. Thus, using the index, a traveler can plan their trips considering how each visit affects their index score.
As a secondary objective, the index also allows the creation of a ranking among travelers, which is always a motivating and challenging factor for most extreme travelers.
Given that travel is more prevalent today than ever, in the future, once its limitations are overcome, this ranking may be considered the definitive ranking of the greatest travelers of all time.
A FINAL REFLECTION
To conclude, we would like to make our own the words of the mythical Spanish traveler Jorge Sanchez, on the website where he presents his own ranking;
“This ranking, as well as those in travel clubs such as TCC, MTP, or NomadMania, should not be taken too seriously. Travel is just an instrument to learn; dromomania is a pathology, it is insane; there are more important things to do in life than traveling, but some people are so poor than in their life they only have travels. Nevertheless, I still think that the best traveler is the one who, thanks to his conscious travels, has acquired more knowledge of humanities that has helped him to elevate his being, to develop from featherless biped to complete man”.