Centre's Phyllis Passariello gives expert commentary for upcoming program

RELEASED: Jan. 31, 2002

DANVILLE, KY-A crew working for Discovery's Travel Channel was on campus Thursday morning to film a Centre professor.

Phyllis Passariello, associate professor of anthropology, spent nearly two hours with the crew giving expert commentary for the Travel Channel series "World's Best."

The show for which Passariello's insights will be used is "The World's Best Places to Go Back in Time." The program examines sites that genuinely represent their time period in history and that best reveal civilization from the beginnings of recorded history to the 20th Century. The 10 destinations on the list will attempt to reflect the most preserved, visually stunning, culturally revealing places of the past.

The air date for this one-hour special is not yet set.

Passariello spoke on four of the 10 time-specific destinations: the 1300's castles of Wales; Bath, England circa 973 A.D.; Cambodia's Angkor Wat and the nearby temples in the 9th Century; and Pompeii, Italy in 79 A.D. Passariello has traveled in three of the four destinations.

The Travel Channel's Web site is at http://travel.discovery.com/. To learn more about the "World's Best" series, visit http://travel.discovery.com/fansites/worldsbest/worldsbest.html.

A veteran of extensive fieldwork with the Maya and other peoples of Mexico as well as with indigenous peoples of Ecuador, Passariello has developed a strong interest in the anthropology of tourism. She has studied tourism as the basis for sustainable development for indigenous cultures, as well as related topics, including the impact of tourism on native people, the re-creation of ethnicity as a marketing strategy, and the religious pilgrimage as a factor in regional tourism.

- end -