1. What have The Official New 7 Wonders of the World given us, the citizens of the world?

From Jackie Lou Magno in the Philippines, and many others

Bernard Weber: The Official New 7 Wonders of the World exist and can be celebrated today, just one short year after they were named, because people all over the world came together to create them. The campaign brought people throughout our planet together for a common project. Together, we actively honored, respected and celebrated the diversity of our planet!

This first-ever global democratic exercise was the first chance that the world’s citizens had to vote for something common. It made history by actively creating Global Memory for the first time. Thanks to you and your participation, we now have a link to each other that will grow stronger with time, and it is already being reinforced by the New7Wonders of Nature campaign.

The more we know about each other, spread across 6 continents and many time zones, and the more we share, the more we actively create a peaceful and prosperous future for us all.

2. Why are these legitimate as The Official New 7 Wonders of the World? How did you ensure that very populous countries did not “hijack” the election?

From S. Bloomfield in the United Kingdom, Carlos Figueroa in Guatemala, and many others.

Bernard Weber: I feel very strongly that world heritage, as the name says, belongs to the people of the world. Over 100 million votes from every corner of the world very clearly legitimizes The Official New 7 Wonders of the World. And we are estimating over 1 billion votes for the New7Wonders of Nature. These are choices made by the people of the world and belong to all the people of our world.

These huge numbers stand in contrast to the one man who chose the Ancient 7 Wonders of the World, and it is also very different from the only 21 people who select the World Heritage list of over 850 locations at UNESCO.

When I had the vision of bringing the world together to choose The Official New 7 Wonders of the World, I knew that using the power and reach of modern communications technology would be the fairest, and indeed the only, way to hold a global vote and reaching as many people as possible. The number of people with access to the Internet is growing each day, and many more already use mobile telephones. The fact that a huge percentage of the over 100 million votes were from the developing world shows that there is a growing desire in all countries to interact with people around the world.
To make sure that the vote not only was as fair as possible, but it really got people thinking about the world around them, everyone voting in a New7Wonders campaign through our website must submit 7 votes. This means that each person in a country with a finalist had to vote for 6 finalists that were not in his or her country! So it was impossible for any one country to dominate the voting. As the international media pointed out: “The poll itself is a wonder,” said the Reuters news agency and the Associated Press called New7Wonders “Something new to bring the world together.” For more information, see the voting analysis.

3. Why 7 Wonders?

From Marguerite Borntraeger in Canada, and many others

Bernard Weber: When Philon of Byzantium declared the Ancient 7 Wonders, the then-known world was very small, around the eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea. Today, of course, we know the whole world. So should there be, instead of only 7, maybe 21, 100, or why not even 1,000 New Wonders of the World? However, it is not only about staying true to the original Greek idea that New7Wonders has remained with the number 7 … there is another very interesting, important reason for this: It has been shown and proven that 7 is exactly the number of things that the average person can remember!

There are many, many interesting and surprising examples of the number 7 playing an important role in cultures all over the world and throughout history - read the feature about the number 7 for some fascinating details! The 7 days of the week are only the beginning …

With The Official New 7 Wonders of the World, the people of our world have, for the very first time ever, created “Global Memory,” 7 things that everyone can remember and which will become legacy! 7 symbols of a world united which we all share.

4. How has their new status affected the New 7 Wonders of the World we all chose?

From Ali Hijji Al-Sultan in Saudi Arabia, and many others

Bernard Weber: First of all, the most important impact that The Official New 7 Wonders of the World have experienced has been a rise of up to 40% in tourism. This is incredible and it lets countries put better sustainable tourism measures into place. Of course, since the Wonder is attracting people’s attention, the country can also promote its culture, heritage and the nation as a whole.

Giving people a reason to be proud of their culture and their home is another positive effect of the New7Wonders campaign. When the entire world, millions and millions of people, recognize your local or national monument, this is very special! I am convinced that the worst fate that can happen to anything, be it a culture, a monument or any other part of a nation’s heritage, is to be forgotten and to slide into oblivion. Had the Ancient 7 Wonders of the World not been neglected, maybe they would still be there for us to treasure and appreciate today!

Of course, an increase in visitors to important sites, be they natural or human-built, must be managed well, but this is a challenge that offers great potential for creativity and positive growth. Having more visitors offers the chance to improve logistics, build better facilities, help the local population, clean up the region, etc. The challenge is to use increased interest and increased tourism traffic and revenues to benefit the entire country, to protect the country’s cultural and natural heritage. This should be a very welcome challenge!

New7Wonders is also working on a New7Wonders Museum, in which The Official New 7 Wonders of the World will be featured along with this milestone campaign, the first-ever global election.

In the longer term, New7Wonders is committed to creating detailed photogrammetric 3D images of  The Official New 7 Wonders of the World. These are scientifically accurate, high-definition records that document the entire monument. This means these New 7 Wonders will be preserved for the future, to scale as they are standing right now, and with every single detail. This is important, especially as we remember that we can visit and appreciate only one of the Ancient 7 Wonders (the Pyramids at Giza) and we have no real idea what the other ones even looked like.

For the New 7 Wonders of Nature campaign, we know that it will significantly raise awareness of the incredible variety and beauty of nature around us. As our slogan says, “If we want to save anything, we first need to truly appreciate it!” This is something that is very important - more awareness and more tourism income means that these natural treasures can be better preserved for future generations.

5. What is your vision of New7Wonders for the future?

From Alex Rea in Australia, M. Mosner in Germany, and many others

Bernard Weber: When I started building New7Wonders, I wanted to create a platform that would let people all over the world interact, express their views and create something new and common together. This, as shown by the more than 100 million votes, was something that people were excited about and wanted to do. I think that this global dialogue is one of the most important things we can do to encourage a common vision for our world, for a peaceful, positive future. So I am very committed to continuing to offer New7Wonders as a platform to the people of the world.

Right now, we are in the first stage of the New7Wonders of Nature campaign - and we are seeing more and more people getting involved, from more and more countries. We will announce the 21 New7Wonders of Nature finalists on 21 July 2009 and the final declaration of the election’s results will be in 2011. After that, New7Wonders plans to ask the globe’s citizens to choose the New7Wonders of Technology. The next generation of campaigns that I would like to see happen, which will not use the word "wonder," should start with one to choose the 7 Symbols of Peace. By that time, I hope that our global dialogue and common efforts will have significantly contributed to making our planet a more peaceful place!

6. How is New7Wonders officially recognized? Do you work with UNESCO or with the United Nations?

From Lucy Kim in Korea, Pablo Hernandez in the United States, and many others.

Bernard Weber: This is an interesting question because the basic fact here is that New7Wonders is its own authority, whose legitimacy comes from having built the world’s first-ever global voting platform, and most importantly from you, all the voters, supporters, New7Wonders Members, who with your over 100 million votes made our first campaign a world-record breaker. In other words, we are the official body, in the same way as the IOC is the official body for the Olympics or FIFA is the official body for football.

In terms of UNESCO, they officially supported us in the early days but soon realized that their objectives and methods, which are mainly those of institutionally classifying and cataloguing sites, are not comparable with our worldwide popular media and web-driven campaigns. We like to think we are complementary, although maybe some people at UNESCO are a little misinformed about how exactly New7Wonders works - in my view, they shouldn’t be and we are happy to support and recognize their work whenever the opportunity arises.

As for the United Nations, our official relationship is directly with UN Headquarters in New York, where we are very honored to be working with the UN Office for Partnerships to help achieve the United Nations’ Millennium Goals and the objectives of the UN Democracy Fund. We are proud to contribute to a global exchange that spreads the principles of democracy and, in the case of the New7Wonders of Nature campaign, underlines the principles of environmental sustainability in a positive and motivating way. And with the philosophy behind the New7Wonders global voting platform, we are also naturally aligned with the founding principles and objectives of the United Nations organization.

7. Some people have said that New7Wonders is about making money - is this true?

From Frank Bergsen in the Netherlands and many others.

Bernard Weber: Well, firstly let me say that I am proud that all of us at New7Wonders, and all our supporters around the world, have enabled us to finance and build our extraordinary global voting platform and worldwide campaigns, without any government, public or tax monies. Everything New7Wonders does of course requires money, which is why we have commercial partnerships that allow us to fund our costs. In this way, we are no different from other global positive platforms like the Olympics that also generate revenue through commercial partnerships. Not receiving any public funding is important, since it allows us to guarantee the independence that makes New7Wonders unique.

So far, we have made enough money to cover our main costs, which is very positive since many good ideas often fall apart because of insufficient funding. And it is our intention to continue to grow our revenues in the future, for example through sponsor and licensing partnerships, and indeed to make much more so that we can generate a surplus to support the important objectives of the New7Wonders Foundation.

Let me also answer your question in another way: We have already generated billions - not for us at New7Wonders, but for all the countries that participated and for the Wonders themselves. Let’s all be very, very proud of this!

More questions?

For detailed, easy-to-understand information about the timing and procedures of the New7Wonders of Nature campaign.please read the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) Section.