The Power Of Change

In his welcome to the crowd of travel trade types and others who packed Toronto’s funky District 28 last night (Sept. 27) to mark World Tourism Day (WTD), G Adventures founder, Bruce Poon Tip observed that, “We’re here to celebrate tourism [because it] has the power to change the world.”

And as the world’s largest, small group operator, G Adventures has spent the past 26 years working to make that change happen.

Certainly in Toronto last night, the company continued to pursue that change with Poon Tip unveiling the Travel Better Club that will be developed by Sustainable Travel International (STI) and will start with the Travel Better Certificate – an online learning program developed in partnership with Planeterra and expanded through the creation of community of sustainable travellers.

Travel Better will be launched as part of the UNWTO’s Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development Year in 2017.

Poon Tip announced that G Adventures was ramping up its G Local program that gauges its impact on local economies. Noting that it is something that the company has been doing for years, it has now partnered with STI, brought in an panel of international experts and surveying its local suppliers to determine the kind of impact its operations have on local economies.

As Poon Tip sees it, the Travel Better certificate and the ramped up G Local program are both “game changers.”

In terms of product, Poon Tip said that additional tours have been added to the G Limited Edition program and 18 new tours have been added to the National Geographic program.

However, big news of the night was that G Adventures has formed a partnership with the Jane Goodall Institute.

The operator notes, “Through this collaboration, G Adventures hopes to raise awareness of the importance of wildlife-friendly tourism, curating a program of 20 wildlife trips to form the Jane Goodall Collection by G Adventures.”

For more, go to http://www.gadventures.com .