Intrepid Travel prides itself as a leader in responsible travel within the travel industry and it has always been a priority for us, since the beginnings of the company 25 years ago. However, as Australia is both a significant contributor to climate change in emissions per capita, and incredibly vulnerable to its impacts, there is significantly more that we all need to do. And I often feel like we need to see serious environmental calamities for environmental issues to remain at the forefront of people’s minds.
As one of the biggest combined industries in Australia, the more the travel industry can join forces to take action and speak out to protect this country’s incredible natural assets, the more effective it will be.
We have climate change impacting one of our most important attractions in the Great Barrier Reef (as well as coal mining). We have the threat of the Tasmanian Forest Agreement being torn up and some of Australia’s most important forests disappearing. We have coal-seam gas threatening to poison large areas of Australia, including places like the Hunter Valley, which are important as tourist destinations but equally so for the purity of food and wine they produce.
These are all issues which in about 20 years’ time we could be saying, “I wish we took more action”. It is difficult for the travel industry as it consists largely of small to medium sized businesses that cannot raise many millions of dollars to change government decisions.
But we can all take some action.
While we all have budgetary pressures, it is ultimately a matter of priorities. Intrepid Travel first employed a Responsible Travel Coordinator in 1998, when we were still a small organisation. We did this because we believed that we needed to ensure our trips were run in a sustainable manner. A short while later we became known as a responsible company and responsible travel became a selling feature for Intrepid. So, unbeknownst to us at the time, employing a Responsible Travel Coordinator was a valuable investment in the future.
Today, we continue to take a responsible approach wherever we go in the world – we use local leaders, stay in and eat at locally owned establishments and mostly take public transport. In doing this we contribute directly to local economies. In 2010, Intrepid Travel became a carbon neutral company and we carbon offset all the trips we operate. And we, along with The Intrepid Foundation, which was established in 2002, have together raised $4 million for more than 75 community organisations around the world.
As individuals and small businesses we often ask whether our action can make a difference. In 2011, Intrepid co-hosted a press trip with the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) to the Kimberley region to highlight how the James Price Point gas development was a threat to tourism and the environment. For us it was a very real issue. Already mining was making it difficult to find tour guides, to find housing for staff, for travellers to buy reasonably priced air tickets and to find availability of accommodation.
This development was later dropped. And while Intrepid only played a small part, the issue received a lot of publicity and helped to raise Intrepid’s profile as a concerned corporate citizen. Partnering with a knowledgeable and non-political organisation such as the ACF was incredibly valuable and organisations should band together more often to create sustainable tourism opportunities.
A clean environment and healthy communities are our industry’s lifeblood. And while we might not have huge amounts of money, the travel industry has a lot of impassioned people. Let’s put them to good use and take action on the issues that truly matter.
