Pivots to make a difference: What ITA is doing to educate, inspire, satiate

A travel entre­pren­eur pas­sion­ate about storytelling and social good, Kel­ley Louise is the exec­ut­ive dir­ect­or and founder of Impact Travel Alli­ance, a com­munity for eco- and socially-con­scious trav­el­lers. In this “Good Tour­ism” Insight, Kel­ley tells us how the not-for-profit is mak­ing the best of chal­len­ging times to edu­cate trav­el­lers. Thanks to “GT” Insight Part­ner Second Look World­wide for invit­ing Kel­ley to contribute.

Five years ago, we star­ted Impact Travel Alli­ance (ITA) to reach fel­low trav­el­lers inter­ested in incor­por­at­ing sus­tain­able prac­tices into their jour­neys — wheth­er near or far. Today, our non­profit organ­isa­tion has amassed a net­work of more than 20,000 trav­el­lers in 20 coun­tries, prov­ing there is, indeed, a mar­ket for people who want to invest their tour­ism dol­lars con­sciously in vari­ous cul­tures, com­munit­ies and des­tin­a­tions while also pro­tect­ing the environment. 

Since 2015, ITA has organ­ised numer­ous events centered around hot-but­ton issues includ­ing ocean and wild­life con­ser­va­tion, gender equal­ity, and sus­tain­able food sourcing; cur­ated a blog and count­less issues of a sub­scrip­tion-only email cam­paign aimed at edu­cat­ing con­sumers about sus­tain­able travel; run a Media Net­work that sup­ports con­tent cre­at­ors focused on sus­tain­able travel; and par­ti­cip­ated in dozens of glob­al travel-industry for­ums, con­fer­ences, sym­posi­ums and white papers.

We entered 2020 with energy and optim­ism, as organ­isa­tions and media out­lets around the world — finally! — seemed to have latched on to the idea that sus­tain­ab­il­ity can have a pro­found impact on our plan­et through­out the new dec­ade. Then COVID-19 hit, George Floyd’s alleged murder sparked a new chapter in the civil rights con­ver­sa­tion … and ITA and the entire world­wide travel industry were forced to adapt to a chan­ging land­scape. Travel and explor­a­tion took a back­seat to health and eco­nom­ic sta­bil­ity, as well as inclu­sion and social justice. 

When the world is ready to resume nor­mal levels of tour­ism again is anyone’s guess. What we do know is that it won’t look any­thing like the pre-2020 “nor­mal”. At ITA, we view this time of pause as an oppor­tun­ity to inform people on how they can travel in a more sus­tain­able way in the future, as well as expand their idea of sus­tain­ab­il­ity to include sup­port and action for com­munit­ies that are under­rep­res­en­ted and oppressed. 

As a first step to encour­aging more aware­ness about sus­tain­ab­il­ity, we launched a vir­tu­al event series that intro­duces trav­el­lers to the sus­tain­able mind­set and helps them deep­en their prac­tices while at home.

The head­lining online event, “Sup­port­ing Loc­als in an Era of Digit­al Travel,” focused on empower­ing loc­al com­munit­ies and tour­ism busi­nesses in this dif­fi­cult time. Sub­sequent events high­lighted oth­er issues, such as identi­fy­ing (and avoid­ing) gre­en­wash­ing, sup­port­ing Indi­gen­ous com­munity-based tour­ism efforts, as well as cel­eb­rat­ing LGBTQ+ cul­ture and travel. All events are free, but attendees have the option to donate to at-need tour­ism pro­jects that ITA is sup­port­ing, includ­ing Plan­e­terra Found­a­tion, Second Look World­wide, and Miles4Migrants. 

The events are designed to edu­cate, inspire and sati­ate wan­der­lust from the com­fort of your own home. They came to life based on our vis­ion to share ideas on ways to exper­i­ence the joy of travel from home, become more mind­ful and sus­tain­able trav­el­ers and sup­port loc­al and/or under­rep­res­en­ted com­munit­ies in the process.

Here are just a few ideas trav­el­ers can jump on now to sup­port loc­al com­munit­ies feel­ing the impacts of the cur­rent tour­ism stoppage:

• Taste­m­akers Africa is host­ing monthly vir­tu­al sum­mits called The Thread — attend to meet Afric­an lead­ers, makers and cre­at­ives, make con­nec­tions and inspire your travels. All pro­ceeds bene­fit the Africa Tour­ism COVID-19 Relief. 
• Blue Apple Beach House is a boutique hotel and res­taur­ant in Cart­agena, Colom­bia, but while they’re closed, they’ll bring their goats to your Zoom calls to light­en the mood for a small fee. They also have a digit­al tip jar that sup­ports their staff.
• Fam­ily Meal knows you’re des­per­ately look­ing for new recipes to make at home. They’re shar­ing some favour­ites from New York City res­taur­ants and accept­ing dona­tions that go dir­ectly to those eat­er­ies and their staff.
• Tunza is a board game that helps save endangered spe­cies in the game and in real life. Order the phys­ic­al game or down­load the app for your phone.
• Invis­ible Cit­ies is a glob­al social enter­prise that works with people who have been affected by home­less­ness and trains them to become walk­ing tour guides. Now trav­el­lers can empower these loc­al guides by sign­ing up to digit­ally explore Edin­burgh, Scot­land, and Manchester, England.
• ViaHero worked with ITA’s loc­al chapters to cur­ate a guide­book with in-depth ideas on how to sup­port loc­als in an era of digit­al travel.

In addi­tion to events, our team ramped up stor­ies on our Ins­tagram and blog to talk to our com­munity about sup­port­ing a diverse and inclus­ive travel industry. “How to sup­port the LGBTQ+ com­munity when trav­el­ing” and “Blog­gers and cre­at­ors who are trans­form­ing travel” sug­gest ways to diver­si­fy per­spect­ives and make a dif­fer­ence. And while we all know edu­ca­tion is key to fight­ing social injustices, the ques­tions we ask ourselves before trav­el­ling are just as import­ant. We sug­gest many ways to start with “One voice is silenced & the world speaks”, “Rethink your ally­ship”, and “Travel like a peace­maker”.

With a few adjust­ments to how we shared our mes­sages, we have found we can con­tin­ue to reach our glob­al com­munity and nur­ture it dur­ing this pause in travel. We’re encour­aged by the increas­ing web­site traffic and new attendees for our vir­tu­al events. We’re also thrilled to be donat­ing to at-need tour­ism pro­jects, a fin­an­cial invest­ment we haven’t been able to make in the past. 

The tour­ism industry is in a world of hurt right now. But with a few pivots, we are hope­ful that we can all make a difference. 

Fea­tured image (top of post): As we nav­ig­ate our way through a tun­nel of troubles, how can we pivot and pos­i­tion ourselves with grace and with style to make a dif­fer­ence at the oth­er end? Image © Kel­ley Louise.

About the author

A travel entre­pren­eur pas­sion­ate about storytelling and sus­tain­ab­il­ity, Kel­ley Louise is the founder of Impact Travel Alli­ance, “the world’s largest com­munity for socially and eco-con­scious trav­el­ers”. She also runs Else­where Agency, a boutique cre­at­ive agency for travel companies. 

She has presen­ted at the United Nations, MMGY’s Vail Sum­mit, and Women’s Travel Fest, and has been inter­viewed by press includ­ing the New York Times, Fast Com­pany, Nation­al Geo­graph­ic Travel, For­bes, and Mash­able. She is the recip­i­ent of the Out­stand­ing Woman in Hos­pit­al­ity award from Women in Travel & Tour­ism Inter­na­tion­al (witti) and has been iden­ti­fied as one of the Top 100 Female Founders by Travel Massive.

Kel­ley has a bach­el­or’s degree in Media & Cul­ture from The New School. She is based in Brook­lyn, New York. 

Thanks to “GT” Insight Part­ner Second Look World­wide for invit­ing Kel­ley to contribute.