“It’s about protecting our communities and the planet:” TreadRight celebrates 10 years of making travel matter

From its beginnings as The Conservation Foundation to its latest partnerships with Me To We, The Travel Corporation's TreadRight Foundation has been lending a helping hand to communities and regions around the world for 10 years - and there’s no signs of slowing down.

The first decade of The Travel Corporation’s charitable arm – which supports more than 50 sustainable tourism projects worldwide – was celebrated in Toronto last night at the WE Global Learning Centre, welcoming guests from the travel industry and beyond.

The Travel Corporation CEO Brett Tollman was joined by a number of special guests throughout the evening, including Craig Kielburger, Co-Founder of WE Charity who was joined on stage for a Q&A session with Canadian hip-hop star and WE ambassador Kardinal Offishall; Indigenous activist Sarain Fox; electronic musician and dancer Classic Roots; and inspirational speaker Spencer West.

More good news was announced as a surprise that night: during the event, Lion World Travel President Cris David told attendees that sister brand Africa Travel had raised enough money through a recent fundraising initiative for 250 children to attend school.

READ MORE: The Travel Corporation to cut out single-use plastics

“Focused on sustainability”

Tollman told PAX that the focus for TreadRight has changed since the foundation’s inception in 2008, when it was known as the Conservation Foundation, shifting from a broader approach to focus on projects with immediate impact on local communities. Among TreadRight’s latest initiatives include partnering with the Iraq Al-Amir Women’s Cooperative in Jordan, providing opportunities for women in the region; and the Anatolian Shepherd Dogs project in South Africa, providing local farmers with the animals as a means of livestock protection from cheetahs and leopards, an alternative to shooting the big cats.

“It’s about protecting our communities and the planet,” Tollman said. “In the beginning, we focused on a couple of big projects, spending $500,000 on preserving the Atlantic Forest in Brazil and a similar amount of money with the World Wildlife Foundation, supporting an indigenous community in the northwest of Australia. Those projects didn’t have any meaningful outcome, so we learned subsequently that doing something that has meaning to a local community or trying to protect rhinos in Africa is a better approach."

Getting agents and travellers on board

Tollman said that storytelling for the foundation is a key to getting travellers and the travel industry on board with its projects. To that end, a new video based on the theme of ‘People, Wildlife & Planet’ was launched recently:

“It’s like anything – for some people it’s very moving and touching, others not so much,” Tollman said. “That’s why we’ve enhanced our storytelling with this new four minute video on TreadRight, to some recent videos we’re finishing right now. The majority of people need to be moved, so we need to have video to do this.

“The more people we reach, the better we do and the more profit we can put back in to TreadRight.”

The storytelling factor is especially important in reaching agents, Tollman said.

“We have so many messages in each of our many brands,” he explained. “From an agent standpoint, there’s all that messaging to remember on top of all the other brands they need to know about. It’s about getting agents to remember what we do and why they should book with us. It’s also about getting travellers aware of these things and ask their agents for those experiences. We’re so agent-focused – we don’t build our brand on TV – so it’s essential that all of our travel partners buy into this and study it before recommending to the appropriate traveller.”

Sustainability across TTC

In addition to TreadRight’s sustainable initiatives, that spirit is alive and well throughout The Travel Corporation.

Earlier this year, the company pledged to eliminate single-use plastics over the next five years; this initiative will be seen by travellers first-hand on Contiki tours in 2019, with the inclusion of a new reusable water bottle (and charcoal filter) on all of the tour operator’s itineraries. If successful, Tollman said the water bottles will be featured on trips through TTC’s other brands.

One company initiative in particular was pioneered at TTC’s Canadian headquarters, in the form of green retrofits to the building’s heating/cooling and electrical systems, which have yielded energy and financial savings for the company. The retrofits have been exported to other TTC offices around the world, Tollman said, who described the Toronto office as a “shining beacon” of sustainability to the entire company.

According to TTC Canada President Jeff Element, it comes down to doing the right thing.

“It’s a journey we’ve been on for a while,” he told PAX. “It reduces our footprint and it’s the right thing to do. We have people at our Toronto office who are very passionate about this, and have helped us find the right technology and have the energy to ensure it’s installed properly.”

“It’s also helped us attract the best and the brightest in the travel industry – they want to be associated with a company that feels this way.”