LAST WORD
Chief executive, The Travel Corporation and founder, The TreadRight Foundation.
Our Q&A with chief executive, The Travel Corporation and founder, The TreadRight Foundation, Brett Tollman.
Are you finding more interest in The TreadRight Foundation from a particular age group or demographic? Certainly more Gen Z and Millennials. I think it’s incumbent on us to do a better job of storytelling and to get our stories out there. We have been fairly cautious because we do this for the purpose of giving back and doing the right thing, not to use it as a platform for promoting and talking about what a great job we do – because I certainly don’t think we are doing anywhere near enough.
Tell us about the Make Travel Matter pledge that your customers can sign up to?
We rolled out our Make Travel Matter pledge which is really for each of our brands to uphold and it represents what TreadRight is all about. It’s just saying that we as individuals, as well as members of the
TTC team, uphold that we will not travel and be cruel to animals; we will not engage in an animal experience that’s inappropriate; we won’t use single-use plastics and if we do, we’ll make sure that we recycle them; we’ll respect the places and the homes we visit as if they were our own so that we’re not heavy handed and we tread right, and we tread light. The pledge was launched on World Tourism
Day on 27 September and we take no credit for it but recognise Palau’s First Lady, Debbie Remengesau, who introduced the Palau Pledge. One of the foundation’s Make Travel Matter pledges is: “When possible, I will offset my travels”. What are your thoughts on the current flight-shaming commentary? In one sense, it’s a big worry. If people say they’re not going to fly, it affects all of us, not just the industry, but people in general. I think it would be devastating to our planet, for so many reasons. People not being able to go to Africa and benefitting the local communities; and those people who wouldn’t have incomes from tourism and would be forced to then go into poaching for example, which is what many people do today. That would decimate the wildlife in Africa. I don’t think it’s the solution. We collectively need to put pressure on airlines to bring new biofuels and new solutions to the fore. We do provide carbon offsetting as options for our customers but I’m not a big believer in it because carbon offsetting just moves the problem from here to there. But it really doesn’t reduce the amount of carbon we are putting into the environment. The bottom line is our industry needs to coalesce and do a lot more, a lot faster.
Can you tell us more about the ‘Me to We’ tour program?
That for me is the most sustainable and the most amazing way to have a holiday.
I’ve taken my family so far to Kenya three years ago, India last year and next year I’m taking them to Ecuador. What Me to We does on the ground has been around for almost 25 years. It is truly sustainable in every sense. It has five pillars and when you see each of them in the works, on the ground, it really opens your heart and mind to how beneficial this is to the local populations. I’m the biggest advocate of the founders, brothers Craig and Marc Kielburger, and what the Me to We organisation does as a charity – it is really being a change for good.
What do you see the future of travel looking like, in 20 years’ time, when it comes to responsible tourism?
That travel is a force for good. The more we travel and the more we experience places, the less wars there will be. A better understanding of each other, acceptance and tolerance.
That we travel more off the beaten path. Where travellers want to explore the world, see new places – we certainly are seeing those trends; that we do travel with a conscience; and that we do travel with a lighter and smaller footprint.