Greg Takehara's career-long quest for the positive power of tourism
welcome to the future of tourism podcast i'm david peacock stop owning your own content young leaders are stepping up bring everyone to the table and imagine their world anew [Music] 24 years ago united states tourism operators association founded the travelers conservation fund for awarding tourism development related grants two decades and a half later that prescient moment in the positive power of tourism has evolved into the innovative humanistic global tourism development and enabling organization that you and i know as tourism cares tourism cares has a strong history of bringing players from across industries together to collaborate and drive development and innovation they have a hyper focused local model coupled with a high level industry overview and network their mission unite the travel industry and be a global catalyst of positive social environmental and economic impact for the people and places of travel greg takahera is tourism care's ceo he's a founding member of the future of tourism coalition and trust me on this one he's someone you definitely want to have a long conversation with about the future of this industry we care so much about if you ever get the chance hello greg how are you where are you what's it like hi david thank you for having me i am at home in orlando a home that is fairly recent for me having spent the last three years in boston we recently just shut our doors and when i say that certainly tourism cares hasn't shut its doors but like so many we have gone fully virtual so our nine employees our staff members are all across the country now and so with that i relocated to orlando we have two in the bay area we have one in seattle one in chicago three remain in boston and one in providence rhode island well i'm a personal big fan and i i believe we get a tremendous amount out of dedicated people who can work virtually and um it just works out when you have that combination it's hard to manage but i've seen a ton of benefit myself so i couldn't agree more with you on the fact that being dispersed is sometimes an innovative thing um it's nice to get back together but that said let's move right into this um tourism cares i gave the briefest of overviews can you just outline it for us where are we at uh you have a long history of tremendous um contributions to this industry um sometimes the most poignant of indus at moments uh such as the relief stuff you did it around some of the disasters uh in in the in the early part of the the 20 2000's um you've evolved into a remarkable force for good with a with a broad goal that you have uh not just inspired people within your organization with but have joined others in the world so let me hand it to you and tell us about george mccarrich please great well thank thanks for that and you you know summated our mission um so i'll take you back exactly um you know for us i guess you when you go back to uh the travelers conservation fund you are going back two decade two and a half decades um it was really the united states tour operators association and a couple of other associations uh most notably the national tour association the american society of then travel agents now travel advisors uh as well as iata that kind of decide that decided at that kind of juncture moment to bring their philanthropies bring their foundations under one umbrella which then became tourism cares and you may recall post 911 then president bush made a call to the american people made a call for volunteer work uh or you know for everybody to roll up their sleeves essentially and give back and that was the industry's cry at that time you know how are we going to catalyze our groups together to do exactly that and i was fortunate to be one of 300 travel and tourism professionals who gathered uh in 2003 at ellis island for the first ever tourism cares event and i remember it just it hit me so hard at that time in terms of the impact that we were able to make just in a couple of days having those national park service representatives talk about um literally emotionally talking about how it would have taken them months to do the work that was done really in the matter of two days craig i got to tell you i i did not know that that was the genesis of the lsi island meeting wow that is that's an incredible story please i'd keep going i just had to sure yeah and for me the the feeling that i had was and then i i drank the kool-aid very early on uh was that uh you know i really wanted to give back um to the industry that had given me my livelihood and to be surrounded by my industry colleagues and to get to do this great work together was just so gratifying and that really was the kind of the foundation of tourism cares in the early days in terms of that focus on volunteer work and i kind of call that the days of you know the before and after picture we showed a lot of before and after pictures and they were dramatic and they were great but we kind of recognized that as we were evolving we needed to deepen our impact and we needed to deepen our impact globally and as well you referenced the fact that we did a lot of disaster response then as well too so we've been down to the gulf coast many times post hurricanes to work with those communities and you know that was some of the most impactful work and very emotional work uh but we also you know see this opportunity to kind of be kind of transformed with the times unfortunately to be a disaster response organization right now would be like responding to something every week unfortunately indeed indeed we're looking at the bigger issues of sustainability and climate change now and really how can we move the industry's needle in terms of progress toward goals that really are sustaining goals for us in terms of an industry it's so interesting i just did a presentation at the cited conference in dc i just got back last night and i spoke to a group that hasn't been together in three years for many of them the last time they saw me i was wearing my insurance hat because previous to this my day job was in travel insurance spent a lot of time talking to people about risk management and asset management and the thing that i said to them was that in so many ways my job hasn't changed we're still talking about the same thing we're talking about risk management we're talking about asset management the difference is is that i used to have an insurance policy to essentially transfer risk too and now the types of issues that we're talking about that threaten our industry are not risks that we can transfer over to an insurance policy they're ones that have to be self-managed and they're ones that we have to work collectively together in order to accomplish but it's so interesting that my own personal evolution has been such that you know those insurance principles really translate to a lot of the work that we're doing with tourism cares it's just a really just the way that you look at it well the investment in sort of a preventative bulwark against erosion and i mean that in in a metaphorical sense in destinations not just physical um we've we've talked about tourism cares genesis we've talked about some of the very high level thinking and sustainability but and the and literally on ground fingernails in the dirt you know recovery stuff but there's also the training and education piece which has become so apparent around the world i see destinations on the on the verge of becoming their own identities who don't have tools or resources to leverage what they have which is incredibly unique cultures or ideas that can be shared with the world that don't need to be rolled over but they need those resources now planning resources so that they can collectively shape their future tourism cares has stepped very clearly into that lane you you are doing destination inspirational visioning and planning um one manifestation of that is is your uh your your impact uh series and your victoria's sustainability conference but you've done a lot of on the ground working tourism training and planning at this planet excuse me i'll put that the other way planning and training at this point as well right yeah we are getting ready for a meaningful travel summit in victoria british columbia next month september 28th through 30th uh where we're going to be spotlighting you know local change makers uh really doing incredible work in the victoria area around nature-based experiences talking about how they're managing wild wildlife and wilderness areas talking about the symbiotic relationship with indigenous groups we're talking about maintaining healthy marine life in that area all necessary in order to really have their tourism product continue to thrive that is i think what everybody goes to victoria for and that's uh the very delicate balance that they're dealing with right now and uh we're hoping that by bringing our group of over a hundred travel and tourism professionals they will leave inspired by the work that that local community is doing they will see the level of collaboration that is being um you know that is being conducted between the various different segments the government there as well as the work as i mentioned before with the indigenous groups ensuring that there's always a local voice at the table and kind of take and more or less taking that home with them we always use the last day of our meaningful travel summit as uh like kind of a call to action breakfast hopefully they've absorbed the education they've gone into the second day where they've rolled up their sleeves and they've worked side by side with the community to really get a sense of the work that is being done and then they go home inspired with a whole set of different tools and a whole set of inspiration that they can then use to operationalize sustainability into their personal lives into their organizations uh and into their communities so let's talk about that just for a second because um if if i had to pick um you know a shining star in the in the march towards regenerative and sustainable tourism for sure the work that destination greater victoria has been doing has been a standout in canada for about four or five years the impact conference is there paul nursey and his team have done great work to nurture this the relationship with the mayor mayor phelp mayor of helps is incredible um so you're walking into a really ripe situation there it's kind of it must be kind of exciting to be work working in a place where you know you're going to have your progressive groups at the table but you're bringing other other um unusual suspects to the table too aren't you yeah it's you know it's i talk about again in evolution in terms of our meaningful travel summits i i think that for us we used to target emerging destinations in particular to try to kind of like squeeze out nuggets and bring these nuggets to light but we're also seeing the value of taking what we would call really high bar best practice destinations like victoria we're going to in april we're going to norway and you know really putting forth something that can only be described as a lifestyle that you know that that they foster that they've essentially grown up with and they truly believe in with their heart and soul and it's shown in everything that they do i was in norway last year for ustoa sustainability as responsibility summit we saw examples of how development projects take into account not only the 17 united nations sustainable development goals but the 144 targets that belie those 17 goals and you actually see it graphically all broken out all evaluated that's the level that how deep their thinking is relative to sustainability in terms of any project that they approach well and that's and that's a specific focus of tourism cares is the alignment with other bodies for the practices the the practice of best practices sharing and that's happening a lot which is a good sort of segue to talk about athens where a you're going to talk about 177 measurements directly as part of as as part of the green tourism summit and sorry the future tourism coalition um but you're also going to to to drill more into that sharing of best practices i take it so tell us a little bit about athens please well i i say that with a little sadness in my eye given the fact that unfortunately the future of tourism coalition summit day in athens is directly conflicting uh with our meaningful travel summit in in victoria british columbia and uh i unfortunately don't have the superhero power of being in two places at one time uh that being said uh we are going to report directly from victoria into athens to talk about the work that we're doing there um because as you mentioned the future of tourism coalition was one of those silver linings from the pandemic where you know tourism cares along with five other ngos decided to join forces again um rep you know representing the adage of you know we can only do better together and i think for me what i love in particular about the coalition is that we spend a lot of time talking to our communities about the necessity of collaboration and how we need to put aside competition and we need to foster collaboration and to me you always have to walk the walk and and this is our way as non-profits to show that we don't only make those pronouncements but we also walk the walk so we get to work together we get to still spotlight our own individual toolkits but we recognize that as a collective toolkit we can do a lot in particular for destinations we put together 13 guiding principles that are centered on destinations and what we feel is proper destination stewardship and the types of principles that should be you know foundational for destinations and we've gotten over 700 signatories to those guiding principles we've been fortunate to work with the likes of our coalition partners who have been very active in terms of drafting the glasgow declaration which was featured at cop26 had the opportunity to get to do some small edits to those glass to that declaration so feel very much a part of that um and similarly we've received over you know several several hundred signatories to that particular declaration and that's a good it's just a growing movement so we're excited it's going to be our first time ever together in athens um it is in conjunction with green destinations annual event um and we're hoping that we're going to have more in-person events as a coalition together so greg in there you've also taken a particular focus on destination organizations and we're doing it in many in many different disciplines around the world now we see a network of organizations throughout the world that are particularly connected to the place they are in and the world around it and i think there's a huge and emerging role for destination organizations to play what may be one one of the most very important roles in sustainability which is connecting those networks um talk a little bit to me about the next three years in the world of destination organizations you're working with a lot of them i'm working with a lot of them they're all willing participants in this they need to get started they need tools but let's talk specifically to to our audience of destination executives here about what comes next sure well i mean we've already spent so much time within this conversation talking about evolution right david and you know be it the evolution of tourism cares or or the evolution of the the origins of the future of tourism coalition i think one of the most recent evolutions within tourism cares work is the fact that we would put together these meaningful travel summits and we'd start to work with these destinations like jordan like colombia and you know i i just stated you know we're going to be in norway um our own domestic destinations like you know victoria and the work that we've done you know we've referenced in new orleans for instance you know in particular with the focus around disaster response um and the byproduct of those summits has been our meaningful map working with those destinations to build out a meaningful map typically highlighting social enterprises but not exclusive to social enterprises they could be non-profits or other entities or organizations that have a social environmental bent to them and building out a map of those particular communities and i think the evolution now that we're seeing is that rather than that being just a byproduct of the summit we're seeing that we really need to center our work around those meaningful maps in a much bigger way and that really requires um that collaboration with those destination organizations to help us identify those particular map pins as we like to say and then be able to spotlight that on the map promote them help them to get those into those tour operator itineraries and those travel advisor recommendations and then really bring a light to the local communities wow greg and yeah you hadn't talked about meaningful map and i've read about it and it's been fascinating me for a while and you just got me thinking about four ideas i want to talk to you about later on but maybe just tell people a bit about meaningful matt because in there uh there's a tremendous amount of work around authenticity and storytelling that that's endemic to everything tourism cares does and i'm glad you sort of hit on it but uh i'm starting to see a big picture meaningful map too that i didn't see before so just tell us a little bit about that please yeah i well it's it's interesting a lot of this has been like i said you know an evolution a culmination and i i think quite frankly i'm i'm grateful to you know be a board member on the united states travel association board that has given me a lot more exposure to destination representatives to be able to talk about our map and to be able to partner with a number of them we partnered with travel oregon for instance to develop map pins uh for a meaningful map of oregon that is part of our overall meaningful map of north america um and you know we have vetting criteria that go along with that um it's it's guide their guidelines um but we want them to be actual sellable you know either sellable attractions or organizations that are you know operating organizations that typically just don't have that exposure to the mass tourism marketplace but but they're also all they're also all tied deeply into the ethos of what tourism cares is about the people who are sourcing the content for the meaningful map they're not they are really telling the story of why this is a meaning quote meaningful destination yeah i mean a lot of that was spawned you know when we talk about the disaster recovery work that we did in new orleans was identifying for instance you know um you know a a local um cafe reconcile which was an inner city an inner city restaurant that essentially trains inner-city youth you know and and really provides them all the tools that they need to learn about hospitality from the ground up um and it is those types of places that we would then visit when we'd go there that we said we really need to put a spotlight on places like this these are the not just because your great stories but because as as our friend greg oates said mmg i like to say you know uh in fort worth during the pandemic because they'd engaged because they were storytellers of their own place then when the pandemic hit the various channels were still on and people could still off that experience authentic fort worth the the same they just line up i mean it's not just great stories it's the stories that drive people together and link them together i love that piece yeah exactly meaningful map how big is it now um it's growing we you know we're building out the map pins within um north america um i would say i do i haven't done a recent count i i so i i hope i'm not completely off base but i you know i would say we're you know of a hundred map pins or something along those lines uh but uh you know again i think the the global work that we need to do with the meaningful map i think we've always kind of segmented that and said we have a meaning a global meaningful map and then but the global meaningful map has only grown as a result of the work that we've done within our summits so we have that meaningful map of jordan our meaningful map of columbia meaningful map we're looking at ways that we can build out a greater global meaningful map without necessarily having to do a summit in each one of those places you know requires those types of relationships uh we've talked to a number of different destinations who are very keen on you know creating for instance like a fam trip around those type of meaningful experiences in in three years every destination will have its own cognitive or frame of reference meaningful map anyway that's because the the tourism the traveler will demand it data will demand it simply to to be able to direct us it'll be fine yes this is going to be exciting this is i'll talk to you more about this is exciting this is really exciting three three years we're gonna we're gonna take the clock right now twenty three years all right three years and see how many meaningful map implementations you have that have other applications attached to my it will grow logarithmically this is very interesting yeah yeah well thanks for that now you got me betting on my own show i think that's an indebted indictable offense anyway um we're running a little on time athens and victoria are back to back they're both at the end of the month right at the end of september yes what's the date on what's what's happening 29th that is the coalition day and then the meaningful travel summit in victoria the 28th to 30th of september okay we're running long on time here i've taken up big piece your day and you've been in transit for a day at least i know as well so just as we part here um words to the industry will circle back with you obviously on progress but anything you just want to share as you go and we roll into the september october pre-christmas you know get things done time period i i think the the feeling that there is is that travel is indeed transformative we talk about it it can sound very cliche um but we all know the types of experiences that we've all felt we're excited about our 20-year anniversary next year reflecting back on that first ever event in ellis island we are looking to do a collaborative effort with a number of other organizations including the travel foundation and others um you know next fall that we're going to have an exciting announcement around um you know we have a good friend with the blacks and travel collaborative and stephanie jones and we've had some conversations with her so we're going to have a very exciting announcement around the corner about a very unique summit that's going to really catalyze culture community and climate all under you know all under one umbrella um we all we haven't even touched on diversity equity inclusion but we know how important that is within the whole sustainability picture as well as well greg takahara like i said if if anyone ever gets a chance to sit down and talk to you don't miss it it's a great pleasure every time we talk i i really enjoy it thanks for spending your time on this uh have a great trip um stay well all right thank you david
2022-09-17 00:17
