Running a Sustainable Travel Business: Conscious Travel in Costa Rica

hello and welcome wherever you are in the world today thank you for joining us for the rise traveler unpacking conversations of sustainable travel we are here to talk to eco-minded and socially conscious Travelers diversity and inclusion Specialists Wildlife conservationists environmental activists and anyone using travel as a way to uplift and inspire together we will go a Step Beyond the Instagram ready world of travel and take a look at how travel can be a source of growth and development for all people and all communities this podcast is an extension of the rise travel Institute a 501c3 non-profit committed to empowering young Travelers through educational programs research study tours and scholarships visit rise travelinstitute.org to learn more and now here's your host Amy Hager hello hello hello wherever you are in the world today thank you for joining us for another conversation on the rise traveler unpacking conversations of sustainable travel we're here to talk about how travel can be uplifting and inspiring going A Step Beyond that Instagram ready world of travel and take a look at how travel can be a source of growth and development for all people in all communities and so here at the rise travel Institute we're committed to empowering young Travelers through educational programs research study tours and scholarships so you can learn more by visiting rise travelinstitute.org I'm your host Amy Hager welcome and today I'm so excited to have with me Ann Becker who's all the principal strategic advisor here at rise and she's joining me live remotely from Chicago so Anne thank you for spending a little time with me today thank you Amy I've seen your picture I've listened to your podcast but it's really a delight to see you in person and I also want to thank you for all you do for Rice oh well thank you I think it's again one of the best teams I've ever been a part of and just to see how we all come from different spaces in the world and from different backgrounds but to come together to really uplift travel is so much fun and you're kind of feeding into the first question that I want to ask you today and is I know that you you've worn multiple hats here at Rice so first of all I know you're a donor and a supporter you also did a review of our pilot program and I I read some of your reviews and they were ravings so that always warms my heart and now you're our principal strategic advisor and so I guess I want to ask you like why are you so dedicated to rise in our mission yeah well I think it goes back to you to 2019 going into 2020 and some degree of serendipity I had made the decision already that February 2020 was going to be my final out of 15 years of annual leading annual women's trips in Costa Rica I had made that decision and I thought after that I was going to take some time back to reflect on what I had learned how I might share it more broadly I was going to take the global sustainable tourism council's course in sustainable tourism to kind of think about all the experiences I had had in leading trips and how did they fit into these more or less academic Frameworks right and so that those are my plans and but at the same time 2020 was going to be a year of quite a bit of trouble trouble or my husband and me we were both um not fully retired we're still not really fully retired we were well on the path and we had all these plans of we were going to reconnect with long long time dear Swiss friends in Berlin and then go hiking in Slovakia and Poland a friend of mine and I were gonna do a hiking trip in the Grand Canyon my husband and I were going to return to Vietnam again to visit our very dear friends there um and you know we were at a point we're very privileged to be uh largely retired but with the time and the means to travel and visit with friends around the world who mean so much to us so then you know everyone knows what happened in March of 2020 so shut down no shutdown and I was the the GSTC program started right around then so I was part of the first cohort of two or people travel people from all over the world who were participating in that wow but I also um was like oh we we had put out money for all these different trips and travel experiences and the money was coming back to us and at the same time it was coming back to us I was seeing that there was just so much need in the not only internationally but need in our local community from local restaurant tours who overnight didn't have their business wanted to figure out how they could potentially keep their employees um getting food and other things to seniors who couldn't necessarily get out at all but I also am very deeply connected with a community on the Southwest coast of Costa Rica or I spent an enormous amount of time I know them really well and overnight they had no tourism they live in an area where almost all the land is protected so there's very little opportunity for local agriculture and I reached out to colleagues there that run a community-based organization and I said to them what is the most important thing you need and they said what we really need right now is access to food and then developing our own distribution strategy to get food in these communities people who need them most so I started um something called the Drake Bay emergency fund working with that local organization and also a non-profit in the US called Amigos of Costa Rica we were and I leveraged a lot of my contacts and colleagues from um all my Costa Rica work and we we raised we were able to raise in Fairly short order almost twenty thousand dollars which is very very carefully managed distributed it was a stepping stone to the community taking a step back and saying during this time period what can we do to strengthen ourselves as a community how can we come back better prepared if and when travel does open again so I was doing all those things and at the same time I met Vincy because um we ended up being part of the same uh committee or team for the impact travel Alliance and I just really connected with her she connected with me yeah I was so in awe and appreciative of her vast knowledge her incredible thoughtfulness and I would say that the other thing was that it was really clear to me also as a long time business owner that this was a woman who was being very thoughtful and deliberate and planful about how to create something for which I thought there was a need in the broader and I was very appreciative of the mission but also just how Vincy was going about to try to build a healthy hopefully long-term sustainable non-profit so the I I supported a couple of scholarships for the first um rise pilot program Vincy said you're more than welcome to join the program I started the program and I thought oh I'm not going to do it all I'll just do this and this and that and that yeah I did it all right we loved it I felt like it was another way to take my learnings from my own work when I was learning from the global sustainable tourism Council and to continue to really learn and reflect I mean I love this system's thinking about sustainability especially the spiritual domain I learned a lot more about indigenous tourism and I reflected on oh what had I done well when I brought my groups to meet certain indigenous communities in Costa Rica yeah we're gonna make some mistakes so if I were to do that again how would I do it differently and um really appreciating the complexities of the issues of Wildlife and Wildlife tourism and what does it mean not just for the animals but what are the challenges for the local community in the case of elephants who take care of the things these things are all really complex and but they're fascinating and um I just love the ongoing learning element thoughtful engagement the encouragement to ask tough questions um the discussions around privilege and intersectionality and just I felt so strong that rise is really equipping people to be more thoughtful and engaged Travelers in its centers which has always been a passion of mine local people local communities and our planet it doesn't first and foremost Center The Traveler The Traveler has an important role to play but travel does not revolve around the Trap The Traveler yeah between all that plus the fact that you know I've had all this business experience of my own and I through that I really worked with a lot of non-profits a lot of philanthropic foundations yeah agencies I just I just thought um this is an organization that I could really put my heart and mind behind and I hope that I can become a helpful resource and sounding board and so that's where we are and then um just about a year ago that Vincy and I decided to formalize this arrangement of my being a principal strategic advisor so nice I love it passionate about rise in case you can't jump yeah there's a lot of passion but I think the beautiful thing is that it really started from from nothing and has grown right and so for you to be here through the shifts and the change and the growth and you know from the ground up it's such a beautiful thing to watch being built and to be a part of being built right and so to tie this back to you and your story and your company I mean you've built a company from the ground up so what's the story behind inspiring you to start your own company what's the mission what what do you do exactly I've done a lot of different things um yeah I mean first the backdrop is that I'm a very long time owner and CEO of a full-service meeting and event management company I did that for the majority of my career because I have a lot of background and a graduate degree that has a public policy Dimension to it okay I was always really interested in opportunities to work with private non-profit organizations philanthropic foundations and government agencies and my passion in doing that work and it's kind of how I first got into it is really the creative program designed with meaningful participatory engagement so never an event or a meeting for the sake of a meeting yeah an event or a meeting that is purposeful and has benefit to an organization's Mission and organization's plan and really engages the participants in helping move that move that meeting or that work forward so that was my particular passion but I knew if I was going to have a full service meeting and event business then I needed to have strong Logistics management and strong marketing and selling expertise yeah I ran that for um a very long time and I I loved it I mean it was a great way to get involved in all kinds of interesting right who's an amazing people and it was great um and at the same time I would say that for my the almost as long as I can remember from my international travel my travel experiences have always been filled with home stays and deep connections I lived with a family or a summer in Switzerland between my Junior and senior year in high school life-changing living in a little village on the shore of the bowden's day or lake Constance on the Swiss German border I had the privilege and really Joy of studying in France and college and living in a home there where I just was able to use my French the entire time and be able to do graduate research in the Philippines and small communities um so and I've never had any desire to kind of travel where everyone else goes all the time not my thing I guess um so anyways in 2005 my husband and I went with our younger son um to Costa Rica I heard it was a wonderful place for people to go with teenagers there was a lot of outdoor activity educational activity Recreation and in contrast to a lot of different things it was a place that you could go where actually you and your teenagers actually kind of hung out together quite a bit yeah um and I was completely smitten completely um I had never been to Central America completely smitten and I turned around in like eight weeks later I took my mom who was then 78 back with me wow a wonderful mother-daughter trip um I came home and I said to my husband I don't know what it's gonna be I don't know exactly when it's gonna be but I'm gonna figure out a way to go back and obviously can't always be a vacation or whatever I can figure out a way financially that will enable me to go back I didn't know if it was um Spanish Immersion I didn't know it was going to be some kind of volunteer activity but I was I am very entrepreneurial so it's like my whirling dervish kind of pose and talking to people and making phone calls and the longest short of it was I connected with this little company that was based outside Seattle that has has done student trips for a long time um and at their student trips involve home stays involved spending time in local communities involved a little bit of meaningful kind of volunteer activity and in a lot of in a lot of locations that a lot of people who go to Costa Rica don't know anything about go to yeah and when I talked to one of the principals on the phone he said I know what you ought to do you ought to organize a customized trip for women and we'll help you put it together and I think and I said what I mean my first reaction was was literally forgive my friend why the hell should I do that all my time organizing my clients and family whatever and they said well and first of all you have been telling us you've been talking to all your women colleagues and friends and they all say if you come up with anything interesting you should let them know they said secondly we're clearly enamored of Costa Rica you've been bitten by the Costa Rican bug and thirdly you because you've had this visited experience you know how to Market and sell you know what it takes to actually foot a trip together based on similar elements to organizing meetings and events and so those are the reasons why I think we think you should consider this so I said okay I'll think about it five days later I called him back and I said all right I'm ready to go I've recruited my first five women oh Jesus February wasted no time and no time I mean it's gonna be in this is July of 2005. I said it was going to be in February of 2006. it's going to be a pilot project and that's what I'm telling everybody if it goes well great maybe I'll do it every year if it doesn't go well at least I've told everyone it's a pilot project yeah so that that was that it was kind of a it was it was a crazy itinerary ridiculous but how little I really knew but I got assigned the perfect guide who ended up being the guide I worked with for all 15 years of my leading these trips has become a dear friend of our family and um uh you know over time we just fine-tune things I would do a scouting trip with him every year I built my network of participants referral sources Etc um and I added in for several years co-ed Spanish cultural immersion trips a lot of family and friends trips it was it was great but my my goal was never to grow the company in terms of huge volume and huge Geographic reach it wasn't about that I figured I've already built a meetings business I'm still doing the meetings business but given where I am in my life I wasn't like going to be building a huge full-service Soup To Nuts we're gonna go everywhere kind of company yeah I really did want to grow it deeply and um so for me the people connections have always been the core yeah and so every time I would do a scouting trip I would meet new people or would I would revisit people that maybe we visited before and I'd learn about what they were working on now were there new opportunities to engage um my group I would develop new collaborations because I have Costa Rica is a small country and now I have a pretty strong network of colleagues and I like supporting newish Endeavors in local tourism so that's really what I did for 15 years and then I just got to the point where I said I really love this but the fact of the matter is that um I'm it's starting to tie me down in terms of the planning the management in a way that I don't want to be tied down anymore and so while I no longer lead trips I'm still very active in the travel and tourism space and what I've done since I've finished leading trips is with um travel with an experiential is I'm very committed to raising and including more diverse voices making strategic connections contributing fresh perspectives and thought leadership and counseling not-for-profits and small businesses in this space on how best to strengthen organizational capacity so I'm I'm like I'm an advisor a connector a resource a sounding board um trying to share knowledge that will be helpful but also build Bridges and connections that can also be helpful to others who are just at different places in the industry right now okay and so then with all of the trips that you've planned and places that you've gone and I know you had mentioned this before where you know taking the pilot program kind of helped you reflect on some of the travel that you've done and maybe it wasn't so ethical or sustainable so what would you give for advice or what would you do now when you plan a trip to make sure it's ethical and sustainable okay all right these are the things that um I would do that I that I would or think about yeah planning I mean I would say that the the first thing is just a general the importance of being thoughtful and intentional intentional about one's plans whether it's exploring like a new neighborhood or whether it's exploring someplace far away um I think it's really important to think about where am I even thinking about going how would I get there what are the climate implications of what my travel would require am I going to a place or do I want to go to a place that even really wants visitors yeah um how heavy is the travel footprint there already no what's the capacity of the area um are there significant negative impacts on the environment if I want to go to that part of the world or that country can I choose ways to visit it that would actually it's I would I won't say less in the footprint as maybe spread the footprint a little more comfortably equitably for instance in October my husband and I were in Portugal well if you look at a lot of the media on Portugal but you see it some days you think Portugal is Lisbon Porto and the Doro Valley yeah and because that's quite frankly where everyone goes yeah and um I I just knew that that wasn't the kind of trip that made sense for us I also knew that there are some amazing areas of Portugal that not that many people visit where one can spend a lot of time outdoors I mean we spend time in the only National Park in the country literally other than seeing a few cows on a day that we hiked yeah I don't think we saw another human being and Amy it was stunningly beautiful yeah has a complex history um and other places like that that just um yes did we spend a little time in Port though yeah yeah spend a little time in Lisbon yeah actually at the end our Swiss friends met us and we rented an apartment there for a few um few days but we didn't have like a long list of we have to do this we had to do that right an attitude of we're going to wander sometimes not know where we're going like one day we just took the ferry across the river went to a small town and let's just and you said let's see where this tape says on this for the moment I went into this little shop um and I got my hair cut there because my other friend from Switzerland periodically does that I'm just gonna do this I love it I mean we had my husband and I had a wonderful conversation with the shop owners and wow why they're in Portugal now and all that so I don't and it wasn't a rush it wasn't a rush right um so I I think that's that's all really important I think spending time in the outdoors in nature and you can see from how people talk ever since the pandemic of the increasing importance of that but I just think the opportunity to spend some time outdoors in nature um you know it can be strictly walking hiking it can be a guided walk or hike to learn something about the local Flora the local fauna yeah that that spending time feeling connected to the land I think is really important I think another thing is like um everybody who talks now about support local support local support local and I think as somebody thinking to travel it's you have to push and really uncover well what does support local mean in this area um you know the front of the house maybe local employees but the accommodations could be owned by someone or some company right away how much then of your dollars are actually going to support the employees and staying in the community versus what is the leakage where that money is ending up far away um I think as well that what and where are there opportunities to engage with local people hear their stories stories but also share their stories and again it's like you'll see now far more push on local activities Etc and I think it's one thing to say um like in Costa Rica we're going to go to home and we're going to learn how to make tortillas or make chocolate or whatever that that is great but there's an opportunity there that oftentimes I think Travelers don't take advantage of there's an opportunity to gauge more fully with those who are the hosts of that moment in conversation not just about the chocolate not just about the tortillas but you know tell me more about um you know when your family eats tortillas are there times when you all come taking them together yeah things like that that really pull people out in a conversation that can be two-way and even in the last few months I mean there have been two distinct conversations where I've said to someone when we're traveling and the most recent was a couple weeks ago in Colombia this is both instances been guides and I said you know could I ask you a question are you comfortable sharing your personal story with us I don't ever want to assume that right in one instance the person just he smiled but he also had a few tears in his eyes and because it was a difficult story for him to share but he wanted to share it and at the end Amy um and I shared a little bit more about my story and but at the end he gave me the most incredible hug as we were leaving the tour and that will always always stay with me love it even in Colombia in the um the town of Palenque where there's really an incredible afro-caribbean history Amazing Story incredible town we have a guide that's from that Community like going back generations and even then towards the end I said to him Danilo said everything you're shared is so fantastic can you tell us a little bit more about you and this smile that came across his face was so special and he talked about how he kind of been a free spirit and it wasn't until he landed on what he wanted to do for his community um and welcome tourists to have a better understanding of the origins in the history of his community that he really felt like he found himself and someone said this to me are incredibly important and they are so the connections are so valuable and part of the reason why I think that connections are so valuable is that they bring joy they bring joy to the person who's asked the question and they bring joy and understanding to the person who's asking that person to respond to the question so I think those things are really important um and then I think my last thing I would say is that um I always try to tell people to don't overbook or over schedule people look at a country like Costa Rica or even a country like Colombia and the U.S perspective those countries look small they you know geography they may be smaller but what it takes to get from one area to another yeah really can be incredibly complicated and it's better to pick just a few places or even one place settle in try to go deep yeah it's also really important just to make time to wander as I mentioned you know we have done in Portugal um I have a friend who said slow travel isn't about how much time you've spent it is about the pace of the time you have I think that's really that's so good even if you have three quarters of a day somewhere you you can still have a slow travel kind of experience with thee in terms of the attitude and the actions that you bring to that I love that well I think that's some really great advice and if anything that I'm hearing from you and your experience and is building those deep relationships go deep in the places that you visit right make time to wonder and really asking questions to create those Quality Connections is really what has helped and guided you through your company your tours your career and I think it's such great advice for our listeners today thank you so much for sharing my pleasure thank you and so that brings us to the end of our journey today and if you like what you've heard and you want to hear more please subscribe like and comment and here at the rice travel Institute We Believe travel is a powerful tool for positive transformative change and if you're a college student planning a study abroad trip or a young professional thinking about that Gap year or even someone coming out of retirement and looking to do more travel really we are wanting to help people travel the world in a sustainable way and so we encourage you to be her be we encourage you to head to rizetravelinstitute.com for more

information on our educational course and we'll be back soon with another episode but until then keep roaming keep learning and continue to be a rice Traveler bye bye this podcast is an extension of the rise travel Institute a 501c3 non-profit committed to empowering young Travelers through educational programs research study tours and scholarships visit rise travelinstitute.org to learn more

2023-08-04 04:28

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