Chief executive James Thornton explains how we've spent the past two years preparing to grow post-pandemic. This includes retaining our B Corporation status with an increased score, while the business has also made several recent acquisitions – and Thornton hasn’t ruled out more.
Three years after we became the world’s largest certified travel B Corporation, we've completed an extensive external audit to recertify our status, proving our commitment to running a purposeful business despite the challenges facing the tourism industry during the pandemic. We're particularly proud that we've achieved a new score of 91.2 from the B Corp Impact Assessment, an increase from our 2018 score of 82.7.
Intrepid Travel has announced the addition of 22 new “impact initiatives” to its itineraries in 2022. These are experiences that we define as activities that directly support environmental or wildlife conservation, preserve Indigenous culture or support marginalised social groups – bulking up an already robust portfolio of sustainable and ethical experiences around the globe.
Intrepid Travel features in AFAR's Tour Operators That Give Back series, explaining how our company is driven by a responsibility not only to travellers but also to the communities they visit and to the world itself.
Intrepid Travel is using the moment at COP26 to call on all tourism businesses to increase their commitment, including measuring and reducing their emissions in line with the United Nation’s ambition to limit the global temperature rise to 1.5°C. Intrepid is a signatory and launch partner of the Glasgow Declaration on Climate Action in Tourism, which aims to halve tourism emissions by 2030 and reach Net Zero as soon as possible before 2050.
Intrepid Travel has refreshed its brand, purpose and vision, in line with a new era of travel. The company's mission is to create positive change through the joy of travel, while its vision has been updated to: change the way we ALL see the world.
Intrepid Travel, via our not-for-profit The Intrepid Foundation, has surpassed our goal of raising AUD $100,000 for Unicef Australia to help deliver Covid vaccines to more than 20,000 people. Now, we're raising our ambition with a new goal of AUD $150,000, so we can have more impact and help protect more people in low-income countries from COVID-19.
To support our team to access vaccines as soon as they can, we offer all our global office-based team members paid vaccination leave, ensuring our people in 25 offices across the world can receive their vaccines as soon as they can. Staff can access two half days per office-based employee – wherever they’re based in the world. This ensures our people have the time to travel safely to and from their vaccination hub, and can receive their jab on ‘work’ hours. We're also fundraising for UNICEF Australia's Give the World a Shot fundraiser via The Intrepid Foundation to support the delivery of vaccines to low-income countries. Read our CEO's open letter here: https://www.intrepidtravel.com/adventures/global-vaccine-equity/
Each month, we recognise team members' significant work milestones and we recently celebrated an extra special anniversary – an amazing 20 years for Frank Cheshire, who leads our global cycling products. Frank decided to share some words with our team via the company intranet. We didn't ask him to write this, but we feel it sums up what it means to Be Intrepid.
Intrepid Travel has launched a global vaccine equity campaign, stepping up advocacy on global vaccinations with on-the-ground support in remote communities, a $100,000 donation from its foundation to UNICEF Australia, and a mandatory vaccination policy for all travellers and tour leaders. Our CEO James Thornton outlined our approach and why we believe this is fundamental to restarting economies and reviving global tourism.
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