G Adventures celebrates World Tourism Day with colourful party & exciting new announcements

It was a night to remember as G Adventures welcomed an estimated 900+ people to Toronto’s District 28 for an evening of music, food, immersive video, and even a virtual reality ‘India Encounter’, along with a host of exciting new announcements for a company that continues to up the ante in the adventure travel market.

“Today we’re here to celebrate tourism,” said Bruce Poon Tip, founder of G Adventures. “Tourism has the power to change the world… and if done right, it can be a force for good.”

Making G Adventures and its tours a force for good was what was behind its announcement last year of its ’50 in 5’ program – 50 new community development programs in five years – as part of G’s 25th anniversary celebrations. Already the company has raised $1.1 million towards this program and is ahead of schedule with the projects, with the first 12 already underway, including youth programs, indigenous programs, community programs and women’s programs worldwide.

As the company heads into 2017, a year that the UN has already declared to be the year of sustainable tourism for development, G Adventures wanted to do more to further change travel and the way people look at travel.

Bruce Poon Tip, founder of G Adventures.

With that in mind, the company announced two new initiatives last night: The ‘G Local’ program and the ‘Travel Better Club’.

The ‘G Local’ program was developed in partnership with Sustainable Travel International to come up with a way to gage G Adventures’ local impact and to create a score that can be marketed to the consumer that when they spend money on a G trip, a percentage of it is staying on the ground to benefit the local communities they visit. Ultimately the company’s goal with this program is to have a score for every trip.

The ‘Travel Better Club’, which will be officially launched to the general public at a UN event in 2017 as part of the year of sustainable tourism for development, has been designed specifically for the customer, as well as agents, to educate them. It is a 30-minute online learning module that introduces sustainable travel and addresses activities that take place during the three phases of travel (planning, onsite and returning home). The course incorporates multi-media content, real world examples and travel tips.

Poon Tip also announced the launch of 25 programs in the company’s ‘Limited Edition’ range, which are trips that depart less than six times per year. A few examples given that customers will be able to book and experience in 2017 are: the Cambodia Water Festival & Long Boat Race, Pizzafest in Naples, Sziget Festival in Hungary, the Inti Raymi Festival & Macchu Picchu, Jamiaca Reggae Sumfest and La Tomatina in Valencia. G Adventures is also adding 18 new programs to its hugely popular National Geographic Journeys.

But Poon Tip saved the biggest announcement for last… “Last year we decided we needed an animal welfare policy,” he said. Working with the Jane Goodall Institute, the company did just that, developing one that Jane Goodall herself official endorses. Which led to the night’s biggest news: “Tonight we’re very happy to announce The Jane Goodall Collection of Tours – 20 tours around the world that are connected to our animal welfare program and will give G travellers access to some of the areas where Jane Goodall did her studies on primates.” With some of the proceeds of all of these tours going directly to the Jane Goodall Institute in Canada.

For more information, visit gadventures.com