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July 18, 2019 By bmorris

B-2-B Meetings

CONNECTS are business-to-business (B-2-B) meetings and an integral part of the annual conference! However, CONNECTS does not operate within a commercial trade show format.

CONNECTS is a networking and meeting platform designed to address product development challenges, identify new product offerings, stimulate conversation about global destinations, and share perspectives and ideas specific to educational travel.

Delegates can request pre-scheduled B-2-B meetings through the online portal, but are not required to do so.  Requesting meetings with individuals doesn’t mean guaranteed confirmations, instant sales, or a future relationship.

For efficient networking and meetings, CONNECTS is held in the International Bazaar where delegates can maximize their opportunities to engage with existing partners, source new contacts, and meet delegates beyond one’s familiar networks.

The CONNECTS scheduler opens approximately one month before the conference.

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Executive Advisory Council heads to Northern Ireland for Meetings this May
After two years of online meetings, the Executive Advisory Council (EAC) will return to an in-person mid-year meeting in 2022.
The EAC represents the diverse constituent bases within our community – global travel professionals and innovative leaders within universities, tour companies, museums and destinations.
They will participate in strategically-focused sessions to help plan the annual conference and initiatives that support the community year-round. EAC members will also experience an in-the-field learning program developed by our hosts and benefit from professional development segments lead by industry experts.

Module 1 – State of the Industry (most current trends, challenges and opportunities that exist across all the stakeholder groups)

Module 2 – Program Design (how the state of the industry should be reflected in conference 2022 programming)

Module 3 – Community Outreach (how ETC can advocate for and support our colleagues beyond the conference, DEI, Sustainability)

Module 4 – Professional Development (presentations from guest experts in security, insurance, DEI, destination issues)

Module 5 – Organizational Presentations (a chance for each EAC member to present about their program and to tell the host and other orgs present how they can best be supported)

ETC Member Update - Fred Ackerman

ETC Members and Black Sheep Adventures CEO, Fred Ackerman, worked with Stanford Travel/Study on a “Yellowstone in Winter” tour for a small group of Stanford alumni.

Highlights included sightings of bison, pronghorn antelope, elk, moose, bighorn sheep, bald eagles and a pack of wolves; hiking, snowshoeing and cross-country skiing.

Educational content was spearheaded by a Stanford biology Professor who worked in Yellowstone as a research scientist for the National Park Service and augmented by local experts.

Job Opportunity - Coordinator at SBMA

The Santa Barbara Museum of Art’s Travel & Special Programs Department is seeking a full-time Coordinator to work in the office (not remote).

Along with Lisa Benshea, the Coordinator will work on the 16-22 trips offered per year, as well as chamber music concerts, lectures, and other special programs. The position is mostly administrative when not traveling.

The position involves traveling as the museum staff representative/host on 2-5+ trips per year, depending on the programs and based on proven customer service shown by the Coordinator.  $23/hour plus bump in pay with each tour.

Please email Lisa Benshea for more details.

2021 Symposium Slide Decks

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2021

Mixing it up on Marketing: Inspiring and Engaging New Travelers

DEI 101: Expanding Diversity and Equity in Affinity Travel

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2021

Official Welcome and Opening Focus Session: From Curious to Courageous: Stepping into Contemporary Challenges and Expectations in Inclusive Authentic Cultural Heritage Tourism

DEI: Cultural Appropriation Vs. Appreciation

How To Really Move to Digital Marketing

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2021

The Importance of Story and Context to Lifelong Learning Through Travel

Seismic Shifts: A World in Recovery

Afternoon Focus & Closing: Consumer Trends Impacting Travel

 

2021 Symposium Live Stream and Audio Recordings

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2021

Mixing it up on Marketing: Inspiring and Engaging New Travelers (WATCH RECORDED LIVE STREAM)

What Operators Need from DMOs for Valued Experiences (LISTEN RECORDED AUDIO)

DEI 101: Expanding Diversity and Equity in Affinity Travel (WATCH RECORDED LIVE STREAM)

Cultural Heritage Tourism 2.0 New Research and Updated Market Profiles (LISTEN RECORDED AUDIO)

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2021

Official Welcome and Opening Focus Session: From Curious to Courageous: Stepping into Contemporary Challenges and Expectations in Inclusive Authentic Cultural Heritage Tourism (WATCH RECORDED LIVE STREAM)

Risk, Risk, Risk: Shifting Legal Issues (WATCH RECORDED LIVE STREAM)

Sharing Difficult History with Visitors: Case Studies (LISTEN RECORDED AUDIO)

DEI: Cultural Appropriation Vs. Appreciation (WATCH RECORDED LIVE STREAM)

Down to Details Legalese: Q&A with Legal Experts (LISTEN RECORDED AUDIO)

Midday Focus: Trends in Transformational Learning Through Travel (WATCH RECORDED LIVE STREAM

How To Really Move to Digital Marketing (WATCH RECORDED LIVE STREAM)

Sharing Difficult History with Visitors: Facilitated Discussion (LISTEN RECORDED AUDIO)

Afternoon Focus: History, Heritage, and Hope for the Future (WATCH RECORDED LIVE STREAM)

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2021

Regional Tastes of Colombia (WATCH RECORDED LIVE STREAM)

Morning Focus: The Importance of Story and Context to Lifelong Learning Through Travel (WATCH RECORDED LIVE STREAM)

Seismic Shifts: A World in Recovery (WATCH RECORDED LIVE STREAM)

Creative Interpretation Strategies for Destinations, Museums and Attractions (LISTEN RECORDED AUDIO)

Insurance and Safety Practices: How Best to Prepare (WATCH RECORDED LIVE STREAM)

Getting Ready for the Revolution: America 250 (LISTEN RECORDED AUDIO)

Mid-Day Focus: Trends, Challenges and Opportunities for Growing 21st Century Cultural Heritage Tourism (WATCH RECORDED LIVE STREAM)

Afternoon Irish Tea Experience (WATCH RECORDED LIVE STREAM)

iPhones, Androids and GoPros: How to Create Stories in Motion on Tour (LISTEN RECORDED AUDIO)

Messaging on Sustainable Travel: What can destinations, operators and planners say to travelers (WATCH RECORDED LIVE STREAM)

Afternoon Focus & Closing: Consumer Trends Impacting Travel (WATCH RECORDED LIVE STREAM)

 

Sessions Available to Online Learning Pass Holders
Note: All sessions are in Central Time (US & Canada). Live streamed sessions will also be recorded & posted on the ETC member dashboard.

Day One November 8, 2021                                     

3:30-4:45p (CT)       Affinity Roundtables: Special Topics (2)

Mixing It Up on Marketing: Inspiring and Engaging New Travelers (Recorded)

What Operators Need From DMOs for Valued Experiences (Live Streamed)

 

5-6p (CT)      Affinity Roundtables: Special Topics (2)

DEI Initiatives in Affinity Travel (Live Streamed)

Cultural Heritage Tourism 2.0: New Research & Updated Market Profile (Recorded)

 

Day Two, November 9, 2021                                    

8:30-10a (CT)         Welcome and Opening Symposium Focus: The Quest for Authentic and Inclusive Learning Experiences (Live Streamed)

 

10:30-11:30a (CT)   Concurrent Conversations I

Risk, Risk, Risk: Shifting Legal Issues (Live Streamed)

Sharing Difficult History with Visitors: Case Studies (Recorded)

 

11:45a-12:45p (CT) Concurrent Conversations II

Down to Details Legalese: Q&A with Legal Experts (Recorded)

DEI: Cultural Appropriation Vs. Appreciation (Live Streamed)

 

1:45-3p (CT)           Midday Focus: Trends in Transformational Learning Through Travel (Live Streamed)

 

3:15-4:15p (CT)       Deep Dive Topics (2)

Sharing Difficult History with Visitors: Facilitated Discussion (Live Streamed)

How To Really Move to Digital Marketing (Recorded)

 

4:30-5:30p (CT)       Afternoon Focus: History, Heritage, and Hope for the Future (Live Streamed)

 

Day Three, November 10, 2021 

8:30-9:30a (CT)       Morning Focus: The Importance of Story and Context to Lifelong Learning Through Travel (Live Streamed)

 

10-11a (CT)           Concurrent Conversations III

Seismic Shifts: A World in Recovery (Live Streamed)

Creative Interpretation Strategies: For Destinations, Museums and Attraction (Recorded)

 

11:15-12:15p (CT)   Concurrent Conversations IV

Insurance & Safety Practices: How to best prepare (Live Streamed)

Getting Ready for the Revolution: America 250 (Recorded)

 

1:15-2:15p (CT)       Mid-Day Focus: Trends, Challenges and Opportunities for Growing 21st Century Cultural Heritage Tourism (Live Streamed)

 

2:30-4p (CT)           Deep Dive Topics (2)

Iphones, Androids and GoPros: How to create stories in motion on tour (Recorded)

Messaging on Sustainable Travel: What can destinations, operators and planners say to travelers (Live Streamed)

 

4:15-5:30p (CT)       Afternoon Focus & Closing: Consumer Trends Impacting Travel (Live Streamed)

Dine Around

DINE AROUND
November 8, 2021

ALL OFFERS BELOW VALID ONLY FOR MONDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2021
FOR SYMPOSIUM ATTENDEES

Annunciation Restaurant

1016 Annunciation Street

New Orleans, LA  70130

504-568-0245

www.annunciationrestaurant.com

Offer: One complimentary glass of house wine with purchase of entrée

Reservations are recommended

Must mention Educational Travel Consortium at table to redeem offer

 

The Bower

1320 Magazine Street

New Orleans, LA  70130

504-582-9738

www.thebowernola.com

Offer: One complimentary whipped feta appetizer for every 2 guests with purchase of entrée (large plates and pastas).  There is a maximum of 8 people or 4 complimentary whipped feta orders for the offer.

Reservations are recommended by phone or Open Table but not required

Must mention Educational Travel Consortium at table to receive offer

 

Rib Room

621 St. Louis Street

New Orleans, LA  70130

Reservations: 504-529-7045

www.ribroomneworleans.com

Offer: Complimentary dessert with purchase of entree

Must make reservations by phone and mention Educational Travel Consortium when making reservations to receive offer.

 

Rosie’s on the Roof

1000 Magazine Street

New Orleans, LA  70130

504-528-1941

www.higginshotelnola.com/new-orleans-restaurants/rosies-on-the-roof

Offer:  Voucher for 20% off with the order of at least two/appetizers snacks; will be provided at check-in

Additional Offers:

Café Normandie

1000 Magazine Street

New Orleans, LA  70130

504-528-1941

www.higginshotelnola.com/new-orleans-restaurants/cafe-normandie

Offer: Voucher for 20% off for lunch; will be provided at check-in

 

Restaurant Specials (available to the public):

Antoine’s Restaurant

713 St. Louis Street

New Orleans, LA  70130

504-581-4422

www.antoines.com

Dinner Special: antoines.com/dinner-special

 

Tommy’s Cuisine

746 Tchoupitoulas Street

New Orleans, LA  70130

504-581-1103

www.tommyscuisine.com

50% off bottles of wine

 

Deep Dive Topics 2:30-4p

Joe LambertVisual Storytelling & Photography: Creating Stories-in-Motion

Joe Lambert, Founder, StoryCenter

Joe Lambert founded the Center for Digital Storytelling (now StoryCenter) in 1994. He and his colleagues developed a computer training and arts program known as The Digital Storytelling Workshop. Joe’s and his staff have traveled the world to spread the practice of digital storytelling, to all 50 US States and some 79 countries. Lambert is author of Digital Storytelling: Capturing Lives, Creating Community (6th Edition, Digital Diner Press) and his more recent Seven Stages: Story and the Human Experience(Digital Diner Press). In 2021, Lambert celebrates his 38th year as a non-profit Executive Director, having evolved his work from his the 1980s and early 1990s in the performing arts.

2021 Symposium Learning Labs

Learning Lab Concept

Moving outside the hotel’s four walls, Learning Lab programs incorporate diverse experiences, interpretation models, new learning methods, and a reflection segment to provide a new lens on experiential learning through travel. Learning labs are a passkey into local culture, neighborhoods and personal narratives that bring you inside the destination to discover new and surprising connections through experiential learning.

Redefining travel experiences, Learning Labs walk you through every stage of the design and delivery process of experiential learning to orchestrate immersive, local, interactive and compelling travel experiences for your travelers, wherever the destination. Each Learning Lab delivers carefully crafted hands-on activities that create interaction and make learning active and memorable.

The tourism experiential models in all these learning labs provide you with frameworks for asking questions; prompt you to think deeply about the whole process; and show you how to become a reflective practitioner in selecting and designing your travel offerings. However, the process of reflection in these models always remains personal – only you can decide what works for your own institution.

The True Meaning of Experiential Learning

Changing interest in travel and learning styles means that educational travel has become an exciting and ever-expanding field.

  • How can you address the different needs of the growing educational travel market?
  • What does it take for Planners and Operators to develop and promote “hands on” destination experiences that result in enjoyable, enriching and informal learning?
  • How will you design a program to allow for organic connection to place and people and facilitate serendipitous moments for reflection and discussion?

ETC’s Learning Labs will consist of well-designed and carefully organized pod-learning experiences that will include opportunities for reflective harvesting of learning through story-work. Each of these carefully crafted hands-on experiences draw on the best of the destination and lead to rich discussions and insights. Activities will be structured so participants are fully immersed with time for reflection on the experience, the learning they extract, and where they can apply ideas in their own programs.

Objectives

We have constructed these labs to demonstrate how to infuse the experiential learning components into affinity travel/tours.  As such, this is not a FAM trip or tour but rather a new key learning platform through which to attendees will expand their understanding and:

  • Learn how to create unique, mission-focused tours and experiences by working with local people and resources.
  • Learn the true meaning of experiential learning.

As an essential part of the Learning Lab module, time is allocated for personal reflection and group discussion on what fosters and cultivates effective learning through travel.

  • What kinds of experiences are most important to design for our own travel programs?
  • How might your travelers benefit from a more engaged/reflective and inquiry based approach to educational tourism?
  • Based on this learning lab experience, what will you design differently in your travel programs going forward?

Deliverables

As a participant you will be able to:

  • Identify what it takes to design and organize experiential educational travel programs.
  • Describe the personal and collective impact  and value of full immersion in a specific educational travel/tour experience.
  • Use insights and learning from full travel/tour immersion experience to extend personal and organizational competence in the professional practice areas of educational tour and travel development.

Join one of these wonderful learning labs and ensure that your educational travel offerings will be informative and great fun. Expand your current definition of experiential educational travel. Learn what it takes to craft activities and experiential programming that lead to rich discussions and insights by asking the right questions – and encounter collaborative learning at its best!

 

The 2021 Teaching Through Tourism Symposium features a two Learning Labs on Thursday, November 11, 8:30 am – 3:00 pm

1) The Great River Road Plantations – New Perspectives

Louisiana’s Great River Road is well known for its sugar plantations. Stretching approximately 70 miles on each side of the river between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, this learning lab shows the evolution of agriculture, architecture, and commerce. At the peak of sugar cane production, approximately 350 estates – from modest to majestic – dotted both sides of the river. To better understand the history of the land and its people, plantations are redefining their interpretation to be more inclusive and more instructive focusing on the slave owner and the enslaved. Today, you’ll see a collection of opulent mansion houses and farms, fields of sugar cane, and petroleum refineries along this nationally-designated All American Road. During this learning lab, you’ll tour three sites along the Great River Road presenting their history through new lenses and perspectives – and meet the interpretive specialists charting a new course for more diverse educational experiences.

 

2) Louisiana and New Orleans – Making Rights Real

This learning lab focuses on New Orleans’s role in the modern civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. As one of the South’s largest and most important cities, one with an African American protest tradition spanning generations, New Orleans was the center of activism as national civil rights groups, local churches, and college students organized to protest segregation through non-violent means. During this learning lab, you will visit three sites and meet with individuals instrumental in shaping the leadership and strategies of the modern Civil Rights movement with inspiring reflections moving forward beyond generational inequities. This will be authentic educational tourism at its finest.

 

3) New Orleans Neighborhoods – Multi-cultural, multi-racial, and multi-ethnic

The history of New Orleans is multicultural, multi-racial, and multi-ethnic. It is a rich gumbo of people, nationalities, and historic events that have combined to give the city its unique music, cuisine, architecture and neighborhoods. New Orleans is renowned the world over and has been celebrated in song, literature and movies for generations. The story of New Orleans can best be understood through its vibrant and individual neighborhoods. This learning lab will engage participants in a journey to sites full of history and culture in New Orleans, particularly the first neighborhood for free blacks in New Orleans, Faubourg Tremé.

Morning Focus: The Importance of Story and Context to Lifelong Learning Through Travel

Joe LambertJoe Lambert, Founder, StoryCenter

Joe Lambert founded the Center for Digital Storytelling (now StoryCenter) in 1994. He and his colleagues developed a computer training and arts program known as The Digital Storytelling Workshop. Joe’s and his staff have traveled the world to spread the practice of digital storytelling, to all 50 US States and some 79 countries. Lambert is author of Digital Storytelling: Capturing Lives, Creating Community (6th Edition, Digital Diner Press) and his more recent Seven Stages: Story and the Human Experience(Digital Diner Press). In 2021, Lambert celebrates his 38th year as a non-profit Executive Director, having evolved his work from his the 1980s and early 1990s in the performing arts.

Welcome and Opening Focus: The Quest for Authentic and Inclusive Learning Experiences

Dr. Tonya Matthews

Dr. Tonya M. Matthews is a thought-leader in institutionalized equity and inclusion frameworks, social entrepreneurship, and the intersectionality of formal and informal education. Her background as both poet and engineer have made her a highly sought-after visioning partner on boards and community building projects, as well as a frequent public speaker and presenter for communities across all ages and venues.

A non-profit executive leadership veteran, Dr. Matthews is currently Chief Executive Officer of the International African American Museum (IAAM) located in Charleston, SC at the historically sacred site of Gadsden’s Wharf. IAAM is a champion of authentic, empathetic storytelling of American history and thus, one of the nation’s newest platforms for the disruption of institutionalized racism as America continues the walk toward “a more perfect union.”

Dr. Matthews has storied career in leadership. Most recently, she served as Associate Provost for Inclusive Workforce Development & Director of the STEM Innovation Learning Center for Wayne State University and, prior to that, as the President & CEO of the Michigan Science Center – flexing her science and tech educational equity chops in both roles.

She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences Board on Science Education and was appointed by both Democratic and Republican administrations to the National Assessment Governing Board. Dr. Matthews is a published poet, included in 100 Best African-American Poems (2010) edited by Nikki Giovanni, and has written several articles and book chapters on inclusive governance, non-profit management, and fundraising.

Dr. Matthews received her Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from Johns Hopkins University and her B.S.E. in biomedical and electrical engineering from Duke University, alongside a certificate in African/African-American Studies.

Concurrent Conversations 9:45-10:45a

Seismic Shifts: A Mythology of Security in Travel
Speaker TBA


Creative Interpretation Strategies: For Destinations, Museums and Attractions

Patrick GallagherPatrick Gallagher, President & Founder, Gallagher & Associates

Over the past 30 years, Patrick has built a strong reputation globally as a leader in the field of Museum Planning and Design. He has worked with every kind of collection from microscopic stardust, to hundreds of vintage military tanks and aircraft, in institutions ranging from cultural history and natural science to sports, music and the arts. A graduate of Northern Illinois University, Patrick is a past president of the SEGD and has served on the board of numerous professional design organizations. www.gallagherdesign.com

Affinity Roundtables 3:30-4:45p

Lauren ClelandMarketing Models to Increase Traveler Engagement: Practical and to the Point

Lauren Cleland, Director of Data Intelligence and Digital Marketing, Visit Savannah

Previously named one of the Top Women in Travel by WITTI and one of Destination International’s 30 Under 30, Lauren Cleland has been a proud member of the tourism marketing world since 2012. After starting her career with the Georgia Tourism Division, Lauren has spent the past 6 years helping to build, refine and innovate Visit Savannah’s content marketing and digital media strategies. After growing and leading Visit Savannah and Visit Tybee’s robust content strategy and team for 4+ years, Lauren succeeded Zeek Coleman in the role of Director of Data Intelligence & Digital Marketing where she currently oversees the DMO’s use of data as a marketing and media planning tool as well as all paid digital media campaign creation and subsequent analysis. She’s a proud Girl Mama plus a huge fan of all things Dolly Parton and Walt Disney World.

What Operators Need From DMOs for Valued Experience
Speaker TBA

Affinity Roundtables 5-6p

DEI 101: Initiatives in Affinity Travel

Speaker TBA

 

Berkeley YoungCultural Heritage Tourism 2.0: New Research & Updated Market Profiles

Berkeley Young, President, Young Strategies

As president of Young Strategies, Inc., Berkeley excels at all types of market research and strategic planning for tourism destinations large and small. 

With 20+ years of experience, Berkeley has worked with more than 100 destinations in 26 states and is a frequent speaker at national conferences. Young Strategies and HTC Partners recently collaborated on a project for Natchez, Mississippi with research demonstrating the potential for this historic city to grow its heritage tourism. Previous collaborations for Cheryl Hargrove and Berkeley Young include work in Oxford, Mississippi and Henry County, Illinois.

Trends, Challenges and Opportunities for Growing 21st Century Cultural Heritage Tourism

Olga M. Ramudo, President & CEO, Express Travel

Kristin Kitchen, Founder & CEO, Sojourn Heritage Accommodations

Sherry L. Rupert, CEO, American Indian Alaska Native Tourism Association (AIANTA)

Olga RamudoOlga Ramudo is President & CEO of Express Travel which has grown from what began as a startup business in 1989 that was started with her sister and a best friend, to today being one of the leading travel management companies in the United States. Its great reputation and long-term client retention are Express Travel’s greatest source of accomplishment. The commitment made to the Hispanic luxury market, corporate travel, as well as  community involvement, has earned  Express Travel numerous awards and recognitions throughout the years, including national travel agency of the year from ASTA , top ten women led business and fastest growing company in the State of Florida. 

Olga Ramudo has conspicuously pioneered and led the charge to not only advocate on behalf of the tourism industry but has also provided an outstanding public role model as a successful woman owned business who has always found the time to serve her community and her industry through leadership appointments on numerous local, state, national and international organizations. The South Florida Business Journal has recognized Olga as one of their Ultimate CEO’s as well as one of the top influential business leaders in South Florida.  Miami Today has also recognized her with the “Best of Miami” designation.  WITII (Women in Travel and Tourism) honored Olga with its Lifetime Achievement Award. 

The U.S. Secretary of Commerce has appointed Olga to a third term on the U.S. Travel and Tourism Advisory Board. She also sits on the national board of ASTA (American Society of Travel Advisors), the World Trade Center Miami, the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce and the executive Board of the Beacon Council were she also serves as Treasurer of the organization.  The Miami Dade County Board of County Commissioners has appointed Olga to serve on their Tourism Development Council Board and Miami’s Mayor appointed her as her representative to the International Trade Consortium (ITC).Express Travel is comprised of corporate, leisure, groups and meetings, cruise, and study abroad departments. Olga studied in Puerto Rico and has two sons and two granddaughters. www.expresstravelus.com

Kristin KitchenKristin Kitchen, is a historian and successful business woman. With a background in real-estate development, having owned and managed over 20 residential and commercial properties, Kristin has taken that knowledge along with her passion for entrepreneurship to the next level. By integrating a model that not only transforms blighted or underutilized historic structures in urban communities into viable hotel lodging spaces but in doing so, helps to restore the community by creating or enhancing existing business from within the community to operate as vendors for the hotel. “We create jobs and entrepreneurs with in each community because our mission is to make our communities better and to empower the people that live there.” 

For the last 15 years, Kristin has been the owner and operator of the Six Acres Bed & Breakfast in Cincinnati, Ohio. Restoring this historic 6000-sq. ft. home that was once part of the Underground Railroad and turning it in to a successful business led to a partnership with Cincinnati public schools to provide field trips to the historic inn and teach children about the Underground Railroad. This project also inspired Kristin to launch a new brand of boutique hotels in 2014. The Sojourn Heritage Hotel Brand focuses on African American History and Culture in urban areas, to share local history while uplifting the community.

Kristin holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration and a Masters in African American Studies. Kristin lives in Miami Florida with her adorable, 8 year old daughter Zahri Jean. 

Sherry RupertSherry L. Rupert (Paiute/Washoe) has nearly two decades of executive-level experience managing and promoting Native American tourism. Since joining AIANTA as CEO in 2019, she has spearheaded several initiatives, including the organization’s groundbreaking new Tribal Agritourism program and overseeing AIANTA’s first-ever virtual American Indian Tourism Conference, which drew a record number of registrants in 2020. 

As CEO of the only national association dedicated to indigenous tourism, she is the leading voice when it comes to advocating for travel and tourism as a significant economic driver in tribal nations. Among her responsibilities, she curates a robust educational program for tribes and indigenous-owned hospitality enterprises around the country. Prior to assuming the role of CEO< she was President of AIANTA’s Board of Directors since 2010. During that time, she was instrumental in working with Congress to pass the Native American Tourism and Improving Visitor Experience (NATIVE) Act.

Rupert was formerly the Executive Director of the State of Nevada Indian Commission, where she reported directly to the Governor of Nevada to serve as a liaison to the state’s 27 tribes, bands, and colonies. During her tenure, she developed the Nevada Indian Territory initiative and won awards and accolades for her work in preserving the site of the Stewart Indian School as a museum and cultural center. 

September 14 Update from Hotel

Power is on as of a week ago. We are housing several large groups now, and several more in coming month, with no issues. A large 160 person meeting slated for October 19-20 is coming back for their conference this year and already have 2/3 of their attendees committed.

Guests are required by Mayoral edict to either be vaccinated or show proof of test before participating in a group meeting or eating at a restaurant. We’ve been handling this very successfully for the groups we are hosting, so see no difficulties with the Symposium either!

If you watch the Mayo Clinic website on “hot spots” we have followed the same path as the original epidemic –  in that we surged early, but all other parts of the country rapidly caught up. It is the same now, and in fact, is the general path of an epidemic, even back in 1918. The city itself is more than 75% vaccinated, far more than other parts of the country, as we have a strict mayor who is concerned about the well being of our guests.

We often hear requests from guests about how they can help those affected by hurricane Ida, and there are many ways to do so through Hilton.

The Hilton Effect Foundation

  • An organization that invests in short term relief efforts to support communities impacted by natural disasters.

 The American Red Cross

  • Hilton Honors members may redeem points for a cash donation.  Each 4,000 point increment equates $10.

PointWorthy

  • Guests can donate Hilton Honors points to a Hurricane IDA charity of their choice, which will be matched up to 87,000,000 points, the equivalent of $250,000.
Let's Travel! Peru: Connecting Culture Through Gastronomy

Wednesday, May 19, 2021 at 12:30 -1:30 p.m. ET (9:30 a.m. PT, 10:30 a.m. MT; 11:30 CT/PET)

A good traveler is always accompanied by a curious spirit and a quest to better understand the world.

Peru offers experiences that brew from an ancestral past and contemporary times – with gastronomy central to its evolution. A vibrant entrepreneurial spirit is alive and driving innovation for the future of Peru’s product development, authenticity in guide interpretation and sustainability of local economies.

Take a journey through Peruvian history by the hand of gastronomy – leading you to the land itself, the Pachamama, from where it all starts. Join a provocative and interactive conversation with some of Peru’s creative pioneers eager to share their experience with gastronomy, sustainability, biodiversity and history. Discover culture and heritage through cuisine and seek intimate, authentic, sustainable, heart-appealing and community-based experiences.

Be transported through shared personal stories that will impart an understanding of the country, present history in context from ancient to contemporary and voice a passion for Peru’s cultural heritage and commitment to presenting communities through the well-informed eyes of locals.

Register here!

Let's Travel! Colombia through the eyes of storyteller Wade Davis

Tuesday, May 11, 2021, 12:00-1:00 p.m. ET (9 a.m. PT, 10 a.m. MT, 11 a.m. CT)

We welcome Wade Davis back to ETC, this time to talk about his new book Magdalena, River of Dreams: A Story of Colombia. A bestselling author of 23 books, Wade is a cultural anthropologist, ethnobotanist, photographer and professor. He tells of his travels on the mighty Magdalena, the river that made possible a nation. Along the way, he finds a people who have overcome years of conflict precisely because of their character, informed by an enduring spirit of place, and a deep love of a land that is home to the greatest ecological and geographical diversity on the planet.

Following an exploration of the wealth and biodiversity of Colombia, our discussion turns to sustainability. Colombia’s Vice Minister of Commerce, Industry and Tourism, Julian Guerrero, joins this webinar to highlight some of the policies that have been implemented by the country. From the top of government to delivery of service, Colombia keeps sustainability at its center. Topics will include new laws, mitigation of Covid-19’s impact on the industry and campaigns to promote sustainable tourism locally and internationally.

The discussion concludes with ETC colleague, Beth Ray-Schroeder, sharing insights on what this means for the educational travel industry, destinations, operators and program planners as they work support a sustainable future in travel. Even if you are not yet offering travel to Colombia, this discussion will speak to timely and broad issues that impact us all.

Members, register here!

Book Discussion Wrap-Up

May 5, 2021 at 11:00 am PT; 12:00 pm MT;  1:00 pm CT; 2:00 pm ET

Join us for the final session in the book discussion as part of ETC’S SPECIAL INTEREST SERIES.

Using Dr. Anu Taranath’s book, Beyond Guilt Trips: Mindful Travel in an Unequal World, to guide our conversations, attendees from the ETC community will openly and honestly unpack key themes, topics and questions from the book. The series will also offer the opportunity to share our own experiences traveling in an unequal world and discuss how we might integrate “mindful travel” in our programs and organizations.

If you need a copy of Dr. Taranath’s book, please consider ordering the book now to avoid any shipping or handling delays. Beyond Guilt Trips: Mindful Travel in an Unequal World can be purchased directly from the publisher, Between the Lines, and via other online bookstores such as www.amazon.com. You might also be able to borrow the book via your local library’s digital media services.

Members register here by April 30.

Future of Tourism Briefing and Panel Discussion

April 19, 2021 at 1:00 p.m. PT; 2:00 p.m. MT; 3:00 p.m. CT; 4:00 p.m. ET

As travel returns, it will take a global effort across all supply channels and communities to affect needed change. The Future of Tourism Coalition, a council of six responsible tourism organizations, are working together to create resources and build momentum. Hear from fellow planners, a destination, and an operator about their challenges, successes, and questions regarding incorporating sustainable tourism into their products and programs.

Speaker: Samantha Bray, Managing Director, The Center for Responsible Travel (CREST)
Panelists: Beth Ray Schroeder, Duke Alumni Engagement and Development; Kate Sanders, Oregon State University Alumni Alumni Programs; Michel LaRiviere, Travel Manitoba; Andrea Holbrook, Holbrook Travel
Moderator: Andrew Lockwood of Pacific Islands Institute

Members Register Here!

The Future of Tourism Coalition (FoTC) is a council, comprised of six responsible tourism organizations* who stand united in an appeal for change. They have been working on developing toolkits for destinations and organizations/businesses in critical areas such as: localizing and decarbonizing destination supply chains, measure of success and how to change the metrics of success from volume and/or profit to include other important goals, and a shared agenda for community engagement. They are involved in an initiative called Tourism Declares a Climate Emergency in which they will be establishing a destination leadership initiative and this group will be tasked with presenting a blueprint and guidelines for destination to manage climate change. This will be presented at the UN Climate Change conference COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland in November of this year.

CREST, Center for Responsible Travel
STI, Sustainable Travel International
Destination Stewardship Council
Green Destinations
Tourism Cares
The Travel Foundation
(with guidance from the Global Sustainable Tourism Council)

Reimagining Travel: The Future of Responsible Tourism

April 21, 2021 at 8:30 a.m. PT; 9:30 a.m. MT; 10:30 a.m. CT; 11:30 a.m. ET

ETC welcomes two well-known experts: Aziz Abu Sarah, a peace builder, cultural educator, & author of Crossing Boundaries” A Travelers Guide to World Peace; & Harold Goodwin, Emeritus Professor & Managing Director of the Responsible Tourism Partnership.

Members Register Here!

The Coming Home Process

The Coming Home Process 11:00a m PT, 12:00 pm MT, 1:00 pm CT, 2:00 pm ET

Join us for the third session in the book discussion – Chapter 9 as part of ETC’S SPECIAL INTEREST SERIES.

Using Dr. Anu Taranath’s book, Beyond Guilt Trips: Mindful Travel in an Unequal World, to guide our conversations, attendees from the ETC community will openly and honestly unpack key themes, topics and questions from the book. The series will also offer the opportunity to share our own experiences traveling in an unequal world and discuss how we might integrate “mindful travel” in our programs and organizations.

If you need a copy of Dr. Taranath’s book, please consider ordering the book now to avoid any shipping or handling delays. Beyond Guilt Trips: Mindful Travel in an Unequal World can be purchased directly from the publisher, Between the Lines, and via other online bookstores such as www.amazon.com. You might also be able to borrow the book via your local library’s digital media services.

Members register here by April 2, 2021.

Check in with European Colleagues

Check in with European Colleagues March 31, 2021 at 7:00 am PT, 8:00 am MT, 9:00 am CT, 10:00 am ET and 2:00 pm UTC

The first webinar in ETC’s Check-In Series

Join ETC colleagues from around Europe as they share updates on the personal and professional effects of the pandemic and give insight on how countries are moving toward reopening travel and tourism. This is a follow up to the check-in last Spring and its aim is community building, connection and information.

Members, register here.

Embracing Change

Embracing Change March 4, 2021 at 9:30 am PST, 10:30 am MST, 11:30 am CST, 12:30 pm EST

The first webinar in ETC’s Silver Lining Series

Jeff Bonaldi keynotes this timely topic and colleagues share their strategic insights for staying innovative in the face of change and challenge. Participants are encouraged to share in the discussion.

Members, register here.

Jeff Bonaldi is the Founder & CEO of The Explorer’s Passage (TEP). Jeff’s objective is to use his organization to help tackle the world’s most important social and environmental issues through adventure travel experiences across the planet. He believes that business can and should be used as a force for good in the world. Previously, Jeff spent 15 years in leadership roles in sales and investment management within the global financial industry at both Merrill Lynch and Citibank. In addition, during his time in banking he participated on various advisory boards and was a regular speaker at conferences and industry workshops. Jeff is a contributing writer to Entrepreneur Magazine and a TEDx speaker.

Mindful Travel Abroad

Mindful Travel Abroad, March 3, 2021 at 11:00am PT, 12:00 pm MT, 1:00 pm CT, 2:00 pm ET

Join us for the second session in the book discussion – Chapters 5 and 7, as part of ETC’S Special Interest Series,

Using Dr. Anu Taranath’s book, Beyond Guilt Trips: Mindful Travel in an Unequal World, to guide our conversations, attendees from the ETC community will openly and honestly unpack key themes, topics and questions from the book. The series will also offer the opportunity to share our own experiences traveling in an unequal world and discuss how we might integrate “mindful travel” in our programs and organizations.

If you need a copy of Dr. Taranath’s book, please consider ordering the book now to avoid any shipping or handling delays. Beyond Guilt Trips: Mindful Travel in an Unequal World can be purchased directly from the publisher, Between the Lines, and via other online bookstores such as www.amazon.com. You might also be able to borrow the book via your local library’s digital media services.

Members register here.

Legal Shifts

Legal Shifts: A Fluid Situation March 11, 2021 at 9:30 am PST, 10:30 am MST, 11:30 am CST, 12:30 pm EST

part of ETC’ s Building Blocks Series

Three attorneys address 5 major post-Covid legal realities, mitigation strategies and host a Q&A forum with perspectives from a travel planners, a US tour operator, and a foreign operator. Participants encouraged to send questions in advance.

Members, register here.

Check-In with Europe

Europe, March 2021

As part of ETC’S CHECK IN SERIES

Outreach to ETC colleagues around the world. Find out how they are dealing with the pandemic’s effects on travel and hear how they are moving forward through the crisis.

Registration coming soon!

Let's Travel Israel

March ___, 2021

Israel!

as part of ETC’s LET’S TRAVEL SERIES

An exciting virtual tour of the Jewish tradition of Seder – a ritual service and ceremonial dinner for the first night or first two nights of Passover. In 2021 Seder is observed March 27th.

Registration coming soon!

DOS defined

Destinations like country, regional, city government tourist offices, convention/visitors associations, city & community-based tourism promotion offices; Operators like foreign-based tour operators, destination management companies, receptive agents & USA-based tour operators; Suppliers that provide travel or travel-related services

Travel Planners & Program Managers defined

Executives, full or part time professional staff/volunteers working for on on behalf of non-profit or for-profit institutions such as museums, alumni/ae associations, adult continuing education programs, conservation organizations, zoos, cultural institutions.

A Journey in Sustainable Tourism

Check out this Brochure about how to help the sustainable tourism movement continue advancing!

 


Barbara Tucker

Barbara Tucker is the Director, Travel Program and Senior Advancement Officer at Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh. Barbara has been organizing tripsfor CMP since February of 2001. She has designed and tailored trips for CMP to many domestic and international venues and has worked extensively with CMP curators and experts from other institutions. Prior to joining CMP, Barbara had a career in the hotel industry. She graduated from the Hotel School of Lausanne, Switzerland and worked in hotels in Europe and New York before joining CMP first as Travel Program Manager, and then as Director of Individual Giving. Barbara speaks French fluently and serves as the President of the Alliance Française of Pittsburgh and President of the French Nationality Room at the University of Pittsburgh. She joined the Executive Advisory Council in 2019 and represents museum travel programs. www.carnegiemuseums.org

Kate Sanders

Kate Sanders is the Director for Alumni Programs and Alumni Group Travel at Oregon State University, where she is responsible for the association’s signature events and the travel program. Kate manages over 30 tours a year in addition to planning and operations for signature events and various alumni relations programs. She joined the Alumni Association in 2013 after planning presidential and university-level events at Oregon State University. Sanders was previously an event planner with Class Act Events, Inc. and a project manager and writer for Sea Reach Ltd. – a design and manufacturing firm of visitor centers, wayside exhibits and signage. Sanders also has a background in environmental education. Travel and tourism has always been part of her life, from family trips when young, living abroad, to work and personal travel today. Life stays adventurous and fun when she with her husband and two kids, trail running, touring, or being absorbed in art and photography projects. Sanders is a graduate of Colorado State University. www.osualum.com

Tony Rango

Tony Rango has been a staff member of the Sierra Club since 1992 and currently serves as the Director of National Outings and Program Safety.The National Outings program offers more than 300 domestic and international trips annually, led exclusively by volunteers. In 2000, Tony created and developed the Sierra Club’s first national training program for outing leaders. Since then, the program has trained and fielded thousands of leaders and volunteers. He initially got involved with the Sierra Club because of his job, but he soon began leading for the program and training future leaders. He has led numerous Sierra Club trips including backpacking, rafting, biking, kayaking and trekking trips. Tony currently serves on the ETC Executive Advisory Council representing national non-profit organizations and advising on the Risk Management sessions. www.sierraclub.org/outings/adventure-travel

Emilie LaRosa

Emilie LaRosa is the Assistant Director for Penn Alumni Travel and Education at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn) where she is responsible for all alumnitour marketing, development customer service, and operations. Since she began at Penn in 2012, the program has expanded to serve more than 400 travelers on 25 trips annually with robust educational offerings. Penn Alumni Travel is committed to collaborative and engaging tours and works closely with the University’s 12 schools and centers, including the Wharton Business School and the Penn Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. Prior to her work at Penn, LaRosa was a development officer at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania and a museum educator at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Phillips Collection in Washington, D. C., and the Cloisters in New York City. In addition to her travel expertise, LaRosa has interests in: art and architecture, medieval history, photography, and the perfect latte. LaRosa earned both her B.A. and M.A. in Art History from the University of Notre Dame and the George Washington University, respectively. LaRosa joined the EACl in 2019 and represents the Ivy League schools. www.alumni.upenn.edu

Dan Stypa

Dan Stypa is the director of sales for Orbridge, a leading travel operator based in Bainbridge Island, WA. In this position, Stypa partners with non-profit educational travel planners and fellow Orbridge staff members to provide engaging and immersive experiences across the globe to travelers who are affiliated with over 140 different alumni associations and non-profit organizations. Previously, he was Associate Director of Alumni Programs at Rice University (Houston, TX).  where he was responsible for managing the Rice Alumni Traveling Owls program, as well as all other lifelong learning and international engagement initiatives.  In his time at Rice, the Traveling Owls doubled the number of trips offered and program participation has grown over 100%.  He has led groups to places such as Tanzania, China, Cuba, Italy, the Baltic Sea, and more.  Prior to that, Stypa worked at the University of South Florida and coordinated faculty engagement programming for on-campus residential students.  Stypa has presented at regional and statewide CASE Conferences and serves on the Greater Houston Partnership Commission.  He is passionate about dogs; he has two of his own – Frieda and Knightro – and is an active volunteer with K-9 Rescue Angels – a nonprofit dog rescue committed to rescuing and rehoming dogs in the greater Houston area.  Stypa is originally from Ohio and has a Bachelor of Arts in Communications from Bowling Green State University (OH) and a Master of Science in Higher Education Administration from the University of Tennessee. Stypa became a member of the Executive Advisory Council in 2016 and he represents Southern region private schools.  http://alumni.rice.edu/travelingowls

Michel LaRivière

Michel LaRivière is the International Marketing Specialist for Travel Manitoba in the Business Development department with a focus on the United States and Canadian market.  Michel is responsible for assisting with the delivery of domestic, national and international sales initiatives aimed at building relationships with tour operators, travel agents, incentive buyers and tourism partners. He possesses 13 years of experience working in the tourism industry and has as worked for Travel Manitoba as the partnership and visitor experience specialist. Michel possesses a Bachelor of Commerce Degree from the University of Manitoba with a double major in Marketing and Management.  He is also fully bilingual in French and English and has completed the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce Leadership Winnipeg program.  He is an avid photographer and cyclist and volunteers his time coaching youth soccer.  LaRivière joined the EAC in 2019 and represents ETC Destination constituents. www.travelmanitoba.com

Mary Ann Hunt

Mary Ann Hunt is the Director of the Travel-Learn program at Tufts University. Prior to her arrival at Tufts in September, 2017, she worked at Dartmouth College in the Alumni Travel program for ten years. She also worked at the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College from 2000-2007, where she managed public events and oversaw exhibition logistics. She has a B.A. from the University of Wisconsin in Art History, with specializations in ancient art, archeology, and classical civilizations, and she is currently working on a Master’s degree in Creative Writing with a concentration on travel and memoir writing. Hunt recently joined the EAC representing Travel Planners from New England schools.    www.alumniandfriends.tufts.edu/explore-education-travel/travel-learn-program

Andrea Holbrook

Andrea Holbrook is President of Holbrook Travel, Inc. Her start in the travel industry began at a young age, accompanying her parents on expeditions such as hiking the Inca Trail and butterfly-collecting with lepidopterists in rainforests around the world. After graduating from Columbia University with a major in English literature in 1991, she spent almost two years working in Costa Rica at Selva Verde Lodge and Private Reserve—a nature sanctuary in the Sarapiqui region, founded by her family in 1985. Andrea stewards Holbrook and Selva Verde Lodge and is President of the Sarapiquí Conservation Learning Center, an organization that strives to connect communities and sustainable development through educational programs and rural tourism in Costa Rica. She also serves on the Board of Climb for Cancer and recently joined the Board of the Center for Responsible Travel (CREST), an organization dedicated to increasing the positive global impact of responsible tourism.  Andrea feels fortunate to play an active role in connecting cultures, supporting knowledge and appreciation for biodiversity, and finding innovative ways to foster responsible travel. She lives in Gainesville, Florida with her husband and high-school-aged daughter. Holbrook joined the EAC in 2018 and represents ETC US-based natural history and conservation focused Tour Operator constituents.  www.holbrooktravel.com

Shannon Fuller

Shannon Fuller is the Assistant Director of Conservation Travel at Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, Illinois. She oversees the development and implementation of the Shedd Adventures Travel Program working collaboratively with internal partners in Development, Marketing, PR, Conservation, as well as external travel operators to create and market mission-driven trips to the Shedd’s current and prospective donor audiences. She also manages the aquarium’s citizen science travel opportunities aboard their research vessel located in the Bahamas. Shannon started at Shedd six years ago and prior to her role in the Conservation department, worked in Marketing as Brand Manager. Shannon’s passion for aquatic life and experience as a SCUBA instructor led her to Shedd. She is a graduate of Loyola University of Chicago. Fuller joined the EAC in 2019 representing Travel Planners from Natural History, Aquariums, Conservation and Zoo organizations.  www.sheddaquarium.org

Kevin Conley

Kevin Conley is the Director of the Alumni & Parent Travel program for the University of Virginia. Conley began his career with the University over 15 years ago administrating academic travel seminars. Previously, Conley has worked in the computer industry in a company that produced encryption software and hardware, has helped create the Internet’s first emailed newspaper, “The Daily Brief,” and has served as a Military Intelligence Analyst and Russian Linguist with the U.S. Army. He has also, on occasion, been a ski bum and a beach bum, on separate occasions, of course. Conley earned his bachelor’s at Harvard and has done graduate coursework at the Curry School of Education at University of Virginia. Conley joined the EAC in 2019 representing Travel Planners from Atlantic Coast Schools.  www.alumni.virginia.edu/travel

Bill Bennett

Bill Bennett has served as director of alumni travel at the Indiana University Alumni Association since December 2014. Branded as IU Travels, the travel program at the IUAA aims to bring alumni, faculty, and students together to continue their educational experience through international and domestic travel. Prior to his current role he was an Assistant Vice President and program manager of the Prime Time bank loyalty travel program for Monroe Bank where he oversaw the bank’s affinity travel program and served as a product manager and development officer for the over 55 market.  Bill serves on a multi-university advisory council for Go Next and Oceania Cruises. He is also a professional photographer and enjoys sharing his travel photography and experiences with local service organizations and retirement communities.  He enjoys time with his two children, cycling, hiking, and cooking. Bill is a graduate of the State University of New York at Albany and has his MBA from Sage Graduate School in Albany, NY.  Bennett joined the EAC in 2019 representing Travel Planner colleagues from Big 10 Schools.  www.alumni.indiana.edu

Enrique Velasco, Jr.

Enrique Velasco, Jr. is COLTUR Peru´s Director of Sales for North America. COLTUR is a third generation family-owned-and-run-since-inceptioninbound Tour Company based in Peru. He devoted the first fifteen years of his professional life to the financial industry. Because of the nature of his work, he did extensive traveling both domestic and abroad. Enrique has worked with his family’s company, COLTUR, for the past twelve years and absolutely loves traveling, meeting new people, developing relationships with clients (many of which turn into long lasting friendships) and being able to show his country to fellow travelers.  Velasco represents the interests of foreign-based, in-country tour operators.  www.colturperu.com

20th Anniversary Commemoration

The Value of Educational Travel


By Jim Sano, President, Geographic Expeditions | Photographs by J. Mara DelliPriscoli

We travel to wake up. Life is swift and hazy. We are habitual creatures, following mildly comfortable ruts. As Miguel de Unamuno said, “To fall into a habit is to cease to be.” The great religions (not by mere word-flinging is Buddha called The Awakened One), the poets, the philosophers, the guy at the corner store (if he stops to think of about it), tell us that we live most of our lives in a mist. Travel, like the best friend you’ll ever have, gives you a little slap, Wake up! Wake up! Be!

We travel because it’s the highest form of re-creation. That’s a quote from our pal Seamus O’Banion. Whaton earth did you mean by that, Seamus? I meant that every time we step out of our life’s routine we have the chance to recreate ourselves anew. To decide whowe are, what we like, what we can’t stand, what we crave, what brings us joy, what repels and attracts us. We always have this fundamental chance, but we don’t usually grasp it. The good traveler, as opposed to the traveler who’s just getting carted around, learns that this old personality is marvelously flexible, fantastically adaptable, and far more capacious than he or she ever thought. That we always have the power to choose who we are, to re-create ourselves as we see fit.

We travel because we’re natural-born sensualists. Sure, we’re smack dab in a miraculously rich sensory environment without even leaving home. The local franchise coffee dispensary, if we stop fidgeting long enough to let it flow in, is a teeming universe of sense
delights. Problem is, we don’t usually notice through the habit-mist. But we do notice this incredible, unceasing sense-flood when we travel. Sights, sounds, and probably the least honored (because it’s so seemingly vestigial), smell. Sunrise in the Himalaya. The souks of Istanbul. The sound of wild horses galloping across the plains of Patagonia. Dinner in Tuscany. There is no end to it.

We travel, as Chesterton said, not to set foot on foreign land. [But to] set foot on one’s own country as foreign land. That is, we travel to understand our normal life and land better. To appreciate them more, to mine them for their joy and, yes, their unending exoticism. To look beyond what someone recently called the narcissism of the unspoiled place, which contains within it the dull, life-shunning notion that the very place we live is spoiled somehow. Proust said it, too: “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” Travel gives us new eyes. It makes the same old brand new.

We travel because we’re human. One main factor in the upward trend of animal life, Alfred North Whitehead wrote, has been the power of wandering. Most of us, whether we know it or not, whether we do it or not, want to find out what’s behind that homey hill. As Theo Cruz once said, “If humans weren’t travelers, the Olduvai Gorge would be pretty crowded these days.”

We travel because it’s an act of good citizenship, local and global. You know, as a traveler, that when you read a news report about a place you’ve been, that it comes alive in an important way. Your letters to the editor have weight, your opinions are more grounded. Your concerns are more tangible. The life of the sweet little boy who grabbed your index finger and led you around Angkor is no longer an abstraction. And you’re no longer an abstraction to him, or to the wealth of people you meet and dally and bargain and share train compartments and jeeps and scenery and meals and pictures of your and their kids with. You don’t have horns and a forked tail. They aren’t necessarily mad at you just because you have a blue passport. Travel fosters understanding, and we need understanding now… more than ever.

We travel because people everywhere are wonderful. Always? Of course not. God knows we know that. But ask the alert traveler, and she will tell you: as a species, humans are worth the effort of getting to know. We send out trip questionnaires to all our clients, and our experience is this: they rave about the scenery and the food and the accommodations (usually) but they have a special place in their hearts for the people. The cab driver in Cairo who grandly, quietly refused payment. That student in Kashgar who took you home to meet the folks. The old fellow you played chess with in Tehran. The ladies in a Yemeni mountain village who fed you dates and gossiped about men and painted your feet in the local style. The rough truck driver who cradled you like a baby when you had food poisoning in Shigatse. The forbidding-looking Pathan man in Peshawar (yes, Peshawar) who suddenly smiled and said, “Welcome to my country, dear sir.” Again and again, it’s the human encounters we remember, that are balm to our souls. If travel teaches us nothing else, it teaches us that humans are lovely creatures.

And we travel because, as an old zen koan has it, the whole world is medicine. Medicine freely offered, medicine we need and have a right to. Medicine that cures us of alienation and the bondage of self-obsession. Medicine that helps us become whole and vibrant, and allows us to see the whole and vibrant world.

ETC 2011 Emeritus Council

The Emeritus Council meeting held at ETC 2010, Providence, RI

Karen Anthony
Retired Director of Alumni Travel
UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME ALUMNI ASSOC.

Margaret Carnright
Assistant Director for Education
ASSOCIATION OF YALE ALUMNI

Michael Chang
Instructor
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY SCMP

Diana Lee Crew
Founder and Consultant
REAL WORLD CONNECTIONS

Robert Fure
Director of Special Programs
WASHINGTON AND LEE UNIVERSITY

Maria Gross
Consultant – Travel Sales and Marketing

Amy Kotkin
Director
SMITHSONIAN JOURNEYS

Frank LaFleche
Market Development – Canada
JORDAN TOURISM BOARD

Susan Lethbridge
Director, Business Development
VOYAGES TO ANTIQUITY

James Moses
President and CEO
ROAD SCHOLAR

Todd Nielsen
Travel Director
ARCHAEOLOGICAL INSTITUTE OF AMERICA TOURS – EOS

Kerstin Nordin
Marketing North America
ICELAND TRAVEL

Dennis Pinto
Managing Director
MICATO SAFARIS

James Sano
President
GEOGRAPHIC EXPEDITIONS

Carolyn Sheaff
Retired Director of the BEAR TREKS Travel Program
California Alumni Association

Joseph Small
President
AHI TRAVEL

Alicia Stevens
Director of Global Programs
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, SCHOOL OF THE ARTS

Peter Voll
Owner
PETER VOLL ASSOCIATES (PVA)

Scott Williams
Senior Director, Alumni Travel Program
University of Illinois Alumni As

(From left): Williams, Lethbridge, Sano, and Voll pictured at a 2003
Advisory Council Meeting held at the TLC office in Montana.

A Look Back at ETC’s Conference Themes

1987-1991 • NonProfits in Travel: Issues, Concerns and Opportunities in Alumni and Museum Study Travel
1992 • NonProfits in Travel: Issues, Concerns and Opportunities in Alumni, Museum, Continuing Education, and Other NonProfit Special Interest and Educational Travel
1993 • Operating NonProfit Travel Programs as a Successful Business: Not-for-profit travel doesn’t mean no bottom line!
1995 • Competing in a Maturing Marketplace: Extinction or Distinction in Nonprofit Travel
1996 • Pricing and Marketability of Nonprofit Travel: Aligning Your Programs to a Changing Marketplace
1997 • Breaking the Ice – Moving Beyond Current Marketing & Programming Plateaus in Nonprofit Travel
1998 • Shaping Your Travel Program’s Future: Targeting Tomorrow’s Travelers Today
1999 • What Do Your Travelers Really Value?
2000 • Educational Travel – Keeping It New!
2001 • Building Global Partnerships: Strengthening Relationships, Advancing Programs
2002 • The Learning Traveler: Exploring, Engaging, Evolving
2003 • Travel On Purpose: New Motives, Missions, Markets
2004 • Success in Tough Times: Marketing Through Adversity
2005 • Getting Your Message Out: Powerful Marketing, Purposeful Programs
2006 • 20th Anniversary: Inspirational Performances
2007 • Bridging for the Future: New & Creative Strategies
2008 • Facilitating Transformational Journeys: New Perspectives
2009 • Engaging Travelers in Challenging Times: Proactive Strategies in a Downturn Economy
2010 • Consider the Possibilities: Charting a New Course for Affinity and Nonprofit Travel

ETC’s 25-Year Evolution

1986 (December)

  • Mara DelliPriscoli incorporates Travel Leisure Consultants (TLC), in Washington, D.C.

1987

  • First Nonprofits in Travel Conference (NPTC) convenes in March at the Wyndham Bristol Hotel, Washington, D.C.
  • 1.5-day conference with optional pre-conference half day “how to’s” workshop and one track of plenary sessions focusing on Insurance, Legal, Postal, Promotion, Best Program Models, Domestic Travel sessions
  • The Advisory Committee is formed with 10 professionals

1988

  • Conference grows to 2 days and offers affinity breakout sessions, as well as a post-conference half-day optional tour to the Smithsonian
  • The opening plenary is titled “Travel in Turbulent Times”

1989

  • Conference holds its first official embassy-sponsored venues at the Indonesian Embassy (hosted by NATRABU and Garuda Airlines)
  • The first destination briefing is held on the Netherlands (hosted by Netherlands Board of Tourism and KLM Airlines)
  • Tour Operators/Vendors are excluded from conference sessions but are invited to a small networking party
  • The precursor to the official Jumpstart Seminar is launched as a full day pre-conference program focusing on the nuts and bolts of nonprofit travel
  • First Travel Supplier Resource Directory is published
  • The Conference receives institutional endorsements over the course of eight years to help it get established. The initial institutional endorsers were: The Denver Museum of Natural History (Diana Lee Crew), Cal Alumni Association (Carolyn Sheaff), The Sierra Club (John DeCock), Witte Museum (Ian McCord), Alumni Association of the University of Michigan (Linda Rains)

1990

  • Tour Operators are invited to NPTC for a half day of post-conference sessions in which partnership issues were discussed
  • NPTC provides a “Resource Corridor” offering Tour Operators the option of providing, “in writing,” information on their companies for Travel Planners
  • First ecotourism sessions offered
  • First NPTC Educationals announced with the Netherlands Board of Tourism and KLM Airlines and with the Scandinavian Tourism Boards and SAS Airlines
  • First Organizational Profiles featured

1991

  • TLC office moves to Montana
  • Conference grows to 2.5 days
  • Conference “Resource Corridor” expands to “Resource Room,” where Travel Planners can pick up Tour Operators’ brochures
  • First-time opportunity for Travel Planners and Tour Operators to schedule one-to-one business meetings
  • First advocacy session on Postal Issues and UBIT—“Mobilize for Action”
  • The term “Educational Travel” is added to NPTC’s focus
  • First year NPTC brochure was mailed to both Travel Planners and Tour Operators, Suppliers, and Destinations; Tour Operators enjoyed a full day of Conference programming

1992

  • First “Pre-Conference Bulletin” is published for attendees
  • Tour Operators enjoy 2 full days of joint conference programming with Travel Planners

1993

  • First full day of ecotourism programming is offered
  • Conference grows to 4 days. The tagline reads: “The only travel conference which focuses exclusively on nonprofit special interest in educational travel programs, issues, opportunities, and concerns.”
  • NPTC Coalition Resource Center is launched

1994

  • Conference moves from D.C. to the DoubleTree Hotel in Arlington, Va.
  • The NET (Network for Educational Travel) is announced offering informational and educational services year-round
  • The conference tagline changes to “the World’s Only Major Educational Travel Conference, Development, and Training Institute Focused Exclusively on Nonprofit Travel”
  • First Conference Resource Directory (CRD) is printed

1995

  • The tagline for the conference is changed to “promoting partnerships”
  • Two and a half days of joint programming between Travel Planners and Tour Operators/Suppliers
  • A pre-conference day is offered on ecotourism: “Re-engineering the Ecotourism Equation”
  • NET changes to “Travel Learning Connections” and is described as a “clearinghouse and resource hotline for nonprofit travel planners”
  • The first NPTC technology forum is held as a post-conference day. Among the topics covered: software and messaging via e-mail.

1996

  • The first year ETC gets an email account (TLC@Ronan.net) and its own website (www.ronan.net/~TLC)
  • First year of fully integrated programming between Travel Planners and Tour Operators/Suppliers
  • The first Responsible Tourism programming focuses on issues and ethics
  • Post-Conference Technology Seminars are offered

1997

  • NPTC tagline changes to “Advancing the Field of Educational Travel”
  • A Travel-Planner-only listserv is promoted

1998

  • The Resource Room of Tour Operators’ printed materials grows into a larger exhibit space with tabletop displays (the precursor to the International Bazaar)
1999

  • NPTC tagline changes to “For Market Leaders in Lifelong Learning and Travel”
  • Programming is organized by tracks for the first time
  • NPTC website becomes known as the “Educational Travel Alliance,” and its website is www.etcwest.com
  • Conference benefits now include being part of the Educational Travel Alliance
  • First year online registration is offered
  • First time the “BiZ Passport” is published
  • NPTC proposes launching a forum dedicated to Environmental, Cultural, Heritage, and Arts Tourism

2000

  • Conference moves back to D.C.
  • “Educational Travel Roundtable” is launched
  • A “Millennium Council” is convened with 50 members of the educational travel community representing Travel Planners, Tour Operators, Suppliers, and Destinations to discuss the initiatives and goals of the community
  • Website address changes to www.nptc2000.com

2001

  • Travel Leisure Consultants becomes Travel Learning Connections
  • Silent Charity Auction debuts as a fundraiser for ETC’s Tourism as a Passport to Peace Millennium Project
  • The Partnership Marketplace is launched featuring the Partners’ Boulevard—described as “a balanced mix of commerce and discovery.”
  • First Partnership Dinner, “Arabian Nights,” marks the start of the Community Dinner tradition, where Suppliers, Operators, and Destinations collaboratively host a conference-wide dinner
  • The Responsible Tourism Showcase debuts

2002

  • Conference moves to Los Angeles
  • Major re-branding of the conference from NPTC to the Educational Travel Conference. Attendees requested a name change that would exemplify the focus of their profession—educational travel—and be inclusive of all conference attendees.
  • ETC’s tagline becomes “specially designed for providers of educational travel”
  • ETC’s website is www.educationaltravelconference.com
  • First Seminar on Wheels (SOW) is offered 2003
  • Conference returns to Washington, D.C.
  • First electronic Conference Resource Directory is produced
  • First Marketing Institutes convene
  • First launch of the community website at www.travelearning.com
  • 2004

  • The official International Bazaar debuts
  • Emeritus Council is launched at the Executive Advisory Council Mid-Year Planning Meeting held in Montana
  • First Voluntourism Forum is offered
  • Speed Networking is offered for the first time
  • Nancy Arsenault convenes a focus group at the conference and works with the ETC to produce the first definitive piece of industrywide research conducted and published for the Educational Travel Community: “Defining Tomorrow’s Tourism Products for Learning Travelers” (Research was sponsored by Radisson Seven Seas, TLC, Learning Thru Leisure, and the Canadian Tourism Commission)

2005

  • First Destination Jumpstart is offered
  • Phase I of ETC’s community website is launched signaling a new era for travel planner training. It features one password for access by delegates. (Launch supported by Academic Arrangements Abroad, American Cruise Lines, Canadian Tourism Commission, Costa Rica Educational and Cultural Adventures, International Seminar Design, Israel Government Tourist Office, Japan National Tourist Organizations and the Wales Tourism Board)

2006

  • Conference moves to Baltimore, Md.
  • First Executive Forum is offered
  • First MAC and NACZ all-day forums convene
  • Phase II of ETC’s website is launched with a digital asset library and resource center (Sponsored by Canadian Tourism Commission, Newfoundland and Labrador Tourism, New Brunswick Tourism and Parks, Travel Alberta, Tourism British Columbia, Via Rail)

2007

  • Conference tagline is “the premier event for Educational Travel”
  • First Town Hall session offered
  • First CEO Roundtable convened
  • Passport Game launched in International Bazaar
  • 2008

    • Conference tagline is “The Founding Conference for Alumni, Museum, Zoo, and Conservation Travel and Nonprofit Educational
      Travel”
    • The First Responsible Tourism Intensive is held
    • First Voluntourism Experience is offered
    • ETC Online Focus Groups convenes at conference to launch Phase III of the website; report produced from these on site focus groups sets the priorities for the enhanced website.

    2009

    • Conference moves to New Orleans
    • Phase III of the new Educational Travel Community Website is launched with member dashboards (Sponsored by Asia Now – Japan National Tourist Office, Hong Kong Tourism Board, Tourism Authority of Thailand, Macau Government Tourist Office, Korea Tourism Organization, Singapore Tourism Board, Tourism Malaysia)
    • First Virtual Membership, with year-round access to online resources

    2010

    • Conference moves to Rhode Island
    • First run of the DOS Jumpstart: Selling to the U.S. Educational Market
    • Business Connect is launched
    • The first domestic ETC Educational is offered

Setting Sail 25 Years Ago

The Vision That Propelled the Educational Travel Community

Interview with J. Mara DelliPriscoli by Sherry Schwarz
Like any intrepid explorer, Mara DelliPriscoli has gone the distance to learn the contours of uncharted territory. From a year abroad traversing the ruins of Ancient Greece to a three-year hiatus blue-water sailing from the Caribbean to South America to finding a home on the range in western Montana—to visiting some 50-plus countries in between—she has traveled a long and winding path filled with adventure, risk, adversity, and reward to bring to life and evolve the Educational Travel Conference and mark its place on the modern map.

When asked what spurred her interest in educational travel, she reflects: “It was my freshman study abroad year ….and the experiential focus on learning….arriving at Delphi for the first time at dawn….. reading Herodotus sitting in the Acropolis …and being ‘transported’ into the living context of the past.”

Mara DelliPriscoli pictured in 1988
organizing the second Educational
Travel Conference (formerly NonProfits in Travel Conference) from aboard
the s/v Mandorla relying on a firstgeneration “luggable” computer
Having worked in almost every sector of the travel industry, Mara’s advocacy for lifelong learning fortunately directed her to lay the foundation of the Educational Travel Conference. As she authored in a 2007 Transitions Abroad article: “My treks to Delphi have remained a compass point for many subsequent solo expeditions, as well as for professional planning of learning travel programs worldwide. Throughout the years I have seen the design of educational tours continue to evolve as travelers seek more authentic and transformative programs that offer both collaborative educational exchange and the freedom to pursue those spontaneous moments of solo discovery, which uniquely personalize travel. As we move toward new paradigms of what defines the educational travel experience from education that engages the mind to learning connections that engage the soul—facilitated lifelong learning through travel will eclipse the traditional model of managed group travel.”

That adventurous and spirited passion for travel has never left Mara and characterizes her today, as she admits to being the “eternal rolling stone.” She’ll hop on a plane, train, or horse anywhere, having traveled in Saudi Arabia, Syria, Azerbaijan, China, Outer Mongolia, northern India, Dubai, and Mexico in only the span of the last 15 months largely for business and forging ETC connections. Fittingly, it was island hopping in the British Virgin Islands when Mara made the commitment to launch TLC into reality—at that time called Travel Learning Consulting.

Her vision of orchestrating a professional development venue for nonprofit travel planners to network, collaborate, and share best practices had long been percolating in her mind. “Having worked too many a trade show from the supplier side, far removed from the educational content of the meeting, I recognized the lack of professional development and training workshops for all involved with nonprofit travel, particularly the travel planners,” says Mara.

She was convinced that “there had to be a better way” to support the growth and diversity of nonprofit travel as well as promote “sustainable” nonprofit and forprofit partnerships.

Having bounced around the concept of Nonprofits in Travel for many a year with colleagues Diana Lee Crew (then directing the Denver Museum of Natural History’s travel program) and Bryan DeLeo (then directing the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s travel program), Mara took the plunge in 1987 and launched—with a six-week lead time only—the first Nonprofits in Travel Conference (NPTC) with a brochure and program in tandem with Diana Lee Crew. Mara remembers the decisions and trade-offs requisite to this bold move noting, “I just knew without hesitation that NPTC was an idea whose time had come. So I ignored every marketing principle about measured lead time in promotions, invested all my limited resources and just went for it!”

At that point in time the Conference was a “test” run—without a long-term business plan running on sheer determination and passion for a vision unfolding. In 1987, after the first NPTC conference, Mara set sail for the Caribbean— and what she thought would be a temporary hop from Bermuda to the British Virgin Islands. Her “hop” lasted three years. Between thousands of miles sailing and diving, brushes with Venezuelan pirates and uprisings, she focused on enhancing and expanding the Nonprofits in Travel Conference from the s/v Mandorla.

In the first eight years, Mara convened the first Advisory Council of which Diana Lee Crew was a founding council member, and received endorsements from leading nonprofit institutions: the Denver Museum of Natural History, California Alumni Association, Witte Museum, the Alumni Association of the University of Michigan Alumni, and the Sierra Club. Since these early days, the ETC has evolved to a six-person core team with more than 20 on-site Conference staff, from a 35-person meeting to an international Conference with an audience of 450-plus attendees from over 40 countries, and an ever-growing member constituency in the online community.

“ETC is an extraordinary professional development network,” says Diana Lee Crew. “The fact that the group was founded over 25 years ago and has grown from a simple networking and sharing conference for some 30 nonprofit travel programs to the huge network it is today is an accomplishment worth noting.”

Whereas the constituency focus in the first years of the Conference was exclusively on museums, Mara’s vision was to cultivate the cross-fertilization of ideas across all nonprofit sectors diversifying the attendee base to include alumni associations, continuing education programs, conservation groups, and environmental organizations. With a strategic focus on building a strong and viable nonprofit constituency in the first three years, Mara moved forward to include the other half of the nonprofit travel partnership: tour operators, and then expanding to destinations and travel suppliers in the early ’90s. This strategy included expanding a then one-track travel-planner-only educational conference to a vertically rich and multi-layered offering of concurrent conference sessions to
appeal to all individuals within the educational travel market, including the for-profit constituency. Sponsoring partners contributed greatly to an economically viable expansion of educational programming, social venues, and Conference-related online services.

The 1998 ETC Executive Advisory Council meeting held at the Riverview B&B, West Dennis,
Mass. Pictured from left: Jim Moses, Amy Kotkin, J. Mara DelliPriscoli, Ralph Janis,
Joyce Barkley, Jeanne Cobb, and Carolyn Sheaff
As the Conference continued to grow in size and scope, the Executive Advisory Council expanded to reflect the growing diversity in Conference attendees. Council members were selected on the basis of their expertise in the field of educational and special-interest affinity and alumni/member travel, as well as the industry sector they represent: travel planner, tour operator, tour supplier, destination. An Emeritus Advisory Council was founded in 2004 by former Advisory Council members wishing to remain active and engaged in the ongoing activities of the ETC.

Pushing the technology curve, Mara launched the first online registration for the ETC in 1999, and placed on the agenda, as early as 1995, strong online marketing courses and the first all-day Technology Forum, which was “cutting edge but sparsely attended,” adds Mara with a laugh.

Almost from the outset, Mara envisioned the ETC’s activities beyond an annual Conference as a year-round resource and networking forum. As early as 1992, she laid plans for “The Nonprofits in Travel Coalition Resource Room,” which was the precursor for her desire to evolve an online ETC community. The first Networking Database was launched in the late ’90’s and, now, many versions later, it serves as the basis for today’s ETC member website’s search capabilities, which include Organizational Searches, Member Searches, and Destination Reports. It was due to the direct and sustained support of the website’s sponsoring partners that three phases of the current ETC website were able to launch successfully over the past five years. Today the ETC website includes not only its robust search capabilities, but also many tools and resources that Mara has innovated from the personalized “task manager” providing each member with customized reminders and timely information to the recently launched Member Profiles, which are designed to facilitate community-building and networking.

ETC’s Executive Advisory Council at the ETC 2011 Planning Meeting hosted by John Hendricks
and Experius Academy in Gateway Canyons, CO, April 2010.
ETC’s website is also an extension of the annual Conference, insofar as it enables members to now listen to digital recordings of the majority of Conference sessions and to access speaker handouts year-round. This evolution has been particularly gratifying for Mara, who, from the outset, aimed to supply Conference content and collateral that could be accessed 24/7 by virtual members.

Every year since its inception, the Conference has focused not only on the issues, concerns and opportunities in nonprofit travel but also on the broader trends and strategic issues of the travel industry, recruiting top marketing and trends speakers, as well as educational travel industry leaders from within the community and candid discourses with industry partners.

“The Conference has never been cookie cutter,” says Mara. “Each year the ETC delivers on the basic how to’s but also brings to the forefront the ever-evolving challenges of staying relevant and creating program distinctions in affinity and alumni travel. Re-thinking travel programs for a rapidly evolving traveler, moving into the digital age of marketing and social networking, strengthening partner relationships are all critical to the growth, leadership, and evolution of nonprofit travel programs.”

In addition to advancing education and professional development, the ETC has also prided itself on its outreach and advocacy over the years. Mara cites the launch of the ETC “Educationals,” in 1990, as a program of which she is particularly proud. The “Educationals” enable experienced travel planners to share their programming expertise with countries furthering the development of educational travel.

The ETC has also made important strides through presentations on tourism as a passport to peace and with the formation, in 1991, of the Nonprofit UBIT tax coalition. Included in its many “firsts,” the ETC hosted the first Voluntourism Forums and served as the first platform for Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland to launch co-promotional activities in the U.S. travel industry.

If materializing a vision teaches us anything, humility is among the first of lessons—and it’s one Mara knows well. Even as the founder and president of the ETC, she is the first to tell you her part of the ETC story is but only one small piece. “It is witnessing a community evolving and the commitment of colleagues to raise the bar of professionalism in their industry that inspires and renews my commitment to ETC annually,” says Mara.

She adds: “It is the countless core of volunteer colleagues— participants in the Regional Roundtables…colleagues ‘giving back’ by teaching Jumpstart for the past 22 years…veteran ETC members leading the Executive Forum… delegates developing and leading sessions annually at the ETC… valued sponsors helping to deliver a quality educational platform, fun networking venues, and a growing online communications platform… the strategic counseling of the Executive Advisory and Emeritus Council members, and so many others—who have all tirelessly and heartfully contributed to the face of ETC today.” These are the leaders who Mara believes will set the pace for the next 25 years.

As Mara closes her reflection on the eve of the 25th Anniversary Conference, she is already looking toward the horizon for the next need to be served, the next challenge. When asked what’s ahead on the ETC agenda, Mara doesn’t hesitate: “aggregating industry statistics on the affinity and alumni travel market,” she says passionately. “The growth and development of a community with a leading industry voice is critical,” she says. “I expect that the resulting aggregated data will become an essential resource for researching, benchmarking, and advocacy in years to come.”

Hats Off to ETC for 25 Years of Building the Conference and the Community

(From left): Sampling dessert with the Israel Ministry of Tourism chef at ETC 2009; Frank LaFleche, Dennis Pinto, and Ray Knapp pictured at the
ETC 2003 Executive Advisory Council meeting held at Ray and Mara DelliPriscoli’s Mandorla Ranch, in Montana. : Jim Friedlander and Roberta Moore enjoy a break at the 2010 Executive Advisory Council Meeting, Gateway Canyons, Colo.; The Mexico
Tourism Board and the Yucatan hosted a cultural performance at ETC 2006; Business relationships and friendships begin in the International Bazaar.

Congratulations on the 25th anniversary of the Educational Travel Conference! The Tucson Museum of Art derived many benefits from its ETC membership and association with other nonprofit organizations. Exchanging ideas has been one of the motivating reasons to return to the conference year after year. Mara’s inspiration in developing Travel Learning Connections has been an incalculable benefit to all of the members of the Educational Travel Community.

Joyce Barkley
Retired Travel Planner, Tucson Museum of Art

The Educational Travel Community is an extraordinary professional development network. The fact that the ETC was founded over 25 years ago and has grown from a simple networking and sharing conference for some 30 nonprofit travel programs to the huge network it is today is an accomplishment worth noting. Today our world includes all aspects of travel from suppliers to ministry of tourism departments to risk managers to inbound operators and, of course, the nonprofit travel programs themselves. Each year, this conference provides basic information for newcomers, while challenging and encouraging other programs to look at new directions and to craft innovative educational experiences we might never have imagined before. We are not merely visiting countries, but we are helping to define unique worlds. The learning that occurs here also spills over into many other avenues of our personal lives and enriches us all.

Diana Lee Crew
Founder & Consultant, Real World Connections

Having attended the Educational Travel Conference for most of my 17 years as a travel planner, I can honestly say that the Philadelphia Zoo’s travel program has grown and continues to function because of the knowledge I’ve gained through the outstanding program the ETC offers each year. It is a wonderful way for me to network with fellow Natural History Museum, Aquarium, Conservation Organization, and Zoo (NACZ) planners, as we all share and learn from each other and become friends at the same time. The ETC is the only professional development conference where I can find everything I need in one place. I discover what destinations are “hot” and “what’s not.” I am able to discuss legal issues and risk management situations, find capable tour operators, and learn how to better market my products. My attendance at the ETC has been critical to the success of the Philadelphia Zoo’s travel program and also for AZAD’s (Association of Zoo and Aquarium Docents) for whom I plan several trips a year. I am credited with initiating the Zoo’s travel partnership program with other institutions, many of whom I have met at ETC, and for starting AZAD’s travel program. I couldn’t have accomplished any of this without attending the ETC. Thank you ETC for all that you have done, not only for me, but also for all the other like-minded colleagues in the world.

Roberta “Bert” DeVries
Philadelphia Zoo Travel Planner/Trips and
Program Manager and AZAD Travel Planner

The hard work and intense collaboration of planning each ETC Conference begins respectively at the annual Executive Advisory Council Meeting (pictured left page, Dubai, 2008) and at the Programming Regional
Roundtables held across the U.S. (pictured above, San Francisco, 2009).
I’ve been very privileged to have been associated with the Educational Travel Conference almost from the very beginning, as one of the first foreign tour operators to attend the Conference along with just a handful of others who ventured in the early days to the DoubleTree Hotel.
After attending this Conference for the first time I began to share Mara’s vision of a global community of people who are passionate about promoting affinity and nonprofit educational travel. I have had the opportunity to see it grow and develop into what it is today—a large community spanning the globe of people working for something they passionately believe in.
The yearly journey to the Conference has always been a place to hear inspirational and informative speakers and to share ideas with like-minded (for the most part) colleagues. I can only hope that the Conference continues to grow and develop in the future as it has in the past.
Good work and congratulations on your first 25 years!

Nick Fritz
Managing Director, Protours, The Netherlands

My position allows me to attend only one conference a year, and I find that the Educational Travel Conference is the most productive way for me to spend my conference time and dollars.
The ETC gives me the best mix of interacting with colleagues holding positions similar to mine in colleges and universities throughout the country, as well as an excellent opportunity to build relationships with tour operators, both from the United States and the destination countries of our tours. Not only do I learn better ways of doing my job, but I also am never starting from scratch when trying to find the right tour operator for one of my alumni adventures. I enjoy meeting with representatives from various countries to garner ideas of how my trips can be improved and learning about new services available to our travelers.
ETC is the only conference that I have ever attended where I am asked for months ahead of time by friends and contacts in the educational travel industry whether or not I am attending the conference. Each year I look forward to seeing my ETC friends again.

Amy Goerwitz
Assoc. Director of Alumni Relations, Carleton College

(From left): Delegates at ETC 2009 get into the fun of a crepes cooking competition; Attendee speaker and Emeritus Council member Alicia Stevens.
Congratulations on the Educational Travel Conference’s
25th year!
I feel that the ETC is the only conference in the world for colleagues to share the cutting edge of educational travel in a friendly and collegial atmosphere. Those of us who have been attending for years look forward eagerly to learning about the issues concerning educational travel and about what everyone else is doing. There could not be a better forum to learn and to share innovative ideas about best practices and achieving best results in the field of educational travel. The ETC definitely is one of the most enriching professional development experiences I have had in the travel industry.

Maria M. Gross
Consultant – Travel Sales and Marketing

PromPeru has been privileged to participate in the Educational Travel Conference and to assemble with the top influential travel leaders in North America. Through this opportunity, our country has succeeded in hosting several participants for familiarization trips to view the exotic, experiential, and cultural tourism experiences that continue to provide enlightening growth-occasions for visitors.
We look forward to the continued growth of the ETC and the expansion of attendees. We are eager to continue our relationship with the ETC and deepen our connection with the educational travel market by “Opening Doors to Open Minds.”
The ETC is one of our most important events, not only to showcase our product but also to increase our knowledge and enrich ourselves.

Elisabeth Hakim
UK & North American Markets Coordinator, PromPeru

I cherish my many years at the Conference (1986-2007). The Educational Travel Conference was crucial to my work in alumni education. It gave me the chance to know virtually everyone in the field and to develop critical relationships with the finest tour operators. I learned so much and it was so much fun. An entire industry owes a tremendous portion of its success over the past 25 years to the Conference in general and, even more, to our beloved Mara, who made it all happen. Kudos to you all and best wishes for the next 25 years!

Ralph Janis
Director Emeritus, Cornell’s Adult University

ETC bonds planners, tour operators, suppliers, and destinations into a common pursuit of excellence in educational travel. Over many years, the conference has given all of us both a platform for expressing our various points of view and a venue for discussion. It has been extremely valuable to me personally and for my organization to be part of such an informative, thoughtprovoking, and lively annual gathering.

Amy Kotkin
Director, Smithsonian Journeys

The Educational Travel Conference has been truly the “Super Bowl conference” of our industry. This annual affinity event has single handedly marked a time to regroup and reconnect with our colleagues and partners to brainstorm and strategize new marketing and programming ideas.
It also has been a remarkable place to reinvigorate our passion and commitment to educational travel.
We all come away from the ETC with a renewed sense of purpose, an extraordinary feat for any one conference!

Karen Kuttner-Capato
Vice President of Affinity & Charter Sales, Lindblad Expeditions

As goes the real estate mantra “location, location, location,” to me the Educational Travel Conference has been and remains “community, community, community.” A community of kindred minds, where we gather to share common ideas, address common challenges, and set common goals for success for all parties, enjoying the journey together on a win-win stage! Thanks to Mara for her vision and leadership!

Philip Mathews
Senior Associate, MIR Corporation

On the 25th anniversary, I am honored to have been part of the Educational Travel Conference and Group Travel Community since 1995. My 15-year journey with the Educational Travel Community has been rewarding and provided me with invaluable educational, business, and networking opportunities: first, during my time with the Finnish Tourist Board, and then with my own company dealing with travel to Scandinavian countries.
Mara, ETC’s group leader during this journey, has always provided inspiration, encouragement, and new sources of learning experiences. I see the ETC moving along into the future, always strong and staying abreast of new developments.

Kerstin E. Nordin
Marketing North America, Iceland Travel

Mara DelliPriscoli and Ray Knapp in Kenya visiting a local community project.
Travel, especially the kind of mindful travel done by nonprofits, is all about people. For a quarter century now, the Educational Travel Conference has been at the forefront of the thoughtful business of educational travel.
[Mara has never been one] to forget the unique importance of [her] calling—to seek out ways to make travel a means to inform, educate, and enlighten both the traveler and the peoples visited. [Ever since] she visited East Africa, Mara has sponsored three siblings through our AmericaShare School Sponsorship program. There is no question that she has saved lives by her dedication and continuing sponsorship. She has literally put the “education” in educational travel by providing schooling for these fortunate Kenyans, and in so doing has embodied the very mission of her own organization.

Dennis Pinto
Managing Director, Micato Safaris

“The professional benefits I’ve received from this Conference have been extremely rewarding to my institution, travel program, and me with each friendship to be treasured always.” (Written March 30, 1989.) Going forward, may this remain true!

Carolyn Sheaff
Retired Director, Cal Alumni Association

My first memories of the Educational Travel Conference are of people. Each year, old friends and new are highlights. Next is educational content, especially some of the really great and inspirational talks. Third is industry accomplishments—the most notable to me being the real partnerships that have evolved among the various segments of the educational travel pipeline thanks to the Conference.
All in all, my life has been positively impacted both professionally and personally because of the ETC. For this I thank Mara for her vision and conviction, the many hundreds of volunteers who make the Conference so Mara DelliPriscoli and Ray Knapp in Kenya visiting a local community project. great, the sponsors who make the Conference possible, and, most of all, the attendees, without whom there would be no Conference.
As we move forward through the next 25 years, if we continue to connect people, provide meaningful educational experiences, and stand ready to advocate on behalf of the industry, we will all be able to grab our canes and celebrate the 50th Anniversary.

Joe Small
President, AHI TRAVEL

After a career working with the National Park Service, I decided to venture into another phase of my life. My close friend, Susan Delgado, who was the Expedition Manager for National Wildlife Federation, suggested I look into attending the Educational Travel Conference. My first attendance was in Washington, D.C., which helped me solidify my decision of developing an environmental education travel company—Environmental Adventure Company. A complete newbie, my eyes and mind were opened to the sheer volume of information available to a novice of education travel. I have no doubt my conference attendance and willingness to ask questions and listen did more for me than stacks of books written on the subject. That was many years, and many conferences, ago. Personally, the value of attending the ETC is beyond measure. I look forward to many more years of interaction with the ETC family.

Michael Sanders
President/Founder, Environmental Adventure Company

The Educational Travel Community is a great organization that spans multiple borders: international, professional, and academic. It has brought me a wealth of information networks, and a sense of belonging to a much larger community. Ten years after being introduced to the ETC, and in a completely new phase of my career, I still find myself leaning on the networks and knowledge delivered over the years. The contacts have been invaluable to me and became building blocks to my present position. Through the ETC I have introduced a personal hero of mine to the Conference (Wade Davis), met some giants of the tourism world, and had conversations with some of the brightest and best our industry has to offer.
Thanks ETC for 25 years of hard work, professionalism, and leadership!

Peter Swain, MSC
District Manager, Cypress Hills District, Government of Alberta, Tourism Parks and Recreation

It is very exciting to be part of the 25th Educational Travel Conference. For two decades, I have had the pleasure of watching this conference grow from a small, planners-only Nonprofits in Travel meeting to what is now an Educational Travel Conference attracting organizations from all corners of the world.
This Conference provides a neutral meeting ground for all members of the educational travel community whether they are planners, destinations, operators or suppliers. The opportunity is there to expand your client base as well as your knowledge, and there is no better assembly of like-minded individuals and organizations to be found.
The Conference has been and continues to be the one place where we see an entire group of old friends and meet new ones. We credit it with contributing greatly to our growth and success in our niche travel market.
Attendees always leave with inspiration and an abundance of knowledge gained from speakers as well as their colleagues. The most valuable asset, in my opinion, is the sharing and mentoring that transpires during the sessions. There’s notably far more camaraderie than competition present.
The Conference helps expand our awareness of responsible tourism and of how we can be an asset to our environment as educated travelers rather than continuing its destruction.
I see the conference as a valuable tool that I hope can continue and grow over the next 25 years.

Linda Witt
Director, Sales and Client Relations/Educational Travel, USI Travel Insurance Services

Setting Sail 30 Years Ago

The Vision That Propelled the Educational Travel Community

2011 Interview with J. Mara DelliPriscoli by Sherry Schwarz

The Mandorla

Like any intrepid explorer, Mara DelliPriscoli has gone the distance to learn the contours of uncharted territory. From a year abroad traversing the ruins of Ancient Greece to a three-year hiatus blue-water sailing from the Caribbean to South America to finding a home on the range in western Montana—to visiting some 50-plus countries in between—she has traveled a long and winding path filled with adventure, risk, adversity, and reward to bring to life and evolve the Educational Travel Conference and mark its place on the modern map.

When asked what spurred her interest in educational travel, she reflects: “It was my freshman study abroad year …and the experiential focus on learning …arriving at Delphi for the first time at dawn …reading Herodotus sitting in the Acropolis …and being ‘transported’ into the living context of the past.”

Mara aboard the Mandorla with an early laptop organizing the second ETC Conference in 1988

Having worked in almost every sector of the travel industry, Mara’s advocacy for lifelong learning fortunately directed her to lay the foundation of the Educational Travel Conference. As she authored in a 2007 Transitions Abroad article: “My treks to Delphi have remained a compass point for many subsequent solo expeditions, as well as for professional planning of learning travel programs worldwide. Throughout the years I have seen the design of educational tours continue to evolve as travelers seek more authentic and transformative programs that offer both collaborative educational exchange and the freedom to pursue those spontaneous moments of solo discovery, which uniquely personalize travel. As we move toward new paradigms of what defines the educational travel experience from education that engages the mind to learning connections that engage the soul—facilitated lifelong learning through travel will eclipse the traditional model of managed group travel.”

That adventurous and spirited passion for travel has never left Mara and characterizes her today, as she admits to being the “eternal rolling stone.” She’ll hop on a plane, train, or horse anywhere, having traveled in Saudi Arabia, Syria, Azerbaijan, China, Outer Mongolia, northern India, Dubai, and Mexico in only the span of the last 15 months largely for business and forging ETC connections. Fittingly, it was island hopping in the British Virgin Islands when Mara made the commitment to launch TLC into reality—at that time called Travel Learning Consulting.

Her vision of orchestrating a professional development venue for nonprofit travel planners to network, collaborate, and share best practices had long been percolating in her mind. “Having worked too many a trade show from the supplier side, far removed from the educational content of the meeting, I recognized the lack of professional development and training workshops for all involved with nonprofit travel, particularly the travel planners,” says Mara.She was convinced that “there had to be a better way” to support the growth and diversity of nonprofit travel as well as promote “sustainable” nonprofit and for-profit partnerships. Having bounced around the concept of Nonprofits in Travel for many a year with colleagues Diana Lee Crew (then directing the Denver Museum of Natural History’s travel program) and Bryan DeLeo (then directing the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s travel program), Mara took the plunge in 1987 and launched—with a six-week lead time only—the first Nonprofits in Travel Conference (NPTC) with a brochure and program in tandem with Diana Lee Crew. Mara remembers the decisions and trade-offs requisite to this bold move noting, “I just knew without hesitation that NPTC was an idea whose time had come. So I ignored every marketing principle about measured lead time in promotions, invested all my limited resources and just went for it!”

At that point in time the Conference was a “test” run—without a long-term business plan running on sheer determination and passion for a vision unfolding. In 1987, after the first NPTC conference, Mara set sail for the Caribbean—and what she thought would be a temporary hop from Bermuda to the British Virgin Islands. Her “hop” lasted three years. Between thousands of miles sailing and diving, brushes with Venezuelan pirates and uprisings, she focused on enhancing and expanding the Nonprofits in Travel Conference from the s/v Mandorla.

In the first eight years, Mara convened the first Advisory Council of which Diana Lee Crew was a founding council member, and received endorsements from leading nonprofit institutions: the Denver Museum of Natural History, California Alumni Association, Witte Museum, the Alumni Association of the University of Michigan Alumni, and the Sierra Club. Since these early days, the ETC has evolved to a six-person core team with more than 20 on-site Conference staff, from a 35-person meeting to an international Conference with an audience of 450-plus attendees from over 40 countries, and an ever-growing member constituency in the online community.

“ETC is an extraordinary professional development network,” says Diana Lee Crew. “The fact that the group was founded over 25 years ago and has grown from a simple networking and sharing conference for some 30 nonprofit travel programs to the huge network it is today is an accomplishment worth noting.”

Whereas the constituency focus in the first years of the Conference was exclusively on museums, Mara’s vision was to cultivate the cross-fertilization of ideas across all nonprofit sectors diversifying the attendee base to include alumni associations, continuing education programs, conservation groups, and environmental organizations. With a strategic focus on building a strong and viable nonprofit constituency in the first three years, Mara moved forward to include the other half of the nonprofit travel partnership: tour operators, and then expanding to destinations and travel suppliers in the early ’90s. This strategy included expanding a then one-track travel-planner-only educational conference to a vertically rich and multi-layered offering of concurrent conference sessions to appeal to all individuals within the educational travel market, including the for-profit constituency. Sponsoring partners contributed greatly to an economically viable expansion of educational programming, social venues, and Conference-related online services.

As the Conference continued to grow in size and scope, the Executive Advisory Council expanded to reflect the growing diversity in Conference attendees. Council members were selected on the basis of their expertise in the field of educational and special-interest affinity and alumni/member travel, as well as the industry sector they represent: travel planner, tour operator, tour supplier, destination. An Emeritus Advisory Council was founded in 2004 by former Advisory Council members wishing to remain active and engaged in the ongoing activities of the ETC.

Pushing the technology curve, Mara launched the first online registration for the ETC in 1999, and placed on the agenda, as early as 1995, strong online marketing courses and the first all-day Technology Forum, which was “cutting edge but sparsely attended,” adds Mara with a laugh.

The 1998 ETC Executive Advisory Council meeting held at the Riverview B&B, West Dennis, MA. Pictured from left: Jim Moses, President and CEO, Road Scholar, Amy Kotkin, former Director, Smithsonian Journeys (retired), J. Mara DelliPriscoli, Ralph Janis, former Director, Cornell’s Adult University, Joyce Barkley (retired), former Co-Director of Travel, Tucson Art Museum (retired),Jeanne Cobb, former Director of Travel, Ohio State University Alumni Association (deceased), and Carolyn Sheaff, former Director, BEAR TREKS Travel Program, Cal Berkeley Alumni Association (retired).

Almost from the outset, Mara envisioned the ETC’s activities beyond an annual Conference as a year-round resource and networking forum. As early as 1992, she laid plans for “The Nonprofits in Travel Coalition Resource Room,” which was the precursor for her desire to evolve an online ETC community. The first Networking Database was launched in the late ’90’s and, now, many versions later, it serves as the basis for today’s ETC member website’s search capabilities, which include Organizational Searches, Member Searches, and Destination Reports. It was due to the direct and sustained support of the website’s sponsoring partners that three phases of the current ETC website were able to launch successfully over the past five years. Today the ETC website includes not only its robust search capabilities, but also many tools and resources that Mara has innovated from the personalized “task manager” providing each member with customized reminders and timely information to the recently launched Member Profiles, which are designed to facilitate community-building and networking.

Mara DelliPriscoli in front of the new Library of Alexandria, Egypt in 2000

ETC’s website is also an extension of the annual Conference, insofar as it enables members to now listen to digital recordings of the majority of Conference sessions and to access speaker handouts year-round. This evolution has been particularly gratifying for Mara, who, from the outset, aimed to supply Conference content and collateral that could be accessed 24/7 by virtual members.

Every year since its inception, the Conference has focused not only on the issues, concerns and opportunities in nonprofit travel but also on the broader trends and strategic issues of the travel industry, recruiting top marketing and trends speakers, as well as educational travel industry leaders from within the community and candid discourses with industry partners.

“The Conference has never been cookie cutter,” says Mara. “Each year the ETC delivers on the basic how to’s but also brings to the forefront the ever-evolving challenges of staying relevant and creating program distinctions in affinity and alumni travel. Re-thinking travel programs for a rapidly evolving traveler, moving into the digital age of marketing and social networking, strengthening partner relationships are all critical to the growth, leadership, and evolution of nonprofit travel programs.”

In addition to advancing education and professional development, the ETC has also prided itself on its outreach and advocacy over the years. Mara cites the launch of the ETC “Educationals,” in 1990, as a program of which she is particularly proud. The “Educationals” enable experienced travel planners to share their programming expertise with countries furthering the development of educational travel.

The ETC has also made important strides through presentations on tourism as a passport to peace and with the formation, in 1991, of the Nonprofit UBIT tax coalition. Included in its many “firsts,” the ETC hosted the first Voluntourism Forums and served as the first platform for Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland to launch co-promotional activities in the U.S. travel industry.

Mara DelliPriscoli and her late husband Ray Knapp in Kenya visiting a local community project.

If materializing a vision teaches us anything, humility is among the first of lessons—and it’s one Mara knows well. Even as the founder and president of the ETC, she is the first to tell you her part of the ETC story is but only one small piece. “It is witnessing a community evolving and the commitment of colleagues to raise the bar of professionalism in their industry that inspires and renews my commitment to ETC annually,” says Mara.

She adds: “It is the countless core of volunteer colleagues—participants in the Regional Roundtables…colleagues ‘giving back’ by teaching Jumpstart for the past 22 years…veteran ETC members leading the Executive Forum…delegates developing and leading sessions annually at the ETC…valued sponsors helping to deliver a quality educational platform, fun networking venues, and a growing online communications platform…the strategic counseling of the Executive Advisory and Emeritus Council members, and so many others—who have all tirelessly and heartfully contributed to the face of ETC today.” These are the leaders who Mara believes will set the pace for the next 25 years.

As Mara closes her reflection on the eve of the 25th Anniversary Conference, she is already looking toward the horizon for the next need to be served, the next challenge. When asked what’s ahead on the ETC agenda, Mara doesn’t hesitate: “aggregating industry statistics on the affinity and alumni travel market,” she says passionately. “The growth and development of a community with a leading industry voice is critical,” she says. “I expect that the resulting aggregated data will become an essential resource for researching, benchmarking, and advocacy in years to come.”

2017 St. Louis, Missouri

Adventuring Beyond: The Quest for Innovation & Distinction in Affinity Travel

2020 Chattanooga, Tennessee


2019 Montgomery, Alabama

The Voices of Authenticity, Advocacy & Affinity

J. Mara DelliPriscoli
2019 Presentation

Session Title: New Directions for Educational Travel: Trends that are changing your business
Session Description: How will educational travel programs based on affinity ensure their continued relevance and competitiveness in an increasingly crowded market place for educational travel? Does the current travel climate give affinities greater flexibility to innovate and rethink their programs? Their operation? Their engagement? What has to change to stay relevant? We need to ask these questions. To spark the debate, Steve Cohen, delivers a look at some of the big picture trends redefining travel among all travelers, the luxury traveler, the millennial traveler and others by life-stage, and the trends that are driving the shift toward purpose and personal fulfillment. Mara and Kathy will share findings from ETC’s recent survey of 50 affinity travel programs and over 90 travel operators that provide key insights into opportunities and challenges for educational travel, long under-recognized as an important segment of the luxury travel continuum. ETC member tour operator respondents provide one-minute commentaries focusing on the trends they see evident in the educational affinity travel space.
Biography: Photo of J. Mara DelliPriscoliJ. Mara DelliPriscoli, ETC Founder and President of Travel Learning Connections, Inc., convened the first ETC conference in 1987. Her vision was to facilitate the growth of a vibrant community of like-minded colleagues to annually—a travel think tank of sorts—to deal with current challenges and future opportunities in educational travel. Once technology had sufficiently advanced, she started to expand this community slowly online. Within this conference and online platform she has facilitated the growth of strategic business partnerships and business-to-business networking of those in the field of alumni, museum, conservation and affinity group travel. With over 38 years of experience in the tourism industry, Mara has worked directly within most sectors of the travel industry in her career, including marketing, sales, tour development and management, hotel operations, transportation, trade and government research and consulting firms. Mara lectures, writes and works with cultural, community and conservation tourism development projects in the US and abroad. She consults in the field of educational, community and special interest tourism development for a variety of US and international organizations. She continues to pursue professional photography and her passion for exploration, blue water sailing, language, ethnic music and dance. Mara holds an M. Ed in Tourism Development with a minor in marketing from the George Washington University, and a B.A. from Barnard College, Columbia University with a major in European history and a minor in three languages. Her freshman year was spent at the College Year in Athens, Greece. A native New Englander, having spent a great deal of her professional life in the Washington, D.C. area, then sailing thousands of nautical miles at sea for three years, Mara has been based in the beautiful Mission Valley, St. Ignatius, MT on the Flathead Reservation for 22-plus years. She still travels extensively globally. Read an article about Mara and the founding of the Educational Travel Community and Conference.

Kathy Edersheim
2019 Presentation

Session Title: New Directions for Educational Travel: Trends that are changing your business
Session Description: How will educational travel programs based on affinity ensure their continued relevance and competitiveness in an increasingly crowded market place for educational travel? Does the current travel climate give affinities greater flexibility to innovate and rethink their programs? Their operation? Their engagement? What has to change to stay relevant? We need to ask these questions. To spark the debate, Steve Cohen, delivers a look at some of the big picture trends redefining travel among all travelers, the luxury traveler, the millennial traveler and others by life-stage, and the trends that are driving the shift toward purpose and personal fulfillment. Mara and Kathy will share findings from ETC’s recent survey of 50 affinity travel programs and over 90 travel operators that provide key insights into opportunities and challenges for educational travel, long under-recognized as an important segment of the luxury travel continuum. ETC member tour operator respondents provide one-minute commentaries focusing on the trends they see evident in the educational affinity travel space.
Biography: Photo of Kathy EdersheimKathy Edersheim is the President of Impactrics, a social enterprise that provides consulting to educational institutions to strengthen education through enhanced alumni engagement. Impactrics focuses on alumni engagement and community building to benefit the institution, the students, and the alumni with measurable impact. Prior to forming Impactrics, she was Senior Director of International Alumni Relations and Travel at the Association of Yale Alumni (AYA). Her responsibilities included managing Yale Educational Travel, which offers about 45 faculty-led trips a year. Her broader international responsibilities incorporated the Yale Global Alumni Leadership Exchange (YaleGALE) which, since 2008, has taken alumni delegations to many countries in Europe, Africa and Asia to share best practices in alumni relations with universities, and the Yale Alumni Service Corps, which takes Yale alumni, family, and friends to work in underserved communities providing supplementary education programs, public health education, micro-business consulting, and light construction to support and inspire the communities. She writes and speaks extensively about alumni relations for institutions throughout the world. Prior to joining AYA, she worked as a Financial Advisor and marketing professional. She has an M.B.A. from the Stern School of Business at New York University and a B.A. from Yale University.

Steve Cohen
2019 Preentation

Session Title: New Directions for Educational Travel: Trends that are changing your business
Session Description: How will educational travel programs based on affinity ensure their continued relevance and competitiveness in an increasingly crowded market place for educational travel? Does the current travel climate give affinities greater flexibility to innovate and rethink their programs? Their operation? Their engagement? What has to change to stay relevant? We need to ask these questions. To spark the debate, Steve Cohen, delivers a look at some of the big picture trends redefining travel among all travelers, the luxury traveler, the millennial traveler and others by life-stage, and the trends that are driving the shift toward purpose and personal fulfillment. Mara and Kathy will share findings from ETC’s recent survey of 50 affinity travel programs and over 90 travel operators that provide key insights into opportunities and challenges for educational travel, long under-recognized as an important segment of the luxury travel continuum. ETC member tour operator respondents provide one-minute commentaries focusing on the trends they see evident in the educational affinity travel space.
Biography: Photo of Steve CohenSteve Cohen is the Senior Vice President, Travel Insights, for MMGY Global. Steve brings more than 25 years of experience in market research and insights to his position at MMGY Global. He leads the agency’s customer insights and industry research, including overseeing the development of MMGY Global’s proprietary surveys, including the Portrait of American Travelers® as well as its custom research programs. He is also responsible for day-to-day operations of the agency’s Orlando office. Prior to working at MMGY Global, Steve led research efforts for the AAA National Office, Marriott Vacations Worldwide, The Ritz-Carlton Club and Walt Disney Parks & Resorts. He has also guided the research for The Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau, Destination Cleveland, Visit Tucson, CheapCaribbean.com, the South Dakota Department of Tourism, The American Society of Travel Agents (ASTA), Visit Savannah, the Japan National Tourism Office, Uber, the Nassau/Paradise Island Promotion Board, and the Jordan Tourism Board, North America. He is regularly interviewed by both mainstream and trade press, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, U.S. News & World Report, The Los Angeles Times, Time, CNN, Fox News and Travel Weekly.

Gerry Ellis
2019 Presentation

Session Title: The Power of Local Knowledge: Communities at the top of the tourism paradigm
Session Description: Baba Dioum said “In the end we will conserve only what we love, we will love only what we understand, and we will understand only what we are taught”. Every day you are creating experiences for clients that have the power to transform their lives, their understanding of the world, and their role within it. You not only create experiences for your clients, you’re also impacting the places they visit. Is that impact a positive one? You are in the unique position to change peoples’ lives and literally make the world a better place with increased understanding, awareness, inspiration to be global citizens, and by benefiting the communities you work with – if you do it the right way. Are you?
Self Described: Philanthropists and Environmentalists
Biography: Gerry Ellis is an award-winning environmental photographer/film-maker—including the prestigious Visa pour L’Image for his work on orphaned baby African elephants, Wild Orphans. He has documented the lives of endangered species, indigenous cultures and threatened ecosystems across every continent. Gerry is currently working around the world on a multi-year education and public awareness project called Apes Like Us to heighten concern for survival of great apes. He is the creator and host of the YouTube channel Apes Like Us. His work has encompassed numerous long-term projects for National Audubon, World Wildlife Fund, Chevron PNG, and the Australian government. Gerry’s work has appeared in magazine publications including the Paris Match, Ranger Rick, New York Times, GEO and National Geographic, as well as multiple book projects, including The Outdoor Traveler’s Guide to Australia, and several titles in the highly acclaimed National Geographic Kids Book series. Gerry is founder and President of the education nonprofit GLOBIO.

Praveen Moman
2019 Presentation

Session Title: The Power of Local Knowledge: Communities at the top of the tourism paradigm
Session Description: Baba Dioum said “In the end we will conserve only what we love, we will love only what we understand, and we will understand only what we are taught”. Every day you are creating experiences for clients that have the power to transform their lives, their understanding of the world, and their role within it. You not only create experiences for your clients, you’re also impacting the places they visit. Is that impact a positive one? You are in the unique position to change peoples’ lives and literally make the world a better place with increased understanding, awareness, inspiration to be global citizens, and by benefiting the communities you work with – if you do it the right way. Are you?
Self Described: Philanthropists and Environmentalists
Biography: Praveen Moman is the founder and CEO of Volcanoes Safaris. He founded Volcanoes Safaris in 1997 to create a unique eco-tourism model, centered around the threatened gorilla and chimpanzee populations of the western rift valley. In 2009, he established the Volcanoes Safaris Partnership Trust (VSPT), a non-profit organization that aims to create long-term, self-sustaining projects that enrich the livelihoods of local communities and promote the conservation of the great apes. Praveen grew up in the wilds of Uganda, where the family was part of the pioneering Asian community that was central to opening up East Africa. He then moved to the UK as the family became refugees with the Amin expulsion. This was followed by a career as a political and policy adviser in the European Union and British Government. He has been involved in and serves on many boards, including: Seva Mandir a respected Indian charity; the Imbabazi Foundation in Rwanda, which supports genocide orphans; the Advisory Boards of the Adventure Travel Trade Association in the USA and The Bodhi Tree Foundation; the Campaign for Arundells; Women Matter and an Executive Member of the Eastern Africa Association. Praveen was educated in Uganda and at London and Cambridge University in the UK. He is a Robert Schuman Scholar of the European Parliament.

Britt Basel
2019 Presentation

Session Title: The Power of Local Knowledge: Communities at the top of the tourism paradigm
Session Description: Baba Dioum said “In the end we will conserve only what we love, we will love only what we understand, and we will understand only what we are taught”. Every day you are creating experiences for clients that have the power to transform their lives, their understanding of the world, and their role within it. You not only create experiences for your clients, you’re also impacting the places they visit. Is that impact a positive one? You are in the unique position to change peoples’ lives and literally make the world a better place with increased understanding, awareness, inspiration to be global citizens, and by benefiting the communities you work with – if you do it the right way. Are you?
Self Described: Philanthropists and Environmentalists
Biography: Britt Basel is the Director of Ecothropic. Her work bridges socio-environmental science, educational travel, and change-making media. Her fieldwork spans working with the United Nations Development Program and the Nature Conservancy to direct engagement with small-scale farmers and local resources managers in indigenous and rural communities around the world. She uses community-driven processes incorporating capacity building, ecosystem-based solutions, sustainable livelihoods, social cohesion, and appropriate technology that empower communities to address the challenges they face. Building on 12 years of experience with educational travel for National Geographic and others, Basel designs and runs accredited-programs bringing small groups to the front-lines of climate change to engage with the scientists and community members who are defining socio-ecological solutions. Building on her experience as a visual storyteller (publications include National Geographic Traveller India, the Washington Post, The Outdoor Journal and others) and as a photography and multi-media instructor for National Geographic Student Expeditions and Putney Student Travel, Basel is currently using film to nurture and embolden communities and youth to solve their own social, environmental, and natural resource problems. While she has experience in 42 countries, her work is currently focused in Melanesia, Cuba, and Mexico. Her not-so-secret passion is dancing – especially to afro-Cuban rhythms. Basel has a BA in Anthropology (Colorado University), an MSc in Human Dimensions of Natural Resources (Colorado State University), and an MSc in Conservation Leadership (El Colegio de la Frontera Sur).

Bryan Stevenson
2019 Presentation

Session Title: Why We Travel?: The Compassionate Journey
Session Description: How do you change the world? Advocating for justice and mercy, Bryan Stevenson challenges us to take an inspiring journey toward real change in our communities and society. Bryan’s message is riveting, inspiring and not to be missed. Making a strong connection to the travel experience, embracing hope, with a commitment to discomfort, and being open to new cultures, travel provides an opportunity for powerful experiential learning and is a tool for changing our narratives.
Biography: Bryan Stevenson is the founder and Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) in Montgomery, Alabama. Mr. Stevenson is a widely acclaimed public interest lawyer who has dedicated his career to helping the poor, the incarcerated and the condemned. Recognizing that injustice comes in many forms, Stevenson continues to fight for justice and truth, whether from our shared past or from the present day. Through his work with the nonprofit Equal Justice Initiative (EJI} Stevenson has been able to help transform the landscape of the criminal justice system. guided by a belief in the power of being equal before the law. Under his leadership, EJI has won major legal challenges eliminating excessive and unfair sentencing, exonerating innocent death row prisoners, confronting abuse of the incarcerated and the mentally ill and aiding children prosecuted as adults. EJI has also created and launched the new National Memorial for Peace and Justice and the Legacy Museum for education about the legacy of racial inequality and for the truth and reconciliation that leads to real solutions to contemporary problems.
Mr. Stevenson has won numerous awards including the prestigious MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Prize, the National Medal of Liberty from the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Olaf Palme Prize in Stockholm, Sweden for international human rights. A 1985 graduate of Harvard, with both a master’s in public policy from the Kennedy School of Government and a JD from the School of Law, Bryan Stevenson joined the clinical faculty at New York University School of Law in 1998. Mr. Stevenson has received 29 honorary doctoral degrees including degrees from Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Oxford University. He is the author of the critically acclaimed New York Times bestseller, Just Mercy, which was named by Time Magazine as one of the 10 Best Books of Nonfiction for 2014 and has been awarded several honors including the Carnegie Medal by the American Library Association for the best nonfiction book of 2014 and a 2015 NAACP Image Award.

Sree Sreenivasan

Sree Sreenivasan (@sree) is the first Chief Digital Officer at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the latest step in what he calls “a three-decade, one-way love affair with the world’s greatest museum.” At the Met, he leads a world-class team on topics he loves: digital, social, mobile, video, apps, data, geolocation, email and more. He joined the Met after spending 20 years at Columbia University as a member of the faculty of the Columbia Journalism School and a year as the university’s first Chief Digital Officer. He will continue to teach a digital media course there each semester. In 2009, he was named one of AdAge’s 25 media people to follow on Twitter and in 2010 was named one of Poynter’s 35 most influential people in social media. You can find him on Twitter at twitter.com/sree and on Facebook at facebook.com/sreetips and on Instagram at instagram.com/sreenet and on the web at http://sree.net. His blog posts are at https://www.facebook.com/SreeTips/. Mr. Sreenivasan spoke for the first time at the 2014 conference.

2019 Presentation

What’s New in Social Media for Travel?
Wednesday, February 5 – 8:45-9:45am
Biography: Sree Sreenivasan is a leading consultant, speaker and trainer for nonprofits, corporations, startups and executives, specializing in digital innovation and social media. He was named one of Fast Company’s 100 Most Creative People in Business in 2015; the world’s most influential Chief Digital Officer by CDO Club in 2016; and one of Poynter’s 35 most influential people in social media in 2010. In the last year, he’s worked internationally with Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Cultural District; UNHCR, the UN refugee agency; the Pulitzer Prizes; Louvre Abu Dhabi; TheWrap entertainment news; U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum; American Museum of Natural History; and the National Ballet of Canada, to name a few.
Sree has been Chief Digital Officer of major institutions in multiple industries: City of New York; Columbia University; and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Before joining the Met, he spent 20 years as a full-time professor at his master’s alma mater, Columbia Journalism School. He was recently named the inaugural Marshall R. Loeb Visiting Professor of Digital Innovation at Stony Brook University School of Journalism. Sree is delighted to return to ETC after a gap of three years.

Sue Hershkowitz-Coore

Sue Hershkowitz-Coore is an internationally recognized communications specialist. She helps audiences increase their profitability, professionalism and productivity through improved communications. Her customized sessions engage, educate and entertain to ensure authentic communications and amazingly successful client relationships. Hershkowitz-Coore has authored two books, Power Sales Writing (McGraw-Hill) and How to Say It to Sell It! (Prentice Hall/Penguin). She is a past officer and board member of the National Speakers Association, a founding member of Meeting Professionals International’s Women’s Leadership Initiative, has been designated an MPI “Platinum” speaker for 9 consecutive years and named “Best in Class – 2010-2013” by the Professional Convention Management Association. Hershkowitz-Coore received her BA from the University of Bridgeport, MC from Arizona State University and a Fellowship from UC Berkeley.

2019 Presentation

Session Title: Take Your Customer Service to the Next Level: Creating happy travelers and brand advocates
Session Description: How good are you? Do your clients do business with you despite unintentional obstacles? What do they really think about your service? Keep your travelers engaged before and after their trip to create raving fans
Self Described: Global Leader in Sales & Communication Training
Biography: Sue Hershkowitz-Coore is an internationally recognized communications specialist. She helps audiences increase their profitability, professionalism and productivity through improved communication. Her customized sessions engage, educate and entertain to ensure authentic communications and amazingly successful client relationships. Her clients include The Ritz-Carlton; The Savoy, London; Mandarin Oriental, Marriott, Hyatt and Hilton Hotels. Hershkowitz-Coore has authored two books, Power Sales Writing (McGraw-Hill) and How to Say It to Sell It! (Prentice Hall/Penguin). She is a past officer and board member of the National Speakers Association, a founding member of Meeting Professionals International’s Women’s Leadership Initiative, has been designated an MPI “Platinum” speaker for 9 consecutive years and named “Best in Class” by the Professional Convention Management Association. Hershkowitz-Coore received her BA from the University of Bridgeport, MC from Arizona State University and a Fellowship from UC Berkeley. Hershkowitz-Coore was a speaker at ETC 2014, 2015 & 2018.

Peggy Wallace Kennedy

2019 Presentation
Session Title: Seeking Higher Ground: Who we as travelers can become
Session Description: Through our lives and travels near and far, let us see others, feel others and celebrate others, respecting them for who they are and who they can become. In so doing, we will recognize the nobility that lies in the heart of the every man, including ourselves.
Self Described: Civil Rights Activist
Biography: Peggy Wallace Kennedy is a Montgomery-based civil rights activist who is recognized as one of America’s most important voices for peace and reconciliation. Born into one of the most powerful political families in the history of the American South with her father (George Wallace) and mother (Lurleen Wallace) both serving as Governors of Alabama, Peggy Wallace Kennedy now stands apart from her past. Her life’s story demonstrates the notion that while none of us can be held responsible for the circumstances of our birth, each of us will be held responsible for who we can become. With the creation of a new and different legacy for her and her two sons, Mrs. Kennedy challenges us to believe in ourselves so that we too can walk to higher ground. As a national speaker, Mrs. Kennedy has participated in programs at the National Archives, Congressional Forums with Congressman John Lewis and on the 50th Anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery March, joined Reverend Bernice King, the daughter of Dr. Martin Luther King, on the steps of the Alabama State Capitol as a living testament to the power of change and reconciliation. Mrs. Kennedy’s own personal journey to redemption and her call for justice through reconciliation will one day be viewed as the most important and lasting public service of the Wallace/Kennedys of Alabama.

Máirtín de Cógáin

Máirtín de Cógáin from Cork, Ireland gets no more joy out of life than the telling of stories. Twice All Ireland Champion storyteller, he has been traveling the world telling the tales of Ireland, singing the ballads of old and playing his Bodhrán (Irish Drum). He has played with his own musical groups; The Fuchsia Band, Gailfean & The Máirtín de Cógáin Project, was asked to play with The Chieftains, Cherish the Ladies & Gaelic Storm, threaded the boards off Broadway with his own show De Bogman and shone on the silver screen in the epic movie The Wind That Shakes The Barley. Máirtín was brought up in a bilingual house, earned a Degree in the Irish language from University College of Cork and is a fluent speaker of Gaelic. http://www.mairtinmusic.com

Dawn Rodney

Dawn Rodney is Vice President Innovation and Chief Marketing Officer for the National Wildlife Federation. She is responsible for leading innovation, amplifying brand awareness, creating new revenue streams, developing content, and transforming the organization’s current catalog and licensing divisions. Prior to joining the National Wildlife Federation, Dawn was Senior Vice President of Marketing and Brand for the National Geographic Society. Dawn was responsible for leading the global brand, engaging digital natives across the world on all platforms, launching new digital products, and driving awareness of National Geographic’s science, education, and storytelling priorities. While at National Geographic, Dawn also led strategic marketing and creative for the National Geographic Channels. She was integral to building and launching NGC, Nat Geo WILD, and Nat Geo Mundo – transforming them from start-up networks to global, world premiere brands. Dawn also had various supervising producing positions at Animal Planet and Discovery Health. She started her career as a producer at local television stations. Dawn has won many industry awards for her work including an Emmy Award for National Geographic’s “Next Generation of Explorers” campaign and Webby Award for Best Homepage. Dawn is a graduate of Duquesne University.

Janet Ferguson

Dr. Janet Ferguson is the Executive Director of the Lifelong Learning Centre, Bermuda College. Prior to her current role, Dr. Ferguson designed and facilitated workshops and learning events for a wide cross-section of private and public sector clients in the United Kingdom and Bermuda. In addition to her current work in curriculum development and administration for late-life learning, she is interested in the exploration of the distinctive nature of the learning and developmental experiences of mature adults. Dr. Ferguson has taught extensively in multiple jurisdictions and holds graduate qualifications in Commonwealth Area Studies, Marketing and Teaching and Course Design for Higher Education. Her doctoral degree is in the area of Continuing Education (Warwick, 1998).

Todd Duncan

Todd Duncan is the Director of Safety, Security and Emergency Preparedness for the Sierra Club where he manages operational risk and crisis response. Prior to this role, he served two years as the Director of Safety and Student Life for the School for Field Studies (SFS), a university international semester abroad provider which [expand title=”offers”] hands-on environmental learning to students. He has also served with the Wildlife Conservation Society as manager for Glover’s Reef Marine Research Station in Belize. Todd has guided and directed adventure, research, and education programs on six continents. He is a native of Montana and graduate of the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Brian Anderson

Brian Anderson is the Training and Development Manager for Sierra Club National Outings. In his role, he creates, manages, and leads training of new volunteer trip leaders as well as continuing education for current trip leaders. For the development part of his work, he designs custom trips and crafts new trip ideas for National Outings to pursue. Before the Sierra Club, Brian was the Assistant Director of Wellness and Recreation at Regis University in Denver, Colorado, where he oversaw student and professional staff that ran programs in outdoor recreation and physical fitness. Years in the field as a whitewater rafting guide, adaptive ski instructor, rock climbing, and backpacking guide have given him a well-rounded history of field and office work from various organizations. Brian graduated with his Bachelor’s degree from Western Colorado University and Masters from Regis University. Brian joined the Executive Advisory Council in 2020 and represents national non-profit organizations. www.sierraclub.org/adventure-travel

Gerry Ellis

Gerry Ellis is an award-winning environmental photographer/film-maker, and founder and Executive Director of the conservation education nonprofit GLOBIO. Gerry’s history in travel spans four-decades as a photographer, writer and international guide; he now oversees GLOBIO’s new project-based travel program, linking donors through travel to GLOBIO’s work across Equatorial Africa and Borneo/Sumatra. In 2020 under Gerry’s oversight GLOBIO launches the Educator’s Travel Scholarship Initiative to give educators firsthand international experiential-learning opportunities to inspire life-long learning with which to impacts in their students. For GLOBIO, Gerry is filming around the world on a multi-year education and public awareness project called Apes Like Us, to heighten concern for the survival of great apes. He is the creator and host of the YouTube channel Apes Like Us. Gerry’s film/photo work has encompassed numerous long-term projects for National Audubon, World Wildlife Fund, Chevron PNG, and the Australian government. His work has appeared in magazine publications including BBC Wildlife, Paris Match, Ranger Rick, New York Times and National Geographic, as well as multiple book projects, including The Outdoor Traveler’s Guide to Australia, and several titles in the highly acclaimed National Geographic Kids Book series.

John Francis

Duke University Students and Facilitators
Spearheading Sustainability: Duke University Master Students’ Project
Tuesday, February 4, 12:50-1:30 pm

Facilitator: John Francis is former Vice President for Research, Conservation and Exploration at National Geographic Society. A marine biologist and National Geographic grantee, John began his career studying behavioral ecology of seals and sea lions on remote islands in North and South America. A film on his work led to his role as a producer of wildlife films, covering everything from chimps and tigers to whales and sharks. From that he took on the grant making side of National Geographic supporting explorers around the world and pushing their stories through diverse NG media. Outside of his National Geographic Society responsibilities, Francis served on boards and committees for the US National Park System, the Commission for Education and Communications of the IUCN, and the US National Commission for UNESCO. He now serves on Sustainable Travel International and the Congo Basin Institute boards and advises the NG/Lindblad Fund supporting marine projects visited by shipboard travelers. John has a deep commitment to communication of the potent ties between humans and the rest of the natural world and is currently focused on citizen science and sustainable tourism as two key engines for change. John holds a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D) in Behavioral Ecology from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Beth Ray-Schroeder

Duke University Students and Facilitators
Spearheading Sustainability: Duke University Master Students’ Project
Tuesday, February 4, 12:50-1:30 pm

Facilitator: Beth Ray-Schroeder is Director of Duke Alumni Travels in the Office of Alumni Affairs at Duke University. At Duke since 2005, Ray-Schroeder has also alumni education initiatives and priorities of the alumni travel program. She now organizes more than 40 educational travel programs annually, which comprise vendor itineraries and in-house customized programs showcasing unique Duke entities and are led by Duke faculty. Prior to coming to Duke, Ray-Schroeder lived and worked in Spain and Germany for 17 years. She held positions as a software developer in Madrid, as international systems project manager at Deutsche Lufthansa AG in Frankfurt am Main, and as an organizational consultant in Austria, Germany and Switzerland. She holds a B.S. in Computer Science and the equivalent degree in Psychology from Duke University, and a M.S. in Organizational Psychology from Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz. Ray-Schroeder is currently serving on the ETC Executive Advisory Council representing the interests of alumni association travel planners in the southeastern United States.

Courtney McCorstin

Duke University Students and Facilitators
Spearheading Sustainability: Duke University Master Students’ Project
Tuesday, February 4, 12:50-1:30 pm

Courtney McCorstin is a Master of Environmental Management Student pursuing a concentration in Business and the Environment with a specialization in Conservation Management. She is an environmentalist at her core, with a B.S. in Wildlife Biology and minors in Sustainability and Water Resources. Her passion for travel became apparent as she was working as a conservationist on a Game Reserve in South Africa. She discovered the way to connect her passion for wildlife and experience in business was through travel. It was for this reason that she decided to pursue a Master’s Project focused on Sustainable Travel.

Samantha Burch

Duke University Students and Facilitators
Spearheading Sustainability: Duke University Master Students’ Project
Tuesday, February 4, 12:50-1:30 pm

Samantha Burch is focused on using the power of impact strategy and communication to help drive sustainable business. She is currently pursuing a Master of Environmental Management degree, specializing in both Business and Entrepreneurship & Innovation. Prior to graduate school, she worked as an International Education Professional at UGA, where the intersection of sustainability and travel (and its tangled supply chain!) first peaked her interest. Through her Master’s Project, she’s gained further insight into the travel world and is now dedicated to redefining how we travel through: improved standardization practices, strategic partnership development, and effective marketing and communications. Samantha earned her B.A. in Environmental Studies and International Studies at Elon University (’16).

Annabelle Mercer

Duke University Students and Facilitators
Spearheading Sustainability: Duke University Master Students’ Project
Tuesday, February 4, 12:50-1:30 pm

Annabelle Mercer is a biologist turned corporate sustainability strategist. Having spent several years researching the world’s rarest plants and animals, she is now dedicated to understanding how we can use the resources of the private sector to protect the planet’s biodiversity. Annabelle works with companies to measure and manage their environmental impact, pairing her passion for the environment with business management know-how. Annabelle received a Bachelor of Science in Biology from Duke University in 2017, and is now eagerly continuing her Duke experience as a Master of Environmental Management Candidate studying Business and Environment.

Joel Sartore

A Voice for the Voiceless
Tuesday, February 6, 2020 – 8:45-9:30am

Biography:
Joel Sartore is a photographer, speaker, author, teacher, conservationist, National Geographic fellow and regular contributor to National Geographic magazine and National Geographic Photo Ark Founder. His hallmarks are a sense of humor and a midwestern work ethic.

Sartore started the Photo Ark some 11 years ago in his hometown of Lincoln, Nebraska. Since then he’s visited 40 countries in his quest to create this photo archive of global biodiversity. Sartore has produced several books including RARE: Portraits of America’s Endangered Species, Photographing Your Family, and two new National Geographic Photo Ark books: The Photo Ark and Animal Ark.

In addition to the work he has done for National Geographic, Sartore has contributed to Audubon magazine, Life, The New York Times, Sports Illustrated and numerous book projects. Sartore and his work have been the subjects of several national broadcasts, including National Geographic’s Explorer, NBC Nightly News, NPR’s Weekend Edition, Fresh Air with Terry Gross and the PBS documentary series, Rare: Portraits of the Photo Ark. He is also a regular contributor on the CBS Sunday Morning Show.

Sartore graduated from the University of Nebraska with a degree in journalism. He currently lives in Nebraska with his wife and children.

Peter Yesawich

Peter Yesawich is Vice Chairman of MMGY Global and leads all of MMGY’s efforts in consumer insights. Listed in “Who’s Who in America,” Yesawich is the recipient of the World Travel Award from the American Association of Travel Editors, The Albert E. Koehl Award and named one of the “25 Most Extraordinary Marketing Minds” from the Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association International (HSMAI), and the Silver Medal from the American Advertising Federation. He is a frequent commentator on travel trends in publications such as The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Time, Newsweek and Business Week, and has been featured on CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, BBC World and National Public Radio. He is a coauthor of “Marketing Leadership in Hospitality” published by Prentice Hall. Yesawich is a member of the International Society of Hospitality Consultants and serves on the board of directors of the Travel Industry Association of America. Yesawich received three degrees from Cornell, including a doctorate in Applied Psychology, and is a graduate of the Advanced Management Program at Yale. Mr. Yesawich has spoken at many ETC conferences, including 2002, 2003, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2013, and 2015.

Essdraz M. Suarez

Essdras M. Suarez is a Pulitzer Prize winning photographer with almost two decades of experience as a photojournalist. Until October 2014, he was a staff photographer for the Boston Globe. He recently relocated to Alexandria, VA and works as a freelance photographer working for publications like the Washington Post, New York Times, and TIME magazine as well as commercial clients. He is the recipient of several national awards including Headliners, Editors & Publishers, Gerald Loeb Award UCLA Anderson School of Management, American Travel Writers Foundation, to name a few. Suarez teaches photography workshops focused on improving the participant’s ability to better “see” while using their devices or DSLRs to capture the world around them. He is a US Department of State Expert Speaker in Photojournalism for Latin America. In recent years, he has led Road Scholar groups to Cuba and private groups to Africa. He has become a sought-after speaker with appearances in Panama, Costa Rica, Venezuela and Puerto Rico. He has also given presentations to institutions of higher learning such as Boston University, where in 2013 he was an adjunct photojournalism professor, Northeastern University and MIT among many others. Suarez graduated from the University of Florida with a BS in Journalism, specializing in Photojournalism. He received the title of Alumnus of Distinction from the University of Florida in 2010.

Brian Skerry

Brian Skerry is a photojournalist specializing in marine wildlife and underwater environments. Since 1998, he has been a contract photographer for National Geographic Magazine covering a wide range of subjects and stories. Skerry has also worked on assignment for or had images featured in magazines such as Sports Illustrated, US News and World Report, BBC, Wildlife, GEO, Smithsonian,Esquire, Audubon Men’s Journal. His latest monograph Ocean Soul, released in 2011, has received worldwide acclaim. Skerry frequently lectures on photography and conservation issues having presented at venues such as TED Talks, The National Press Club in Washington, DC, Royal Geographical Society in London and the Sydney Opera House in Australia. He is also a regular guest on programs such as NBC’s TODAY Show, CBS’s Sunday Morning, and ABC’s Good Morning America. In 2010, National Geographic magazine named one of Skerry’s images among their 50 Greatest Photographs Of All Time. In 2012, he was honored with the Peter Benchley Award for excellence in Media. An exhibit of his work, Portraits of Planet Ocean, is currently on display at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC. Mr. Skerry spoke for the first time at the 2014 conference.

Peter Shankman

Peter Shankman is a bestselling author, entrepreneur, and speaker. He is recognized worldwide for radically new ways of thinking about the Customer Economy, Entrepreneurship, Social Media, PR, marketing and advertising. Shankman is the founder of ShankMinds: Breakthrough, an online entrepreneurial community. His Customer Economy and Corporate clients have included American Express, Sprint, the US Dept. of Defense, United Airlines and many more. Shankman is the author of four books, among them: “Zombie Loyalists: Using Great Service to Create Rabid Fans” and “Nice Companies Finish First: Why Cutthroat Management is Over, and Collaboration is in.” He is a frequent keynote speaker and workshop presenter at conferences and tradeshows worldwide, including South By Southwest, TEDx, Affiliate Summit, BlogWorld and TBEX to name a few. A marketing pundit for several national and international news channels, including Fox News, CNN and MSNBC, Shankman is frequently quoted in major media and trade publications, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Associated Press and others. He is a proud graduate of Boston University and lives in New York with his wife and daughter. Shankman was a featured keynote speaker at ETC’s 2017 conference.

Joe Pine

Joe Pine is an internationally acclaimed author, speaker and management adviser. A visiting scholar with the Design Lab at MIT, he co-founded Strategic Horizons LLP to help businesses conceive and design new ways of adding value to their economic offerings. Mr. Pine is frequently quoted in such places as Forbes, The New York Times, Wired, Business 2.0, USA Today, Investor’s Business Daily, ABC News, Good Morning America, Fortune, Business Week, and Industry Week. Mr. Pine spoke at the ETC conference in 2005 and 2011.

Richard Olivier

Richard Olivier is Founding Director of Olivier Mythodrama, a unique leadership development consultancy. Richard has been a leading theatre director for over ten years, and directed Henry V for the opening of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London in 1997. His work today centers on bringing theatre and the arts into the development of authentic leaders. He is the founding voice within Mythodrama, a new form of experiential learning, combining great stories with psychological insights, creative exercises and organizational development techniques. Mr. Olivier spoke at the ETC 2006 conference.

Andrew McCarthy

Andrew McCarthy is an editor at large at National Geographic Traveler magazine. He has written for The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, Afar, Bon Appetit, Travel+Leisure, Town & Country, and Men’s Journal, among others. The Society of American Travel Writers named him “Travel Journalist of the Year” in 2010. His travel memoir, The Longest Way Home, became a New York Times bestseller, with the Financial Times of London naming it one of the Best Books of 2012. Despite all this, he is best known as an actor, having appeared in dozens of movies, including such iconic films as Pretty in Pink, St. Elmo’s Fire and Less Than Zero. Mr. McCarthy spoke for the first time at the 2014 conference.

Peter Matthiessen

Peter Matthiessen was a world-renowned novelist, naturalist, and environmental activist, and a founder of “The Paris Review.” He was the author of eight novels and many powerful works of nonfiction, most of which appeared in “The New Yorker,” and also the controversial “In the Spirit of Crazy Horse.” Matthiessen was the only writer to win the National Book Award in both fiction for “Shadow Country” and in nonfiction for “The Snow Leopard.” He was the recent recipient of the William Dean Howells Medal awarded by the American Academy of Arts and Letters for “the most distinguished work of fiction in the previous five years.” Mr. Matthiessen spoke at the ETC 2011 conference. Peter passed away April 5th, 2014. He will be dearly missed and fondly remembered.

Richard Louv

Richard Louv is a journalist and author of eight books about the connections between family, nature, and community. His next book is “The Nature Principle: Human Restoration and the End of Nature-Deficit Disorder” (May 2011, Algonquin), which offers a new vision of the future, in which our lives are as immersed in nature as they are in technology. “Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder” (Algonquin), translated into 10 languages and published in 15 countries, has stimulated an international conversation about the relationship between children and nature. Louv is also the Chairman and Co-founder of the Children & Nature Network, an organization helping build the movement to connect today’s children and future generations to the natural world. Louv coined the term Nature-Deficit Disorder™ which has become the defining phrase of this important issue. In 2008, he was awarded the Audubon Medal, presented by the National Audubon Society. Among Louv’s numerous awards, he is also the recipient of the Cox Award for 2007, Clemson University’s highest honor, for “sustained achievement in public service” and has been a Clemson visiting professor. Louv has written for “The New York Times,” “The Washington Post,” “The Times of London,” and other major publications. He has appeared on many national TV shows, and served as an advisor both to the Ford Foundation’s Leadership for a Changing World award program and to the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child. He is on the board of directors of ecoAmerica and a member of the Citistates Group. Mr Louv spoke at the ETC 2011 conference.

Dr. Clint Laurent

Dr. Clint Laurent is the founder and chief executive of Global Demographics which has offices in London and Hong Kong and clients in every major market. Dr. Laurent is an experienced advisor to multinational businesses and a speaker at international conferences. He is an analyst of and commentator on global population and socio economic trends and their impact on the world economy. He founded Asian Demographics in 1997 and transformed the organization into Global Demographics in 2006, as its geographical coverage increased. Dr. Laurent moved to Hong Kong in 1976, initially with Hong Kong University and then as a Director of Price Waterhouse, where he built up a market research and consultancy group. Author of Tomorrow’s World (Wiley 2013), Dr. Laurent has a Ph.D. in Marketing and Statistics from Bath University in the UK, and a Master of Business from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Mr. Laurent spoke for the first time at the 2014 conference.

Pico Iyer

Pico Iyer is a Distinguished Presidential Fellow at Chapman University, a longtime essayist for Time magazine, and a constant contributor (for more than 20 years now) to The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, Harper’s and dozens of other magazines worldwide. He is also the author of 10 books, from “Video Night in Kathmandu” to “The Man Within My Head,” the fashioner of TED talks and World Economic Forum lunches and the author of film-scripts and Leonard Cohen liner-notes. Born in Oxford, England, to parents from India, he was educated at Eton, Oxford and Harvard and has been based for the past 26 years in rural Japan. Mr. Iyer spoke at ETC 2006, the year of the 20th anniversary of the Conference, and again in Boston for ETC 2015.

Jeff Hoffman

Jeff Hoffman is a successful entrepreneur, proven CEO, worldwide motivational speaker, published author, Hollywood film producer, and a producer of a Grammy winning jazz album in 2015. In his career, he has been the founder of multiple startups, he has been the CEO of both public and private companies, and he has served as a senior executive in many capacities. Hoffman has been part of a number of well-known companies, including Priceline.com. uBid.com, CTI, ColorJar, and more. He serves on the global board of directors of Global Entrepreneurship Week, the US State Department’s GIST program, the APEC Startup Initiative, and many others. He is a member of the board of directors of The Unreasonable Group, and he supports the White House, the State Department, the United Nations, and similar organizations internationally on economic growth initiatives and entrepreneurship programs. Hoffman is the author of the book SCALE, a how-to guide for growing your business. He is a featured business expert seen on Fox News, Fox Business, CNN, CNN International, Bloomberg News, CNBC, ABC, and NPR, and in publications including Forbes, Inc., Time, Fast Company, the Wall Street Journal, and more. In 2015, he was honored with the Best of the Best Award from the national CEO association (Collegiate Entrepreneurship Organization) as well as receiving a Lifetime Achievement Award and being inducted into the Entrepreneurs Hall of Fame for his contributions to the field of entrepreneurship. He also received the Champion of Entrepreneurship Award from JP Morgan Chase, Citibank, and Rising Tide Capital, as well as receiving the George Brown Award for International Cooperation. Hoffman spoke at the 2017 conference.

Perry Hewitt

Perry Hewitt is the Chief Digital Officer for Harvard University. She is charged with leading digital strategy for communications and engagement, as well as exploring ways that organizations effect digital transformation. Hewitt drives best practices for new capabilities required by rapid digital, mobile and social changes, and attracts leaders and builds teams who can bring these capabilities to fruition. She is an established leader in digital strategy and marketing communications, with deep experience in the corporate and not-for-profit sectors. Hewitt advises, writes and speaks on topics including digital transformation, marketing and content strategy, user experience, mobile, women and leadership, and the social web. Hewitt has held significant marketing, editorial, and client services roles at firms including Crimson Hexagon, Razorfish, Harcourt, and Lotus Development Corporation. She has been a consultant to major media companies for online product development, and began her career in publishing at the Houghton Mifflin Company. She was a winner of a 2013 “50 on Fire” award for inventors, disrupters, luminaries, and newsmakers in Boston, and her digital work has won Webby, CASE, MITX Interactive and Innovation, and UCDA Awards. Hewitt holds an A.B. from Harvard University in Russian and Soviet Studies.

John Hendricks

John Hendricks is the Founder and Chairman of Discovery Communications, the parent company of the Discovery Channel. Before launching Discovery Channel in 1985, Hendricks founded and served as president of the American Association of University Consultants (AAUC), a private consulting organization that specialized in television distribution, marketing, and fundraising for educational programs and services. Hendricks has been honored with a Primetime Emmy Award and with the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences’ highest honor, the Governors’ Award, for conceiving the TLC series, Great Books. Hendricks has also been recognized as the first corporate leader to receive the National Education Association’s Friend of Education award for “innovations in education and technology and greatly expanding educational opportunity for America’s schoolchildren.” Hendricks serves on the board of directors of a number of non-profit organizations including the National Forest Foundation and the United States Olympic Committee. Hendricks also serves on the Advisory Board of Lowell Observatory and the University of Maryland Foundation Board of Trustees. Most recently Hendricks serves as the Founder and Chairman of Experius, an innovative new enterprise designed to provide exceptional educational and recreational experiences to individuals who possess a lifelong curiosity about the world. Hendricks’ commitment to experience-based learning comes to life in May 2010 with the opening of Experius Academy, based at Gateway Canyons Resort in the red rock canyons of western Colorado. Mr. Hendricks spoke at the ETC 2011 conference.

Jack Hanna

Jack Hanna explores the corners of the globe as one of the most respected animal ambassadors. His enthusiasm and “hands-on” approach to wildlife conservation has won him widespread acclaim as a conservationist, television personality, author and Director Emeritus of the Columbus Zoo and the Wilds. Beginning in 1993, Jack Hanna’s Animal Adventures ran for ten years and is still currently in syndication. 2007 saw the launch of a new TV series, Jack Hanna’s Into the Wild. Just one year after its launch, Into the Wild received an Emmy Award for Outstanding Children’s Series. Hanna’s third TV venture was launched on ABC in September 2011. Entitled Jack Hanna’s Wild Countdowns, the episodes showcase some of his favorite experiences with the world’s rarest, most endearing and fascinating animals. Although the press of media appearances persuaded Hanna to relinquish his fourteen-year directorship of the Columbus Zoo in 1992, he then became Director Emeritus, a position he still enjoys today. Mr. Hanna spoke at the ETC 2012 conference.

Peter Greenberg

Peter Greenberg is the nation’s preeminent expert on travel and travel-related issues and an Emmy award-winning writer, investigative reporter, and producer with more than 11 million miles of direct experience under his belt, covering thousands of stories in hundreds of countries around the globe. He is Travel Editor for CBS News, appearing on The Early Show and across many CBS broadcast platforms. His nationally syndicated radio show, Peter Greenberg Worldwide, is broadcast each week from a different remote location around the world. He is heard on more than 150 stations, Sirius/XM radio and Armed Forces Radio. Greenberg’s other current titles include Travel Editor at Large for “AARP,” Contributing Editor for “Men’s Health” magazine, and contributor to “Parade,” ForbesTraveler.com, and MSN.com. He has been a featured guest on The Oprah Winfrey Show, The View, Late Night with Conan O’Brien, Dr. Phil, and Larry King Live. Greenberg is the author of “The New York Times” best-selling Travel Detective series. His latest book, “Tough Times, Great Travels,” offers his expert advice and insight on how to travel efficiently–and well–during difficult economic times. His website, PeterGreenberg.com, is one of the fastest-growing travel news sites in America. When he’s not working, Greenberg trains six times each year in state-of-the-art aircraft simulators, and he remains active as a volunteer fireman in New York. He lives in New York, Los Angeles, Bangkok, and most major airports around the world. Mr. Greenberg has spoken at many ETC conferences, including 2001, 2002, 2005 – 2010, and 2014.

Wade Davis

Wade Davis is Professor of Anthropology and the BC Leadership Chair in Cultures and Ecosystems at Risk at the University of British Columbia. Between 1999 and 2013 he served as Explorer-in-Residence at the National Geographic Society and is currently a member of the NGS Explorers Council. Davis is an author of 17 books, including The Serpent and the Rainbow, One River, The Wayfinders and The Sacred Headwaters. His latest book, Into the Silence, received the 2012 Samuel Johnson prize, the top award for literary nonfiction in the English language. His many film credits include Light at the Edge of the World, an eight-hour documentary series written and produced for the National Geographic. Davis is the recipient of 11 honorary degrees, as well as the 2009 Gold Medal from the Royal Canadian Geographical Society for his contributions to anthropology and conservation, the 2011 Explorers Medal, the highest award of the Explorers Club, the 2012 David Fairchild Medal for botanical exploration, and the 2013 Ness Medal for geography education from the Royal Geographical Society. He holds degrees in anthropology and biology and received his Ph.D. in ethnobotany, all from Harvard University.

2020 Audio Recordings

Monday, February 3rd 2020

6:45pm – 7:45pm  CONFERENCE WELCOME Remarks & Opening Presentation  LISTEN

Tuesday, February 4th, 2020

8:45am – 9:45am  Morning BOLD Talk: A Voice for the Voiceless with Joel Sartore NOT AVAILABLE

10:00am – 11:00am  Educational Travel Trends: Sorting through the chaos – What’s changed and what hasn’t LISTEN

10:00am – 12:00pm  Intensive Workshop: Building Your Brand Story and Driving Growth LISTEN

11:15am – 12:15pm  Global Security and Safety Trends: What are top-of-mind security concerns for travelers today? LISTEN 

11:15am – 12:15pm  Animal Interactions: How can we mitigate animal abuse in the tourism industry?  LISTEN

12:50pm – 1:30pm  Luncheon BOLD Talk: Harnessing the Power of the ETC Community: A Duke University Nicholas School of the Environment Master’s Project LISTEN

1:45pm – 2:45pm  Destinations Discovery II: IGNITE!  LISTEN

1:45pm – 2:45pm  Instagram: Building community through visuals LISTEN

Wednesday, February 5th, 2020

8:45am – 9:45am  Morning BOLD Talk: What’s New, Good to Know, and Worth Your Time in Digital with Sree Sreenivasan  LISTEN

10:00am – 11:00am  Traveler Agreements: Waivers and other contract language – The essential review LISTEN

11:15am – 12:15am Beyond Instagram for Planners: How to do social and digital media in 2020 on a budget and without staff  LISTEN

1:45pm – 2:45pm Beyond Instagram for DOS: How to do social and digital media in 2020 with a limited budget and staff LISTEN

1:45pm – 2:45pm Overtourism: Why it’s Growing: What we can do about it? LISTEN

Thursday, February 6th 2020

8:45am – 9:45am  Closing BOLD Talk: Beyond Our Boundaries: Rethinking educational travel LISTEN

Jean Bouffard

Jean Bouffard left Tourisme Québec after 35 years of service, and five years ago joined Adventure Canada, a Toronto-based tour operator specializing in cultural and natural history, namely small ship expedition cruises. Active in the industry since college, he covered most aspects of tourism development and promotion. Starting as a tour director in Western Europe, he spent several years in New York City as director of tourism for the Government of Québec. He also taught at the Management School of Université du Québec à Montréal and at LaSalle College. In his later years at Tourisme Québec, he acted as their senior advisor for market strategy for the US and Canadian markets, and coordinated the operations of their field offices in both countries. Bouffard was recognized by the Educational Travel Consortium for his contribution to the advancement of learning and enrichment travel within the US travel trade and the Canadian tourism industry. He also acted as the meeting chairman for the National Tour Association yearly operators meeting in Quebec City in 2016.  He is a member of the International Council of Monuments and Sites, the National Trust for Canada, Héritage Montreal and Action Patrimoine. Mid-career fellow at the School of Foreign Service of Georgetown University (Washington DC), he is particularly interested in cultural history and global issues. www.adventurecanada.com

Beth Ray-Schroeder

Beth Ray-Schroeder is Director of Duke Alumni Travels in the Office of Alumni Affairs at Duke University. At Duke since 2005, Ray-Schroeder has also alumni education initiatives and priorities of the alumni travel program. She now organizes more than 40 educational travel programs annually, which comprise vendor itineraries and in-house customized programs showcasing unique Duke entities and are led by Duke faculty. Prior to coming to Duke, Ray-Schroeder lived and worked in Spain and Germany for 17 years. She held positions as a software developer in Madrid, as international systems project manager at Deutsche Lufthansa AG in Frankfurt am Main, and as an organizational consultant in Austria, Germany and Switzerland. She holds a B.S. in Computer Science and the equivalent degree in Psychology from Duke University, and a M.S. in Organizational Psychology from Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz. Ray-Schroeder is currently serving on the ETC Executive Advisory Council representing the interests of alumni association travel planners in the southeastern United States.

Jeremy Shaw

Jeremy Shaw is the owner and managing director of Iberian Wine Tours, which he founded in 2010. He has developed and hosted food, wine and educational tours for a global clientele into Spain, Portugal, France, Italy and Greece as well as Chile, Argentina, California and Uruguay. He has also created a Gourmet Celtic tour route in Ireland and Scotland. Prior to his current role, Jeremy worked as an employment lawyer in London and also for Natwest Banking Group in strategic consulting and new business development. He also worked for British Telecom in Northern Ireland in a variety of capacities over ten years, including corporate business development, relationship management and business improvement. During his time with BT, Shaw revived his expertise in wine and achieved a distinction in the WSET advanced exams. Jeremy and his wife Marisa and daughter Laura split their time between the family farm in Northern Ireland and a summer base in Salamanca, Spain. Jeremy is a graduate of Exeter University and Chester College of Law, as well as having a diploma from Sorbonne and an MBA from Warwick Business School. Jeremy joined the Executive Advisory Council in 2020 and represents ETC Inbound Tour Operators.  www.iberianwinetours.com

Brian Anderson

Brian Anderson is the Training and Development Manager for Sierra Club National Outings. In his role, he creates, manages, and leads training of new volunteer trip leaders as well as continuing education for current trip leaders. For the development part of his work, he designs custom trips and crafts new trip ideas for National Outings to pursue. Before the Sierra Club, Brian was the Assistant Director of Wellness and Recreation at Regis University in Denver, Colorado, where he oversaw student and professional staff that ran programs in outdoor recreation and physical fitness. Years in the field as a whitewater rafting guide, adaptive ski instructor, rock climbing, and backpacking guide have given him a well-rounded history of field and office work from various organizations. Brian graduated with his Bachelor’s degree from Western Colorado University and Masters from Regis University. Brian joined the Executive Advisory Council in 2020 and represents national non-profit organizations. www.sierraclub.org/adventure-travel

Bridget St. Clair

Bridget St. Clair is the Executive Manager Princeton Journeys, Princeton University. Bridget brought her extensive background in both international experiential learning and higher education program administration to the Princeton Journeys team in 2015. Previously, she served as a senior program officer for the Foreign Fulbright Program at the Institute of International Education in New York, where she was responsible for all aspects of program operations. Prior to her tenure at IIE, she worked at Travel Weekly magazine in Sydney, Australia. An intrepid explorer, enthusiastic runner, daily meditator and self-professed ‘old soul,’ Bridget is an alumna of the University of Miami and holds a Master’s in International Studies from the University of Limerick in Ireland. She is new to the EAC and represents the Ivy Plus. www.tigernet.princeton.edu/Education/

Laura Saeger

Laura Saeger, CMP, CMM, is the Business Tourism & Group Development Executive USA for Tourism Ireland, where she promotes Ireland for corporate, incentive, association, and group programs. Prior to her current role, she was Director of Sales with Bermuda Tourism Authority, preceded by a decade as Business Tourism Manager for South African Tourism. Her expertise in event design and management has garnered several BizBash Events in Excellence Awards as well as accolades from the International Special Events Society and Meeting Professional International. In her earlier career she worked as a soil scientist at Research Triangle Institute, managed the Friday Center for Continuing Education at the University of North Carolina, and helped launch Exploris a first-of-its-kind interactive venue designed to inspire interest in an ever-evolving global society. She enjoys designing compelling itineraries for incentive and group programs and has always loved to travel, experiencing new cultures, landscapes, and cuisines. She enjoys stargazing, hiking, baking, herbology, and exploring anywhere she goes. She is a graduate of North Carolina State University and currently lives in New York City with two naughty felines, Emma and Max. Saeger is new to the EAC and represents Destination constituents. https://www.ireland.com/en-us/

James Friedlander

Jim Friedlander is the president of Arrangements Abroad, which he joined 19 years ago to direct and manage all facets of the company. After graduating from Wesleyan University he began his career as a loan officer in the International Banking Group of the Irving Trust Company. After receiving his M.B.A. in marketing and finance from Columbia University, he spent more than 10 years assisting companies that were experiencing significant financial or operational problems. This past year Friedlander has traveled widely to Cuba, Norway, Russia, Finland, Panama, Columbia, Italy, France and Cuba either accompanying groups and/or researching new programs. Recently, he founded and serves as president of the Havana Heritage Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to protecting and preserving the architectural and cultural heritage of Havana. He also serves on the US Advisory Board of Taj Hotels and Resorts as well as Books & Authors, Inc. Friedlander has served as one of the trainers in the annual ETC Jumpstart Seminar for many years, in addition to developing the programming for new DOS attendees. He is married to Liz Irwin who serves as the Firm’s General Counsel and advocates for women’s rights as a representative to the United Nations. Together, they have 2 adult children. Friedlander served on the EAC representing the interests of the U.S. Tour Operator constituents, with a focus on art and culturally-based travel and is currently an ETC Emeritus Council Member. www.arrangementsabroad.com

Jim Friedlander

Jim Friedlander is the president of Arrangements Abroad, which he joined 19 years ago to direct and manage all facets of the company. After graduating from Wesleyan University he began his career as a loan officer in the International Banking Group of the Irving Trust Company. After receiving his M.B.A. in marketing and finance from Columbia University, he spent more than 10 years assisting companies that were experiencing significant financial or operational problems. This past year Friedlander has traveled widely to Cuba, Norway, Russia, Finland, Panama, Columbia, Italy, France and Cuba either accompanying groups and/or researching new programs. Recently, he founded and serves as president of the Havana Heritage Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to protecting and preserving the architectural and cultural heritage of Havana. He also serves on the US Advisory Board of Taj Hotels and Resorts as well as Books & Authors, Inc. Friedlander has served as one of the trainers in the annual ETC Jumpstart Seminar for many years, in addition to developing the programming for new DOS attendees. He is married to Liz Irwin who serves as the Firm’s General Counsel and advocates for women’s rights as a representative to the United Nations. Together, they have 2 adult children. Friedlander served on the EAC representing the interests of the U.S. Tour Operator constituents, with a focus on art and culturally-based travel and is currently an ETC Emeritus Council Member. www.arrangementsabroad.com

Christa LeeVan

Christa LeeVan is the Travel Director for the Notre Dame Alumni Association. She believes that it is a privilege to learn from other cultures, and has had the opportunity to lead many Notre Dame trips. Some of her favorites include: Tanzania, Australia & New Zealand and the Greek Islands & Turkey. Seeing the Notre Dame travelers experience these incredible trips first-hand and the camaraderie that is developed among the groups continues to be a real highlight for her. Christa and her husband, Steve, live in Granger, Indiana. They, along with their two children, share an interest in other cultures. Christa looks forward to continuing to link Notre Dame alumni and friends to the world through travel. She is new to the EAC and represents Independent schools.  www.my.nd.edu/travel

Tips for Using ETC Forums

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If you have a problem or a complaint, direct it to the administrators and/or moderators, not to the boards. The appropriate actions will be taken by the Forum moderators. Moderators reserve the right to deactivate offenders when deemed necessary, with or without prior warning.

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Advertisements, FAM trips and announcements should be posted in the Marketplace Forum. Posts are read by our administration and moderation team. If a post is identified as spam, it will be edited or deleted.

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Have fun and Connect!
Enjoy these online forums that are connecting the ETC community in an intimate way.  Our community is a vast resource for trends, destination information, travel tips and making other connections.  Use this member benefit to strengthen your programs!

Alicia Stevens, Director of Global Programs, Columbia University School of the Arts


“One of my favorite aspects of ETC is that it is a complex, multi-layered experience. At its most basic level, it is a conference, and at this task it excels: replete with provocative guest speakers, the bustling bazaar, and exciting events/dinners. On another, deeper level, it is an annual gathering of friends and family, a magical international shin dig of epic proportions. And on the deepest level, it is a sound, productive, benevolent, year-round community, active in the most essential, meaningful ways, whether it be empathetic calls among competitors during crisis, who feel less competitive after so many years of meeting at ETC, or meticulously planned initiatives, small groups of us working together for sustainable development, leveraging tourism and our (largely ETC related) relationships for poverty alleviation, community development, and conservation.”

Martin Ludwig, Director of Travel, Georgia Tech Alumni Association


“This is my 5th year attending ETC. Each year I take away not only a wealth of new information from the seminars, but also from the new people who I meet each year. ETC has been an important part of the growth of the Georgia Tech Alumni Travel program and my own growth as a travel planner.”

Elizabeth Bigwood, Director for Travel Program, Alumnae Association of Smith College

“I first attended the Educational Travel Conference in 2004. As the travel planner for the Alumnae Association of Smith College travel program. I find the conference helps me to stay energized when planning my program. The conference helps me to bring “the world” to our participants in new and creative ways. It also gives us all a sense of unity, healthy competition and an opportunity to develop lasting friendships in a fun environment. A marvelous chance to learn about all that is new and fascinating in the travel industry as well as making new connections and re-uniting with old friends. I look forward to many more conferences. It is the highlight of my working year!”

Leslie Jennings Rowley, Executive Manager, Princeton Journeys, Princeton University


“Having attended ETC on two sides of the business, as both an operator and now as an alumni travel planner, I can attest to the conference’s positive position as the most important learning event of the year. I can and do vociferously tout ETC as the place to go for quality instruction and guidance from (and brainstorming with) the most talented and thoughtful group of colleagues one could assemble.”

Jim Sano, Vice President for Travel, Tourism, and Conservation, World Wildlife Fund


“This is the most content-laden conference in the travel industry.”

Heidi Quiram, Study Travel Director, Center for Lifelong Learning, St. Olaf College


“Each year, though I should know better by now, I am surprised anew by the amount of information presented at the conference, and by the fact that it is attended by dozens of educational institutions offering travel programs. This conference is, every year, an incredible achievement. This is the only professional development conference I attend. It has everything I need in one place and is always presented by experts in whatever information I’m seeking—marketing, legal issues, travel trends, finding capable travel providers. This conference is INVALUABLE to me.”

Philip Lovejoy, Executive Director, Harvard Alumni Association


“This conference is the one place where we all come together, share ideas, learn what’s new, what’s working and what isn’t.”

2020 Conference Videos

Tuesday, February 4th, 2020

11:15am – 12:15pm  Global Security and Safety Trends: What are top-of-mind security concerns for travelers today? WATCH

12:50pm – 1:30pm  BOLD Talk – Harnessing the Power of the ETC Community: A Duke University Nicholas School of the Environment Master’s Project WATCH

Wednesday February 5th 2020

8:45am – 9:45am  Morning BOLD Talk – What’s New, Good to Know, and Worth Your Time in Digital WATCH

Thursday, February 6th 2020

8:45am – 9:45am  Closing BOLD Talk-Beyond Our Boundaries WATCH

videos are being added daily, so please check back.

Expedia and WAZA announce animal welfare policy

For the past few months, the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA), along with the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA), the Zoo and Aquarium Association Australasia (ZAA) and the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria (EAZA) have been working with Expedia to develop their animal welfare policy, especially with regards to our members.

We are pleased to share that after numerous discussions, Expedia has launched its animal welfare policy and will only promote zoos and aquariums which are members of WAZA and/or of WAZA’s recognised regional and national association members.

We applaud Expedia for collaborating with the zoo and aquarium community to ensure the best animal welfare outcomes and for underpinning their policy with sound scientific evidence. As their policy states:

We believe that the individuals who have spent their lives studying and researching animals and spend time regularly observing and helping them are best positioned and most qualified to evaluate the welfare of animals as well as the facilities that house them.

We will only work with zoos and aquariums that are members of the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA) or have membership and/or accreditation via one of their 24 regionally recognized associations around the globe.

You can read the full policy here.

Through our 2023 Animal Welfare goal we will continue to promote and raise standards of animal welfare around the world. And we are pleased to be recognised as a world leading association whose members strive for high standards of animal welfare and care.

WAZA is also currently in discussions with other travel companies and we will continue to represent our members’ best interests.

Yours sincerely,

Prof Theo B. Pagel
WAZA President

2018 Bermuda


Bold Moves: Leading, not following, Your Competition

2016 Washington, DC


Inspiring Engagements: Purpose, Priority & Power of Educational Travel

2015 Boston, MA


Mission to Market: Championing Affinity Travel in a Digital World

2014 Orlando, FL


Growth & Distinction: Expanding Beyond Traditional Models of Affinity Travel

2013 Orlando, FL


Models of Engagement: New Ways to Advancing Affinity Travel

2012 Orlando, FL


Time for Solutions: Down to Details

2011 Providence, RI


25th Anniversary Conference

2010 Providence, RI


Consider the Possibilities: Charting a New Course for Affinity and Nonprofit Travel

2009 New Orleans, LA


Engaging Travelers in Challenging Times: Proactive Strategies in a Downturn Economy

2008 Baltimore, MD


Facilitating Transformational Journeys: New Perspectives

2007 Baltimore, MD


Bridging for the Future: New & Creative Strategies

2006 Baltimore, MD


20th Anniversary: Inspirational Performances

2005 Washington, DC


Getting Your Message Out: Powerful Marketing, Purposeful Programs

2004 Washington, DC


Success in Tough Times: Marketing Through Adversity

2003 Washington, DC


Travel On Purpose: New Motives, Missions, Markets

2002 Los Angeles, CA


The Learning Traveler: Exploring, Engaging, Evolving

1999 Arlington, VA


What Do Your Travelers Really Value?

2001 Washington, DC


Building Global Partnerships: Strengthening Relationships, Advancing Programs

2000 Washington, DC


Educational Travel – Keeping it New!

1998 Arlington, VA


Shaping Your Travel Program’s Future: Targeting Tomorrow’s Travelers Today

1997 Arlington, VA


Breaking the Ice – Moving Beyond Current Marketing & Programming Plateaus in Nonprofit Travel

1996 Arlington, VA


Pricing & Marketability of Nonprofit Travel: Aligning Your Programs to a Changing Marketplace

1995 Arlington, VA


Competing in a Maturing Marketplace: Extinction or Distinction in Nonprofit Travel

1994 Arlington, VA


Non-Profits in Travel: Issues, Concerns and Opportunities in Alumni and Museum Study Travel

1993 Arlington, VA


Operating NonProfit Travel Programs as a Successful Business: Not-for-profit travel doesn’t mean no bottom line!

1992 Washington, DC


Issues, Opportunities & Concerns in Alumni, Museum, Continuing Education, & Other Non-Profit Special Interest & Educational Travel

1991 Washington, DC


Issues, Opportunities & Concerns in Alumni, Museum, Continuing Education, & Other Non-Profit Special Interest & Educational Travel

1990 Washington, DC


Issues, Opportunities & Concerns in Alumni, Museum, Continuing Education, & Other Non-Profit Special Interest Travel

1989 Washington, DC


Issues, Concerns & Opportunities in Alumni, Continuing Education & Museum Special Interest Travel

1988 Washington, DC


Non-Profits in Travel: Issues, Concerns and Opportunities in Alumni and Museum Study Travel

1987 Washington, DC


Non-Profits in Travel: Issues, Concerns and Opportunities in Alumni and Museum Study Travel

2020 Presentations & Handouts

Tuesday, February 4th, 2020

10:00am – 11:00am  Risk Management: Challenging Travelers and Situations: Traveler annotation, suspension and/or removal VIEW HANDOUT 

11:15am – 12:15pm  Animal Interactions: How can we mitigate animal abuse in the tourism industry?  VIEW PRESENTATION

11:15am – 12:15pm  Global Security and Safety Trends: What are top-of-mind security concerns for travelers today? VIEW PRESENTATION

12:50pm – 1:30pm  Luncheon BOLD Talk: Harnessing the Power of the ETC Community: A Duke University Nicholas School of the Environment Master’s Project VIEW PRESENTATION

Wednesday, February 5th, 2020

10:00am – 11:00 am  Traveler Agreements: Waivers and other contract language – The essential review   VIEW HANDOUT

 

Thursday, February 6th 2020

8:45am – 9:45am  Closing BOLD Talk-Beyond Our Boundaries VIEW PRESENTATION

Coronavirus Updates
Global Rescue posts daily updates on the coronavirus spread and its impact to travelers on their blog.
At the link above, you can subscribe to receive these daily emails. If you would like to stay abreast of this rapidly evolving outbreak, this is a great way to do so.
Community Dinner - 7 star level

Make an impression with this opportunity to spotlight your organization for an evening that will be long remembered. The Community Dinner is heavily attended by delegates and valued as one of the best venues for networking. Traditionally held off site, this sponsorship offers an experience at an outstanding local venue with superb food, drinks, and entertainment.

Audio Visual - 6 star level

Showcase your name in lights and significantly heighten your brand recognition and visibility every day of the Conference! This bold and sustained visual promotional medium reaches 100% of delegates over the course of the full Conference, plus throughout the year online as Sponsor(s) company logo is showcased on the ETC member site linking to the MP3 downloads of Conference session recordings.

Conference Resource Directory - 6 star level

Dominate the Conference’s prime print piece by supporting the highly coveted resource guide – the Conference Resource Directory (CRD). This hard copy guide lists the contact information of all delegates and is a broad reaching medium viewed by 100% of the Conference delegation. Ensuring visibility throughout the year, the e-version is published post-conference with all attendance updates.

Bazaar Refreshments - 5 star level

This signature venue provides sustained visibility with exclusive branding at all refreshment breaks. The location of the refreshments is in a heavily trafficked area in the International Bazaar delivering prime exposure for Sponsor(s).

Travel Planner Forum & DOS Forum Refreshments - 4 star level

Secure sustained exposure by hosting the refreshments for these two well-segmented and most popular conference forums.Designed in collaboration with ETC’s most seasoned leaders and industry’s expert presenters, these Forums provide some of the most in-depth and hands-on professional development discussions and networking annually.

BiZ Passport and Mini Agenda - 3 star level

A key navigational tool for delegates, this promotional medium provides maximum print exposure throughout the conference. The BiZ Passport and Mini-Agenda is a double-sided booklet featuring the company location for all International Bazaar exhibitors and an abbreviated conference agenda for quick reference. Delegates keep the BiZ Passport easily accessible in their conference badge holder.

Plenary Venues (5) 2-star level

Receive exclusive time in front of the Conference assembly. Benefit from one of the most prominent Sponsor(s) recognition opportunities during the most heavily attended educational sessions of the Conference. Sponsor one of five plenary sessions (AKA BOLD Talks) at the Conference and directly support the advancement of professional education at the conference.

Jumpstart Seminar Refreshments - 2 star level

Benefit from targeted marketing exposure to Travel Planners at the pre-conference Jumpstart Seminar and throughout the year with the online Jumpstart training material on the Travel Planner dashboards. Showcase your corporate support of Travel Planner professional development by helping deliver this important conference seminar — a critical and comprehensive resource for Travel Planners.

 

Badges & Lanyards - 2 star level

Sustained visual and prominent print exposure throughout the conference with customized branding and messaging on the official Conference badges. Your image or logo is printed on every name badge to provide daily contact with your brand.

Group Sales Coordinator

ABOUT THE ROLE

This position requires a self-motivated individual with excellent communication skills, and ability to multi-task with the highest level of efficiencies in a fast-paced sales and service environment. The Group Sales Coordinator’s role is to close sales, provide exceptional guest service and sales support to the company’s group business. This individual must be detail-oriented and organized with the ability to understand and manage sales agreement terms, effectively manage bookings and maintain/develop professional relationships with group partners. This individual will be interacting and coordinating with the Travel Partners from various organizations as well as with the Lindblad Sales, Marketing, Operations, Reservations and Inventory Control teams.

RESPONSIBILITIES

  • Serve as the primary contact for inside group sales and service for all organizations including university alumni/donor, museums, conservation, membership, travel agency groups plus other non- traditional niche markets.
  • Manage group space reservation blocks per the terms of the contract.
  • Prioritize and respond to all booking requests.
  • Reconcile incoming payments with group invoices, and coordinate commission payments with accounting.
  • Liaise with the operations team to ensure proper distribution of all pre/final and post travel documentation.
  • Manage guest manifests, information forms, flight questionnaires, medical forms, credit card forms, and other pertinent documentation required to complete bookings and service guests.
  • Review and understand the terms of the group brochure for reach organizations prior to promotion.
  • Participate in reservation/operations pre-marketing briefings as needed.
  • Participate in pre-trip briefings with faculty leaders and travel partner for each organization as needed.
  • Liaise with the group travel coordinator and the Lindblad operations and staffing teams to plan and execute the group experience onboard
  • Manage all incoming calls and email communication and respond in timely manner
  • Handle and resolve conflicts or guests service issues by recommending and /or providing alternative solutions

DESIRED SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE

  • Bachelor’s degree preferred
  • Group travel experience and knowledge of expedition travel or applicable geographic regions and cultures preferred
  • Positive attitude and a will to succeed independently as well as part of a team
  • Excellent written and verbal interpersonal skills
  • Proficient with MS Office, specifically Office and Excel
  • Occasional participation at sales events will be required as needed

For more information and to apply click here.

Eos Study Tours wins “Best Outbound Educational Travel Specialists 2020 - North East USA”

WALPOLE, NH ­— Eos Study Tours has been awarded “Best Outbound Educational Travel Specialists 2020 – North East USA” in the 4th annual Travel & Tourism Awards hosted by LUX Life Magazine.

The Walpole, New Hampshire-based Eos Study Tours team won this award for planning international, small group, educational tours. Eos’s trips are designed to be superb learning adventures as well as earned revenue and donor-nurturing programs for North America’s top museums, colleges, and scientific institutes. Leading every trip are expert local guides and trip managers plus engaging scholars who offer on-tour lectures covering subjects ranging from literally A to Z (archaeology to zoology). “Our scholars are chosen for their expertise, teaching skills, and congeniality—they provide lectures, lead discussions, and host lunches and dinners,” says Eos Program Manager Lauren Cummings.

Eos supports organizations with both long-term planning and management of their entire travel programs. Eos also designs and manages individual, usually unique and custom-designed VIP trips, upon request from organizations. Since its inception in 1993, Eos has created four non-profit travel programs and has been contracted to help both plan and manage more than ten organizations’ entire travel programs. “We have raised millions of dollars in both earned revenue and donations for the organizations we represent, while providing our travelers with unique, customized trips,” says Eos co-founder and Director R. Todd Nielsen.

Todd Womack

Todd Womack is the president and CEO of Bridge Public Affairs. In this position he helps clients navigate the nexus of policy, politics and strategy in successfully achieving their state, national and international business objectives. He was the former chief of staff and staff director for U.S. Senator Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Womack gained first-hand insight about world hotspots and other facets of U.S foreign policy, having accompanied Corker, other U.S. senators, and diplomatic officials on dozens of investigative trips throughout the world. On Capitol Hill, Womack served as the Republican chair of the bipartisan chief of staff organization, focused on creating dialogue and interaction between the 100 Senate chiefs of staff. He previously led the bipartisan chiefs of staff study group in partnership with the Council on Foreign Relations and also led the Faith and Politics Institute’s bipartisan chiefs of staff study group. In Tennessee, Womack was involved in multiple economic development initiatives benefiting communities across the state and integrally involved in the successful recruitment of Volkswagen’s North American Manufacturing operation to Chattanooga.

Casey Butler

Casey Butler is a Senior Coordinator for Special Interest Groups at Odysseys Unlimited, Inc., a small-group tour operator based in Newton, Massachusetts.  At Odysseys, Casey is responsible for arranging special on-tour events and assisting with logistics and operations for Special Interest Groups clients.  By organizing these bespoke experiences and opportunities, Casey has been able to enhance her clients’ travel experiences and help foster a deeper connection between these travelers and their institutions.  As an avid traveler, Casey relishes the opportunity to work with vendors all over the globe to create memorable experiences for others.  She also coaches softball at both the high school and collegiate level, and through this, she has had the opportunity to travel across the country recruiting, coaching, and mentoring.  When not coaching or traveling, Casey enjoys spending time with her puppy, Blue, who she adopted while in Aruba.  Casey is a graduate of Bryant University and resides in Boston, Massachusetts.

Dawn Drew

Dawn is founder and CEO of travel consultancy MOSTE, Inc. and President of subsidiary Dawn Drew Independent Productions, both based in New York City. A career publisher, Dawn has worked at the Atlantic Monthly, NY Times Company, and for nearly 16 years as Vice President/Publisher of National Geographic Traveler at the National Geographic Society. Dawn’s consultancy and production company have focused on building and communicating authentic cultural experiences and marketing strategies for destinations to encourage community-based sustainable travel among consumers, and to educate the trade.

Dan Richards

Daniel L. Richards has served as the Chief Executive Officer of Global Rescue since he founded the company in 2004. He also serves as the President of Crisis Services Company, a Vermont-based captive insurance company. Mr. Richards has been a featured speaker on CNN, Fox News, NPR and other major media outlets regarding crisis response, mitigation and travel risk management topics. Prior to founding Global Rescue, Mr. Richards spent a decade in the private equity and financial services industries. He previously worked at the $1.3 billion private equity affiliate of Thomas Weisel Partners and in various positions at Thoma Cressey Equity Partners, Donaldson, Lufkin and Jenrette and Deutsche Banc Alex Brown. Over the last two decades, he has been involved in financings and private equity investments for more than 30 companies. Mr. Richards is a graduate of Middlebury College where he played football, rugby and was a competitive power lifter. He received his MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College where he has served as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence. He currently serves on the board of Global Wildlife Conservation, a science-based environmental conservation organization.

Barbara Tucker

Barbara Tucker is the Director, Travel Program and Senior Advancement Officer at Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh. Barbara has been organizing trips for CMP since February of 2001. She has designed and tailored trips for CMP to many domestic and international venues and has worked extensively with CMP curators and experts from other institutions. Prior to joining CMP, Barbara had a career in the hotel industry. She graduated from the Hotel School of Lausanne, Switzerland and worked in hotels in Europe and New York before joining CMP first as Travel Program Manager, and now as Director, Travel Program and Senior Advancement Officer. Barbara speaks French fluently and serves as the President of the Alliance Française of Pittsburgh and President of the French Nationality Room at the University of Pittsburgh. She has led trips to Austria, Belgium, Canada, China, Cuba, England, France, Germany, Holland, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Scotland, Spain, India, Russia and many destinations throughout the United States.

Karen Kuttner-Dimitry

Karen Kuttner-Dimitry is Vice President of Affinity and Charter Sales at Lindblad Expeditions. Kuttner-Dimitry has been in the adventure travel/luxury cruise industry for nearly 30 years. She launched her career in the travel industry in 1987, where she spent five years on board cruise ships as a Social Director. In 1993, she became the Director of Sales, Mid-Atlantic States for Lindblad Expeditions. After three years of rapid growth in regional sales revenue, she focused on the development of affinity and travel agency accounts nationwide. Seeking new challenges, Kuttner-Dimitry left for Natural Habitat Adventures in Boulder, Colo., in 1997, to direct all sales, and marketing for affinity and incentive markets. In 2003, she became the Director of Sales at Grand Expeditions responsible for all affinity sales and marketing. She returned to Lindblad Expeditions in 2004 to expand the affinity and charter business nationwide. Kuttner-Dimitry holds a M.Ed. in Counseling Psychology and a M.A. in Personnel Administration, both from Columbia University. She lives with her husband and three children in New Jersey.

Karen Ledwin

Karen Ledwin is Vice President, Program Management, Smithsonian Travel where she oversees product development, tour operations and customer service for over 300 educational tours each year. While Karen has worked at the Smithsonian for almost five years, she has worked with Smithsonian several times in her career as a tour operator, including at TCS as VP, Business Development and Sales; Saga International, as VP, Educational Programs (overseeing Saga’s Road Scholar and Smithsonian Odyssey Tours); and Academic Travel as VP, Marketing. Ledwin also spent 8 years at National Geographic Expeditions as Vice President, Programming and Operations, during which time the National Geographic-Lindblad Expeditions Alliance was formed. Karen has also been involved in teacher, student, and study abroad travel at various points in her career including a Smithsonian-WorldStrides university student travel program, NEA travel program, and SUNY Stony Brook study abroad programs in Poland. Ledwin is a graduate of Vassar College and been a graduate student at Indiana University and Warsaw University.

Shelley Norton

Shelley Norton is the Director of Travel for Texas Exes- the alumni association of The University of Texas. Prior to her current role, Shelley worked for multiple travel companies as a Cruise Director, Tour Director, and Director of Sales. She has worked in the travel industry since 1996, and her travels have taken her to over 85 countries and all 7 continents. Some of her favorite destinations are Southeast Asia, France, and Egypt. She enjoys home renovation projects, running, and drinking wine with friends. Shelley is a graduate of the Freeman School of Business at Tulane University.

Joanna Aguiar

Joanna “Jojo” Aguiar is the Senior Director of the Cal Discoveries Travel Program at the Cal Alumni Association/University of California, Berkeley. Jojo is responsible for all financial, programmatic, and operational aspects of the program as well as overseeing a team of five employees. Jojo has worked for Cal Discoveries for almost 12 years and has experience in customer service, marketing, database management, website management, and travel planning. Prior to working for Cal Discoveries Jojo worked in the Cal Alumni membership office and as the retail manager for the Lair of the Golden Bear, the Cal Alumni family camp. She lives in Oakland, California with her husband and two young kids and her love of travel began after studying abroad in Siena, Italy. Jojo is a graduate of the University of California, Davis.

Kate Heilman

Since 2016, Kate Heilman has been a Manager for Special Interest Groups at Odysseys Unlimited, Inc., a small-group tour operator based in Newton, Massachusetts.  Kate is responsible for overseeing the delivery of high quality tours while effectively developing and maintaining on-going relationships with clients who run the travel programs of non-profit organizations, particularly alumni associations. This includes overseeing the sales, marketing, and operational needs of each institutional account. Prior to joining the team at Odysseys Unlimited, Kate worked at the University of Chicago as the Associate Director of Travel and Education in Alumni Relations and Development.  Her work experience includes more than twenty years of managing projects, including international initiatives.  Prior to joining the University of Chicago, Kate had worked extensively with international non-profits, including as the Senior Manager of Operations at the Chicago Sister Cities International Program. Kate has lived and worked abroad in Russia and is proficient in Russian.  She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Hamilton College and a Master of Arts Degree from The Ohio State University.

Learning Lab IV Panel

Eric Meyers
Eric was appointed as the Executive Director of the Chattanooga Design Studio in March 2017. In this role he oversees strategic development, fiscal performance, and is the Studio’s primary spokesperson to the media and the general public. Under his leadership, the Studio has begun to strengthen relationships with various outside organizations and has aligned the studio’s program focus to help the Board of Directors engage on specific mission related opportunities. A native of Maryland, Myers is a LEED accredited registered architect and urban designer with a broad ranging background and breadth of experience in Chattanooga and the Southeast. For over 22 years Eric has practiced architecture and urban design in Chattanooga. Prior to joining the Chattanooga Design Studio, Eric founded a design firm and through his 10 years of leadership, the organization helped create urban housing, commercial retail and offices, healthcare facilities, historic preservation efforts, as well as urban design and neighborhood structure plans. Eric was also urban design coordinator at the community’s legacy studio which operated from 1980 until 2005. >He holds a bachelor of architecture degree from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Eric currently serves on the Chattanooga Neighborhood Enterprise Board of Directors. He is the immediate past president of Cornerstones, Inc. and past president of the Chattanooga Chapter of the American Institute of Architects. Myers also served a 2014 to 2017 appointment to the Chattanooga- Hamilton County Regional Planning Commission.

Matt Web
Matt is the founding principal of WMWA. In 2013, after spending twelve years working at award winning firms in Virginia and Washington, DC, Matt returned to the region where he was raised to start the firm. When Matt was 17, his high school art teacher told him he should study landscape architecture.  Landscape architecture is his third profession after working as a butcher during undergrad and managing production of cutting edge drug delivery polymers after. His bachelor’s degree in biology/chemistry from the University of Alabama in Huntsville focused on plant ecology. Matt again focused on ecology and plant communities while earning his Master of Landscape Architecture from the University of Georgia’s School of Environmental Design. This lifelong interest in ecology and natural systems heavily influences his work as a landscape architect. Matt loves the outdoors, good food, and is fascinated by plants. Apples, in a roundabout way, brought Matt to Chattanooga after a Thanksgiving with his friend Tom Burford. Tom, world renowned apple and fruit expert, told Matt to go to Chattanooga and start a firm. When Tom Burford tells you to do something, you do it. While Tom introduces Matt as the only Burford approved orchard designer in North America, Matt heavily consults with Tom when any orchard design is happening.

Stacy Richardson
Stacy began serving as Chief of Staff to Mayor Andy Berke in 2015. Prior to that, she served as the Chief Policy Officer and Senior Advisor to the mayor. Her background is in both politics and policy, serving as the campaign manager for the Berke for Mayor Campaign and as a research fellow at the Ochs Center for Metropolitan Studies. Over the years, Stacy has worked alongside numerous public and private partners to help implement several key mayoral initiatives, including growing Chattanooga’s innovation and technology economy through the Innovation District, ensuring families have the opportunity to succeed through Baby University, and coordinating the work and policy directives of the Mayor’s Council for Women. A native to Chattanooga, Stacy graduated with both departmental and university honors from The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. Most recently, Stacy obtained a Master’s Degree in Public Administration from the University of Southern California’s Sol Price School of Public Policy.

James McKissic
James McKissic
is the newly appointed President of ArtsBuild. Prior to this, he spent a year as Chief Operating Officer at the Urban League of Greater Chattanooga. For six years from 2013 – 2019, he served as Senior Adviser to the Mayor and the Director of the City of Chattanooga Office of Multicultural Affairs. His role for the City included linking diverse businesses to city government contracting opportunities, improving the City’s supplier diversity efforts, and working to promote justice, inclusion, and equity among the employees and citizenry of Chattanooga. The values of family, community, the arts, and philanthropy have guided James’ personal and professional endeavors. Heavily influenced by creators like Marta Morena Vega, Margaret Burroughs, and ArthurMitchell and committed to the idea that marginalized people must establish their own cultural programs and institutions, James founded Friends of African American Art, which funded purchases of art by Kerry James Marshall and Sam Gilliam for the permanent collection of the Hunter Museum of American Art. James loves Chattanooga, and is excited to support the City’s Arts sector in his new role at ArtsBuild.

Katelyn Kirnie
Katelyn Kirnie has served as the Director of Public Art Chattanooga, the City of Chattanooga’s public art division, since 2016. She moved back to her hometown after several years in Boston, MA where she was Visual Arts Manager for the Rose Kennedy Greenway. While there, she established a highly acclaimed, rotating mural program, The Greenway Wall, currently in its seventh season. Katelyn got her start in the public art field, working for international sculptor, John Henry as his Exhibition Manager and went on to earn her Master’s Degree in Arts Administration from Boston University. She has spent her entire career working with artists to bring extraordinary ideas to life and has an extensive background in project management, producing exhibitions, artworks and interventions in the public realm since 2007. As Director of Public Art Chattanooga, most recently, she completed a community-wide planning process and 10 year public art strategic plan for the City. Katelyn was hooked early on by the transformative power of public art and its ability to create community and place. Now, as a mother of two girls, ages 5 and 6, she enjoys seeing how art in public spaces can spark wonder and joy in the most unexpected ways. 

Kim White
Kim White is a proven leader with a passion for making a difference in communities. For the past 11 years, she has put her passion into practice as the president and CEO of River City Company, the non-profit development organization with a 33-year history focusing on the economic growth and development of Downtown Chattanooga. 
With the influence of her leadership, Chattanooga has seen a renewed focus on downtown housing, better connections with UTC and the development of great public spaces. Private investment over the last five years helped implement the City Center Plan and redevelop Miller Park. While her focus has been on downtown, her impact has been much broader. Kim served on the Erlanger Board of Trustees for six years. She remains connected to her alma mater, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, where she has served as the chair of the UC Foundation – the 2nd woman in 50 years to hold the position. She is a former president of the UTC Alumni Board and the Chancellor’s Roundtable. Kim was appointed by Gov. Haslam to the UT Board of Trustees in 2018 and serves on the Executive and Finance Committees. 

 

 

Meg Stark

Meg Stark is the Programs Director for GLOBIO where she is responsible for GLOBIO’s conservation and education partnerships with in situ organizations in Equatorial Africa and Indonesia, as well as outreach and donor engagement. Prior to her current role, Stark managed the Vervet Monkey Foundation in South Africa and Jungle Friends Primate Sanctuary in Gainesville, Florida. Within both of these roles, she oversaw daily care of the resident primates and volunteers, as well as fundraising, outreach and advocacy campaigns. She has previously volunteered and conducted research with several nonprofits around Sub-Saharan Africa, including animal-oriented organizations in Sierra Leone, Botswana and South Africa. Stark is a graduate of Lawrence University, with certificates in Nonprofit Leadership from University of Notre Dame.

Chris Bensley

Chris Bensley is the Vice President of Partnerships and Marketing for Holbrook Travel. Chris has more than 25 years of experience in the travel industry. His affinity for educational travel developed from a year living in France on a family sabbatical. At Holbrook, Chris leads the marketing and business development teams with a focus on strategic partnerships. Before Holbrook, Chris led the interactive group at Vantage Travel and was founder of a travel technology startup, Tripzon. His career includes marketing, product and business developments roles at Vantage, Paul Gauguin Cruises, and Overseas Adventure Travel. Chris has an MBA from UCLA, a BA from Dartmouth, and has ventured to over 44 countries and 7 continents.

Fred Ackerman

Fred Ackerman is the Chief Shepherding Officer for Black Sheep Adventures, the adventure travel business he founded in 2002. Ackerman is actively involved in every aspect of his business and still personally guides a select number of tours each year. Prior to starting BSA, he worked as a Trip Specialist for Backroads designing and leading bicycling and multisport trips around the US and Europe. Ackerman was formerly a strategy management consultant with Mars & Co. working mostly in Australia. After graduation, he worked for Schlumberger, a multinational oilfield services company, where he spent nine months on an offshore oil rig training to become an oil rig manager. His entrance into the travel industry was the result of a “quarter–life crisis” when he happily left the relative security of the corporate world to focus on travel. Ackerman holds a BS degree in mechanical engineering from MIT. Ackerman served three years on the ETC Executive Advisory Council and is now an active member of the Emeritus Council.

J. Mara DelliPriscoli

J. Mara DelliPriscoli, President, Travel Learning Connections, Inc., is the founder and architect of the Educational Travel Consortium (formerly Nonprofits in Travel Conference). Her vision from inception over 33 years ago was to facilitate the growth of a vibrantcommunity of like-minded colleagues to converge at an annual “happening”—a travel think tank—to deal with current challenges and future opportunities in affinity and educational travel. Once technology had sufficiently advanced in post 2000, she progressively launched the Educational Travel Community online. Within ETC’s annual conference and online platform, she has facilitated the growth of strategic business partnerships and business-to-business nonprofit-for profit networking of those in the field of alumni, museum, conservation and affinity group travel. With over 35 years of experience in the tourism industry, Mara has worked directly within most sectors of the travel industry, including tourism marketing, tour sales, development and management, hotel operations, transportation, and tourism research for diverse consulting firms. Mara lectures, writes, photographs and works with cultural, community and conservation tourism development projects in the US and abroad. She consults in the field of educational and special interest tourism development for a variety of US and international organizations authoring country specific reports. Mara has always had a passion for exploration, blue water sailing, languages, folk dance, photography and equestrian pursuits.  For the past decade she has pursued advanced technical training and field work in Photojournalism.  Mara holds an M. Ed in Tourism with a minor in marketing from the George Washington University, and a B.A. from Barnard College, Columbia University with a major in European history and a minor in three languages with her freshman year conducted at the College Year in Athens, Greece. Having spent a great deal of her professional life in the Washington, D.C. area, she is a native New Englander which explains her love of the sea and adventure including three years of live aboard sailing and logging thousands of nautical miles to South America. Mara has been based in St. Ignatius, Montana for 25+ years. She still travels extensively globally and has visited 88+ countries.

Interview- Setting Sail 25 Years Ago

Beyond Guilt Trips

Anu Taranath, presenter at ETC’s 2020 conference, is the author of Beyond Guilt Trips.

Summary:
Every year, hundreds of thousands of young people pack their bags to study or volunteer abroad. Well-intentioned and curious Westerners—brought up to believe that international travel broadens our horizons—travel to low-income countries to learn about people and cultures different from their own. But while travel abroad can provide much-needed perspective, it can also be deeply unsettling, confusing, and discomforting. Travelers can find themselves unsure about how to think or speak about the differences in race or culture they find, even though these differences might have fueled their desire to travel in the first place.

Buy Beyond Guilt Trips here

Catharine Hamm

Catharine Hamm is the Travel Editor for “The Los Angeles Times” Travel section, a position she has held since 2003. Prior to 1999, when she joined the “LA Times” Travel section, she was the editor of the newspaper in Salinas, Calif.; the managing editor of “The Sun” in San Bernardino County, Calif.; and the deputy managing editor of “The Kansas City Star,” where she also served as the travel editor for five years. She launched the “On The Spot” travel consumer column in early 2007, and it now appears in newspapers and on websites across the country. The “LA Times” Travel section has won the Lowell Thomas Award for best newspaper section nine times during her tenure as travel editor. Hamm earned a B.A. in Spanish while she lived in Kansas.

 

Jason Halal

Jason Halal is the Associate Director of Marketing and Digital Content for Sierra Club Outings. He has been with the program since 2009. In this role, he oversees all Outings marketing strategies, products, and initiatives, including web content and design; publications, promotions, and advertising; and other tools to build the Outings brand and promote our trips to Sierra Club members and new audiences. He is also a co-leader of our Strategic Marketing Task Force as well as a committee to increase the number of young leaders and participants in our program.

Cindy Todd

Cindy Todd is Vice President, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer for the Tennessee Aquarium.  She leads an award-winning, in-house marketing team that is responsible for building the Aquarium’s brand and reputation, and generating revenue through attendance, membership, sponsorship, and facility rental.

Additionally, Cindy has found great joy in leading a number of nature-themed donor cultivation trips, from Africa to Australia, during her 28 years at the Aquarium. Her deep love of outdoor adventure fuels her passion for the Aquarium’s mission to connect people with nature and inspire them to make informed decisions about water and wildlife.

Cindy is driven by a cause, and believes the Aquarium can continue to make an enormous difference in three areas: the Chattanooga economy, education and conservation science.  A graduate of Texas A&M University, Cindy transferred to Chattanooga in 1986 with CBL & Associates as the first Director of Marketing for Hamilton Place.  Cindy and her husband Terry just celebrated their 29th wedding anniversary.

Gerry Ellis

Gerry Ellis is an award-winning environmental photographer/film-maker, and founder and Executive Director of the conservation education nonprofit GLOBIO.  Gerry’s history in travel spans four-decades as a photographer, writer and international guide; he now oversees GLOBIO’s new project-based travel program, linking donors through travel to GLOBIO’s work across Equatorial Africa and Borneo/Sumatra. In 2020 under Gerry’s oversight GLOBIO launches the Educator’s Travel Scholarship Initiative to give educators firsthand international experiential-learning opportunities to inspire life-long learning with which to impacts in their students.  For GLOBIO, Gerry is filming around the world on a multi-year education and public awareness project called Apes Like Us, to heighten concern for the survival of great apes. He is the creator and host of the YouTube channel Apes Like Us.  Gerry’s film/photo work has encompassed numerous long-term projects for National Audubon, World Wildlife Fund, Chevron PNG, and the Australian government. His work has appeared in magazine publications including BBC Wildlife, Paris Match, Ranger Rick, New York Times and National Geographic, as well as multiple book projects, including The Outdoor Traveler’s Guide to Australia, and several titles in the highly acclaimed National Geographic Kids Book series.

Jim Staples

Jim Staples is President and CEO of Orbridge LLC. Orbridge specializes in small-group, immersive travel programming and works within the affinity marketplace to provide educational tours on top-rated small deluxe ships and hotels. Prior to starting Orbridge seven years ago, Staples spent 13 years in the educational travel industry in various roles including program creation, operations and sales. Staples holds a BA from the University of Michigan and a MBA from Northwestern University.

Brooke Gorman

Brooke Gorman, Ph.D. joined the Tennessee Aquarium as the Director of Science Education in August 2017. She oversees the Education Department, which includes education that happens on the floor at the Aquarium, on field trips and outreach for school groups, and education volunteers. Prior to her work at the Aquarium, Brooke spent 10 years at a nonprofit organization in Colorado which focuses on science education. There, she began as a Science Educator and over time became a Senior Science Educator and Director of Instructional Materials Development. She spent time both developing science curriculum materials and doing professional learning for teachers, working both nationally and internationally. She also served as the programming chair for an effort to start a science center in Colorado Springs during that time. Brooke has a passion for helping all people feel a spark of excitement about science, whether they are 2 or 92 years old. She uses best practices and research-based strategies to ensure that people feel a connection to the place they are visiting or the program they are attending. Brooke also loves helping others learn the best ways to engage people in different situations to ensure they have extraordinary experiences.

Andrew Lockwood

Andrew Lockwood is President/CEO of Pacific Islands Institute (PII) based in Honolulu, Hawaii. His mother started the company in 1989 with his assurance that he would join her after his Air Force commitment. He returned home to Hawaii, and for over 25 years, has led the organization in its mission of providing positive cultural interactions, protecting and sustaining indigenous cultures and environments, and giving back to local communities. Expanding PII’s client base from affinity and school organizations to associations, boardroom and donor groups, Andrew enjoys matching the rich cultural and eco-resources of a destination with the needs of each client. Having traveled extensively throughout the islands of Polynesia, Melanesia and Micronesia, he has built lasting relationships with industry suppliers to village chiefs through his authenticity and ethics. An Amherst College graduate with an MBA from Chapman University, Andrew also has his CMP (Certified Meeting Professional) and believes travel should have a multiplier-effect benefitting not only the traveler but also the people, local communities and environments of the place. He and his wife are passionate about travel, learning, and sustainability and have passed the appreciation for these interests on to their three children.

Andrew Doherty

Andrew Doherty is the Manager of Special Interest Travel at Thomson Safaris, a Tanzania safari and Kilimanjaro trek operator with offices in Watertown, MA and Arusha, Tanzania. In this role, Andrew partners with a variety of universities, museums, conservation organizations, zoos, photography workshops, celebrity chefs and other special interest groups to offer the most environmentally sustainable and socially responsible safari and trek programs available. Before stepping into his current role, Andrew acted as account manager for Thomson’s VIP safari partnerships and specialized in product design, sales, marketing and operations. Having logged considerable hours in both the national parks and within the communities of East Africa, Andrew has developed a close relationship with the various stakeholders in the safari industry. He is passionate about educating travel organizations about new opportunities, especially those which benefit Africa’s wildlife and people. Andrew is happily married to his wife Alisa and together they share 3-year-old daughter, Oona. Andrew is a graduate of St. Michael’s College.

Rick Franz

Rick Franz is President Emeritus of Thomas P. Gohagan & Company, headquartered in Chicago. He began his stint at Gohagan & Company in sales in 1991; and he is still one of the company’s four salesmen working with alumni association and museum client organizations throughout the country. Prior to his career at Gohagan & Company, Franz worked in the cruise industry in sales and marketing with Cunard Line, the former Royal Cruise Line and the former American Hawaii Cruises. He began his career as a travel director with Alumni Holidays, Inc., and he has worked in broadcasting both in the Chicago area and in northern California. He earned a B.A. from the University of Cincinnati, and he attended the University of Stockholm for two years. He has a passion for travel, mountain bicycling, hiking and wines of the world.

Lisa Benshea

Lisa (Hill) Benshea is the Travel and Special Programs Manager at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, where she has worked since 2007. With the help of Sarahkate Greeley, Travel and Special Programs Coordinator, Ms. Benshea runs the Travel Program, which was founded forty-eight years ago in 1972. Prior to joining SBMA, she worked at various museums and galleries in Hawaii and Los Angeles, planned fundraising events at an autism organization, and of course, cultivated her love for travel whenever possible. Ms. Benshea was born and raised in Honolulu and came to California to attend Occidental College, where she earned her B.A. in Art History.

Jill Sala

Jill Sala is the National Accounts Manager of the Affinity Groups department of G Adventures where she oversees a fast-growing team of private groups sales managers and national account. Sala sits on the Standards Committee of the Wellness Tourism Association (WTA), and was instrumental in the creation of G Adventures popular Wellness travel style.

With 19 years in the tourism and hospitality industry, she has a passion for sustainable tourism and changing lives through travel. Her past career experiences have provided her with great working knowledge of responsible, sustainable, and adventure travel. In her free time, she enjoys cooking, fitness the outdoors and of course traveling.

Katya d’Angelo

Katya d’Angelo is the marketing assistant at Boundless Journeys, a tour operator specializing in adventure travel around the world. Although generally working on marketing efforts, content creation, and website troubleshooting, she has also had the opportunity to help develop new tours to Norway, the Azores, and hopefully the Faroe Islands in the future. Prior to moving to Vermont and joining Boundless Journeys, she worked in the Boston area at a private K-12 school in marketing, teaching, and coordinating two high school tours in Italy. Before entering the marketing and travel realm, she worked for a few years as a baker. Katya enjoys cycling, Nordic skiing, mountain views, crafty things, the banjo, and of course, traveling. She seeks out local favorites and off-beat sites unknown to most tourists, and is looking forward to April when she will go exploring in Denmark. She holds an undergraduate degree from Connecticut College and a graduate certificate from Boston University.

Enrica Cazzin

Enrica Cazzin is the Sales Executive for Target Travel, an Italian tour operator specializing in the organization of tailor-made and customized tours all over Italy and Europe. She has been working in the tourism world for 20 years in various capacities in the leisure market and in the meeting, events and incentive market.

Born in a small village near Venice, Italy in 1974, Enrica fell in love with travel at a very early age. Her first journey was to Venice, the city that even now, she considers the most beautiful in the world.

She earned a Diploma in Tourism and a Degree in Oriental Languages and Literature at Venice Cà Foscari University and lived for a while in Tokyo, where she learned to love Japanese culture and people.

Enrica carries a passion for challenges that include travelling and creating new travel programs, trekking and scuba diving.  Her motto: “the shore is safer, but I prefer fighting with waves”.

Kate Simpson

Kate Simpson is President of Academic Travel Abroad (ATA), an educational travel and study
abroad organization. Kate began her career at ATA in 1988 as the China Program Manager and is now a proud owner of the business, along with her partners Chase Poffenberger and Mark Lenhart. Kate works with organizations like CREST and RESPECT to advocate for a more enlightened policy on travel to Cuba and has spent two decades navigating the complex world of OFAC Cuba regulations. Kate spent most of her youth in France, where she was born. Kate has lived and studied in Australia, Algeria, Ireland and Taiwan. Kate holds a degree in East Asian Studies from Yale and pursued a post-graduate fellowship in Chinese Literature at Taiwan National University before settling in Washington, D.C. In 2008, Kate completed a three-year executive education program for owners and presidents at Harvard Business School. Kate has served on the Board of the NTA (National Tourism Association) and is a founder of the Fund For Education Abroad, a non-profit that provides scholarships for under-represented students to study abroad.

Todd Nielsen

Todd Nielsen is the President and Director of Eos Study Tours (Eos), and has held this position since 1993. In this position, he is responsible for providing the most comprehensive and risk-free planning and management service for faculty and curator led trips that align with the mission of each organization. Todd has been planning, directing and managing non-profit, educational tour programs for alumni organizations, museums, and institutes since 1979. Todd is an avid reader and life-long learner, who has traveled to more than 70 countries, many of them multiple times. He is a founding member of the Educational Travel Community (1987) and an ETC Emeritus council Member. He has been invited to speak and moderate sessions on a wide variety of subjects at the annual ETC conference.

Keira Powers

Keira Powers is the Managing Director of Spirit of Africa, a pioneering South African travel company that services African destinations.  At Spirit of Africa she pushed the purpose and profile of social-impact tourism and travel with a high education quotient for professional and student delegations. Ms. Powers has ensured that authentic tourism gained definition and that her commercial operation engaged with, and supported, social enterprises and community organizations, making it the most in-touch travel operation at a grass-roots and cross-sector level country-wide.  Keira is on the board of the Southern Africa Tourism Services Association (SATSA) and chaired their “Animal Interactions in Tourism” project committee that released its report, findings and practical tool for the industry in October 2019.

Ms. Powers steered the company through South Africa’s re-emergence into international tourism after Apartheid isolation and grew her family-staffed and owned operation into a thriving medium sized business. Earlier, she helped establish the now-flourishing environmental education division of the Environmental Management Department of Cape Town’s local government.  She received her Bachelor of Social Science (dual major Political Science and Environmental and Geographical Science) and a Post Graduate Diploma in Organization Management at the University of Cape Town.

Margaret Devlin

Margaret Devlin is the Managing Director of Thalassa Journeys, which she established in 2018 with the founders of Travel Dynamics. Her passion is to introduce travelers to peoples and places through a unique lens that focuses not only on treasures of the past, but also on contemporary life, through people-to-people encounters, music, art, gastronomy, and other venues for experiential learning. A veteran in the field of educational travel, Margaret Devlin began her career in the travel industry as a tour manager for Travel Dynamics International, the company that pioneered the concept of thematic educational travel for many of the country’s leading alumni associations, museums and cultural and scientific institutions. In this capacity, she led tours to over 40 countries throughout the world, from the Mediterranean Sea to the North Cape, and from the Galapagos Islands to Southeast Asia, China and beyond. Transitioning from the field to sales, Margaret developed collaborative relationships with numerous alumni associations and non-profit institutions throughout the United States, offering enriching thematic journeys that showcased their faculty and curators, while providing their members with singular educational travel experiences.

Pablo Palacios

Pablo Palacios is the Chief Executive Officer and founder of Southern Expeditions Ecuador, a tour operator that owns Amautas Ecuador (Educational field trips) and LatinAmerica Experiences (bespoke Andean travel). Before starting as an entrepreneur, he was appointed Director of Tourism for the Galapagos Islands by the Ministry of Tourism. Prior to this, he worked for the Charles Darwin Foundation as a researcher, investigating the social and environmental impacts of tourism on the Galapagos National Park and the Marine Reserve. He has also collaborated with developmental and conservation projects in the Yasuní and Machalilla NPs in the mainland of Ecuador. As a consultant for the Keto Foundation in Costa Rica, he assessed tourism management projects at the Marino Ballena NP.  He enjoys traveling around the planet in search of tourism projects that benefit local communities, governments and business owners. His academic training includes master’s degrees in Sustainable Tourism at Monash University and Environmental Management & Ecotourism at the University of Costa Rica.

James Ogden, III

James (Jim) Ogden, III is a native of St. Mary’s County, Maryland.  Interested in the Civil War since childhood, he obtained a degree in American History through the Civil War period and American Military History from Frostburg State College.  During college, he worked summers for the Maryland Park Service at Point Lookout State Park, site of the largest Civil War prison, where historical interpretation and research were among the many positions he held.  As part of a college internship, he worked for four months at Harpers Ferry National Historical Park, West Virginia, researching and writing on an aspect of that site’s Civil War history that had not been addressed previously.

Beginning work with the National Park Service in 1982, he has been stationed at Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park, Georgia and Tennessee, Russell Cave National Monument, Alabama, and Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park, Virginia.  In November, 1988, he returned to Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park as the Staff Historian, the position he presently holds.

He speaks regularly on aspects of the Civil War to historical organizations across the eastern half of the U. S. including Civil War Round Tables in New York, Chicago, Minneapolis, Atlanta, Birmingham, New Orleans, and Austin.  In addition to doing tours of the Chickamauga and Chattanooga battlefields, he periodically takes groups to Shiloh, Perryville, Stones River, some of the Atlanta Campaign sites (including Dalton, Resaca, Cassville, New Hope, Pickett’s Mill, and Kennesaw Mountain), and Franklin and Nashville.

He has taught a number of Civil War history courses for the Continuing Education Department of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and in the Spring Semester of 2012 he taught UTC’s for-credit Civil War and Reconstruction course.  He has published a number of short articles in several local publications and has appeared on Greystone Communications/Arts and Entertainment Network’s “Civil War Journal,” the History Channel’s “Civil War Combat,” PBS’s “History Detectives,” and C-SPAN.

Since 1986, he has been an instructor for over six hundred groups of officers of the U. S. Army conducting Staff Rides (an in-depth analysis of a historical military event) at Chickamauga and Chattanooga.  For a decade, his Staff Ride clients even included two to six hundred officers annually from the British Army’s Joint Services Command and Staff College.

The recognition of his contributions to Civil War History and Preservation include the Friends of Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park Drew Haskins, Jr., Memorial Service Award (1998), Civil War Trust Chairman’s Award for Excellence in Preservation (2011), Chattanooga Area Historical Association Dr. James W. Livingood Historian of the Year Award (2014), University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Department of Communication 22nd Annual Symposium on the 19th Century Press, The Civil War, and Free Expression Dr. Hazel Dicken-Garcia Distinguished Scholarship in Journalism History Award (2014), the Civil War Round Table of Chicago Allan Nevins-Douglas Southall Freeman Award (2014), United States Army Commander’s Award for Public Service (2017), Civil War Trust’s National Park Service Preservation Advocate Award (2017), and the Department of the Army’s Superior Public Service Medal (2019).

Jim, his wife Lora, and their son James (born on the133rd anniversary of the Battle of Fredericksburg) live in Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia.

Máirtín de Cógáin

Máirtín de Cógáin from Cork, Ireland gets no more joy out of life than the telling of stories. Twice All Ireland Champion storyteller, he has been traveling the world telling the tales of Ireland, singing the ballads of old and playing his Bodhrán (Irish Drum). He has played with his own musical groups; The Fuchsia Band, Gailfean & The Máirtín de Cógáin Project, was asked to play with The Chieftains, Cherish the Ladies & Gaelic Storm, threaded the boards off Broadway with his own show De Bogman and shone on the silver screen in the epic movie The Wind That Shakes The Barley.  Máirtín was brought up in a bilingual house, earned a Degree in the Irish language from University College of Cork and is a fluent speaker of Gaelic.  http://www.mairtinmusic.com

Lauren Summers

Lauren Summers is Senior Director of Lifelong Learning & Travel, Association of Yale Alumni. She has over 20 years of experience including marketing,public relations, event planning and business management.  At Visit Wales, she managed trade sales public relations and marketing as well as consumer campaigns for the U.S. and Canada. Summers was also the general manager of a small hotel in Cambridge, MA where she worked while completing her masters at Harvard Divinity School. At Harvard, she studied the healing traditions of indigenous world religions while playing host to the scholars, researchers, academics and activists from around the world who stayed in her hotel. As a result, she discovered her passion for the tourism and hospitality industries. Summers had previously founded and run her own communications agency based in New York City. Her clients included entertainment, corporate and non-profit organizations such as Levi’s, Disney, and the international Acapulco Film Festival, along with number of Grammy award winning artists, Oscar winning performers, bestselling authors and other celebrities. In addition to her master’s degree, Summers holds an undergraduate degree in Public Relations and marketing from Hampton University.   ivy.yale.edu/yet/

Christel Aragon

Christel Aragon is the Director of Travel at UCLA Alumni Travel. She joined UCLA Alumni Travel in 1994. Now in its 77th year, UCLA Alumni Traveloffers 50 educational tours serving approximately 1,200 travelers annually. Christel strongly believes in lifelong learning through travel, and is persistently searching for ways to make the offerings more educational, unique and a good fit for UCLA’s more than 400,000 living alumni. Recommitting to the Association’s mission of continuing education, Aragon has been instrumental in establishing a strategic direction for the program by featuring UCLA faculty on tour offerings. Today, UCLA Alumni Travel tours feature UCLA faculty on more than 50 percent of the offerings. Christel was born in Stockholm, Sweden and she has over 25 years of experience in the travel industry. She has been attending the Educational Travel Conference for over 20 years has served on the ETC Executive Advisory Council representing ETC West Coast schools and is currently an Emeritus Council member.

Leila Derstine

Leila Derstine has served as Alumni Travel Study Coordinator for Williams College since 2016. She oversees all aspects of a robust faculty-led program comprising 20 educational trip offerings each year. From 2011-2015, she worked as Assistant Director of Travel and Education for the Penn State Alumni Association. In this role, she developed alumni education programs featuring some of the finest museums and intellectual spaces in the country. She also managed an in-house Civil War Study Tour for 100 travelers each year and supported Penn State’s alumni travel program. Prior to her work with alumni populations, Leila held positions in study abroad and international education at Penn State and the College of William & Mary. As a student herself, she studied abroad in St. Petersburg and in Madrid. She holds a master’s in Higher Education Administration from William & Mary and a bachelor’s in Journalism from Georgia Southern University. Leila originally hails from Statesboro, GA but currently resides in Berlin, NY with her husband, two daughters, and many farm animals.

Melissa Gresh

Melissa Gresh is the Director of the MIT Alumni Travel Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She has been on staff at MIT and has worked for the Travel Program for over 28 years, emphasizing alumni connections around the world and lifelong learning. In 2018, Gresh earned the Alumni Association Manager of the Year award; in 2013 the MIT Alumni Travel Program received MIT’s prestigious Leading the Way award; and the Program earned recognition from the CASE Awards Program for its marketing and its innovative programming. Prior to MIT, Gresh worked at World Class Incentives, an incentive travel firm, where she created tour programming. Gresh has two teenagers and enjoys spending time with family, hiking in the White Mountains, yoga, and cooking. Favorite trips include explorations of Tanzania, Turkey, and Ireland; that said, her favorite place above all is Paris. She received a BS in geography from Salem State University and spent part of her senior year studying abroad in Caen, France. She has attended the Educational Travel Conference for 27 years. Gresh is an emeritus member of the ETC Executive Advisory Council.

Kenny Burnap

Kenny Burnap is the Chef/Owner at Kenny’s Southside Sandwiches. Kenny was born in Anaheim, CA  into a family who loves food. He was named after his grandfather Ken Burnap, the first winemaker to grow Pinot Noir in the United States at Santa Cruz Mountain Vineyard. Kenny grew up in Ringgold, GA for most of his childhood and was heavily influenced by his grandmother, Betty Lunsford, cooking traditional southern foods, all sourced from her garden.

He went on to graduate from the Oregon Coast Culinary Institute in 2004, where he gained an even deeper appreciation for wild foraged and locally grown foods. Kenny started at Chattanooga’s prestigious St. John’s Restaurant just a few years later in May 2007 and since has grown his appreciation for butchery. He worked at St. John’s for over 11 years under James Beard nominated chefs Daniel Lindley and current Executive Chef Rebecca Barron.

In June 2018, St. John’s owner Josh Carter and Kenny opened Kenny’s Southside Sandwiches in Chattanooga, TN. Kenny’s was recently featured in the 2019 summer issue of Garden and Gun magazine.

Kenny is married to Erin Burnap and has two daughters, Charlotte and Olivia.

Karl Egloff

Karl Egloff is the Director of WWF’s Travel and Conservation Program. He oversees WWF’s member and major donor travel programs, and the relationships with its primary operators to collaborate on marketing and operating nature-focused travel programs. Prior to his current role, he worked with CI-Sojourns, Conservation International’s major donor travel program. He grew up in Alaska before attending Montana State University and later started his career guiding and managing educational and adventure travel programs around the world. After settling in the Washington D.C. area, he received a Master Degree in Tourism Administration from The George Washington University. As someone who loves the outdoors, nature and travel, he is thrilled to help people travel to remarkable natural areas that create meaningful lifelong experiences. He lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and four children.

ETC 2016 Notes

The Domestic Travel Conundrum
Establishing a Relationship with a New Operator
Institutional Branding

ETC 2015 Notes

Down and Dirty of Domestic Travel
Engaging and Fundraising: Can It Be a Marriage Made in Heaven?
What’s Hot — NACZ
As Time Goes By: The Art of Pre- and Post- Tour Communications
2015 Botswana with Photos

The What, Why, and How of Educational Travel


Lead Trainer:

Martin Ludwig, Director of Travel, Georgia Tech Alumni Association

Trainers:

Mary Ann Hunt, Assistant Director, Dartmouth Alumni Travel, Dartmouth College, Office of Alumni Relations
Aiza Keesey, Development Officer, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Bobbi Collins, Director, Membership and Business Operations, U.S. Naval Academy Alumni Association

PowerPoint Presentation:

The What, Why, and How of Educational Travel

PDF of Powerpoint Presintaion:

The What, Why, and How of Educational Travel


Nuts and Bolts


Lead Trainer:

Pauline Ranieri, Director, UW Alumni Tours, University of Washington Alumni Association

Trainers:

Aleks Matic, Associate Director of Member Travel, Art Institute of Chicago
Melissa Gresh, Director of Alumni Travel Program, MIT Alumni Association
Kris Jameyson, Cal Discoveries Travel, Cal Alumni Association
Dan Stypa, Associate Director of Alumni Engagement, Association of Rice Alumni, Rice University

PowerPoint Presentation:

The Nuts and Bolts of Educational Travel

PDF of Powerpoint Presintaion:

The Nuts and Bolts of Educational Travel


Risk Management


Lead Trainer:

Pauline Ranieri, Director, UW Alumni Tours, University of Washington Alumni Association

Trainers:

Joseph Small, President, AHI Travel
James Gallagher, President, USI Travel Insurance Services
Rodney Gould, Attorney, Rubin, Hay & Gould, P.C.

PowerPoint Presentation:

Risk Management

PDF of Powerpoint Presintaion:

Risk Management


Marketing


Lead Trainer:

Martin Ludwig, Director of Travel, Georgia Tech Alumni Association

Trainers:

Jennifer Bohac, Director – Travel Programs, Association of Former Students, Texas A&M University
Scott Gerloff, CEO/President Heritage Travel, LLC, National Trust for Historic Preservation
Lisa Hill, Travel and Special Programs Manager, Santa Barbara Museum of Art

PowerPoint Presentation:

Marketing: Your Travel Program and Your Tours

PDF of Powerpoint Presintaion:

Marketing: Your Travel Program and Your Tours


How the Travel Industry Works for You: Learning the Industry Supply Chain


Lead Trainer:

Pauline Ranieri, Director, UW Alumni Tours, University of Washington Alumni Association

Trainers:

Janet Moore, Owner, Distant Horizons
Lauren Summers, Director of Marketing, North America, Visit Wales
Gina Carmo, Director, Inspire Travel, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

PowerPoint Presentation:

How the Travel Industry Works for You

PDF of Powerpoint Presintaion:

How the Travel Industry Works for You


JUMPSTART Manual : Travel Data

Organizing Your Travel Data

Questions to consider when determining how to organize your travel data

  • How should I organize my passenger and tour information?
  • How should I organize my financial and budgetary information?

This tracking will play a big role in your own tracking, will help make future planning easier and clearer, and will support you in the event that you are asked to justify your program (covered in section #8).

Reservations

Customarily, Travel Program staff track reservations, by trip, based on either a fiscal year or a calendar year. Further, you can track reservations month by month in order to measure against the following year’s progress; and some track the flow of reservations received, related to when brochures drop, to understand booking trends. Also, tracking confirmed reservations against the allotment given to you by the tour operator will help you for future planning and to negotiate for more space in the future if you met or exceeded the allotted space you were given.

Demographics

It is important to understand your audience, so when you have accumulated reservations for numerous trips, do an analysis of who has opted in—those who have confirmed reservations and those who have expressed interest only—and continue to analyze and review this information as your constituency grows in order to better understand your demographic.

Keeping Track

Many in the industry use a travel program database, Excel, or Filemaker to manage this information.

Financials

It is important to draft budget projections for the year including trip by trip expenses and revenue as well as any overhead costs to run the program.

Some helpful documents

  • UWash – Reservation summary report
  • UWash – TravelBudget_manual update
  • MIT – Financial History for ETC

JUMPSTART Manual : Risk Management

Risk Management: Documentation and Emergency Planning

Legal Documents and Agreements

Now that you have chosen the trips you would like to offer, what documents might you need to formally create a partnership with a tour operator? Below are examples. Institutions label these documents differently but the overall documents usually share the same information.

  • Tour Operator Agreements – This is a contract between the tour operator and the institution sponsoring the trip. These are legal agreements that clearly explain the partnership expectations between both partners when planning a tour. Some institutions have formal retainer agreements in place that spell out the general terms, expectations, and legal framework of the working relationship with specific addendum contracts for each individual trip that lay out the details (allotments, pricing, etc) pursuant to only that trip. Examples: Cal – ETC tour operator manual, Cal – Tour information form, Sample Contract.
  • Mailing List Agreements (sometimes included in the tour operator agreements) – Many tours are marketed via direct mail. The tour operator (or its mailing house) is supplied a mailing list from the sponsoring institution. These agreements explicitly explain what a tour operator can and cannot do with these mailing lists. This signed agreement is important for the confidentiality of your alumni / constituents’ information. These agreements do not need to be separate and can be part of your tour operator agreement.
  • Institutional Disclaimer or Tour Operator terms and conditions – The Institutional Disclaimer is printed on the brochure or on a web site. The institution’s wording is usually created with input from the institution’s risk management office or legal counsel. The tour operator will also have general terms and conditions. Planners can opt to add their institution as part of the operator’s terms, rather than create their own. Cal – 2017 terms and conditions
  • Passenger Release Forms – These forms are completed by the passengers before departure. They are important both for liability reasons and to alert a travel planner to any potential traveler issues that could be addressed before departure. Many planners do not generate their own release form; most tour operators send these out to the trip participants. What legal and medical documents are necessary for passengers to complete and sign? Examples: Sierra – individual waiver

Emergency Response and Communications Plans

  • On-site emergency plans – As part of vetting a tour operator, be sure they have an up to date emergency plan in place and ask to have a copy. Their home office staff and trip leaders should be part of this plan.
  • Institutional emergency response plans – Does your travel program have an emergency/communication plan? Does it clearly define what an emergency is? Does it tell your host / faculty how to implement the plan? Does it provide contact information for both resources on the ground and at the home institution? Does your institution have an emergency plan? Can you learn from that or work from that plan? Examples: Sierra – safety plan, Emergency Plan
  • On-site emergency forms – Used on site to record what transpired, including all contact information for staff, times/dates, who was present, and the outcome. Examples: Sierra – emergency response card, Mass Casualty Form, Medical Report Form
  • Please note, other forms for this section are forthcoming!!

JUMPSTART Manual : Justify Your Program

Justifying Your Travel Program

Whether you have twenty years of data or just a few years of data, showing your travel program’s institutional worth is important. Though it may seem overwhelming, the data you need may be as simple as a data pull from your database and then cataloging the information. Having this information readily available is an easy way to explain the benefits of the travel program to your manager, a trustee or the institution’s president.

Measures for Success

Depending on what your institution values, there may be many data points to consider. This is a sample of what could be measured and documented year by year, and at the ready to show higher-ups:

  • Number of engaged; participation numbers (could also include those who have simply raised their hands as being interested – keep track of those who have inquired!)
  • Number of people who have traveled with a study leader.
  • Percentage of repeat travelers.
  • Percentage increase from year to year in overall participation.
  • Percentage of travelers who have given to your institution (and we hope it is a more favorable figure than the total percentage of donors).
  • Percentage of travelers whose only activity is the travel program and who have not participated in other institution events.

If you compare your constituency to the whole and find that your travelers’ overall behavior with your institution is favorable, that is a win. Also, think about how your colleagues measure success within their programs (other events staff or fund raisers) and mirror their measurement practices as appropriate.

See some ways in which institutions have justified their program

  • MIT – Annual demographic
  • Rice – Summary of Travelers Engagement Report

JUMPSTART Manual : Marketing

Marketing

Questions to consider when developing your marketing plan

  • Many tour companies create and mail a direct mail piece, anywhere from 5K to 18K pieces per trip, per institution. You will provide the mailing list for them. Have you segmented your database and know the size of your community? How can your database be better segmented for marketing purposes?
  • What marketing efforts can you undertake based on resources available?
  • What electronic resources are at your disposal that will reach your target audience? Can you create a travel program Facebook page? Can you get real estate on an institutional page? (ie. Alumni Association)
  • How many times a year / month can you email past travelers, potential travelers and/or the whole database? Have you accessed Google Analytics to review the success of an email blast? Can you create a plan from the information garnered from Google Analytics to further market a tour?
  • Have you surveyed your passengers to know how they found out about the tour and use this information for future marketing initiatives?
  • In-person marketing can be effective. Will you offer a past traveler gathering / reception?
  • How can you engage your institutional community to help market the travel program and tours?

Resource of marketing ideas

  • Brown – Travelers_Ad
  • UWash – marketing calendar
  • UWash – Tour Promotion Schedule
  • Duke – Smugmug Photoshare Email
  • Philadelphia Zoo – Inquiry response letter
  • Philadelphia Zoo – Travel Interest Survey

JUMPSTART Manual : Host / Faculty Interactions

Host / Faculty Interactions

If you are working with faculty and staff hosts, here are some items for consideration

  • How do I communicate to these two different constituencies, pre and post tour?
  • How are their obligations different while on a tour?
  • Do I have a faculty member / institutional representative that may serve as a faculty lecturer? What is their area of expertise? Where may they like to travel? What connections may they have that would help create a unique itinerary?
  • What expenses does my Travel Program cover for traveling faculty? Can faculty bring a guest? Does your institution have protocol for this type of expense? Will your faculty be paid/or not?
  • What expenses are covered for a staff host? What are your guidelines for who is invited to host a trip?
  • Some Travel Planners use these types of documents

    • Lecturer Agreement Form – A form that is given to lecturers before formally being enrolled on the trip. It clearly states the lecturer’s responsibilities while on tour and asks them to sign the agreement.
    • Staff Host Manual – These documents clearly outline expectations and details of the trip for a staff host.
    • Faculty Host Manual – These documents clearly outline expectations and details of the trip for a faculty lecturer. Please note differences between the host and faculty manuals.

    Lecturer agreement:

    • Rice – Agreement Lecturer
    • Cal – Lecturer Agreement

    Staff host manual:

    • Rice – Agreement host
    • Philadelphia Zoo – Host manual for post-trip

    Faculty host manual:

    • Cal – Lecturer handbook
    • Duke – Faculty Agreement
    • Duke – Faculty and Host Selection Process
    • Philadelphia Zoo – Medical report form
    • Philadelphia Zoo – Orientation set up

JUMPSTART Manual : Communication with Passengers

Communication with Confirmed Passengers

Questions to consider when developing your communications strategy with passengers

  • Who is my audience and would online communication a good option?
  • How can I engage my passengers beyond the trip?
  • What can I learn from passengers and their trip feedback to help with future trip planning?

Here are some typical types of communication that is sent out from the planners

  • Initial Confirmation Letter
  • Letter of introduction from the faculty leader, if applicable. Recommended reading list, if applicable. Articles and other items of interest related to the trip, if applicable. Final Farewell Mailing
  • Welcome Home Letter and Tour Survey

Confirmation letter sample

BROWN – Insurance Letter

Evaluations

  • Philadelphia Zoo – Evaluation for Multi day trip
  • Philadelphia Zoo – Host Evaluation Form
  • Philadelphia Zoo – Passenger info form

JUMPSTART Manual : Trip Calendar

Creating an Annual Trip Calendar

Questions to consider when developing your annual calendar

  • What times of the year do I want my trips to depart? Ensure that your trips are planned throughout the year and not in conflict with other important dates for your institution or potential traveler base.
  • How do I best organize my tours while I am planning my yearly calendar?
  • Are there areas of the world which the travel program has not traveled for a period of time, but proved to be successful in the past?
  • What destinations are trending? What are colleagues from like-institutions offering?
  • Consider seasons, weather, and optimal times. Ask your tour operator and do research on optimal times to visit a location. Sometimes off-season touring may help your trip, depending on the content of the trip itself. Sometimes you may want your group to visit during a festival or another sort of occasion.
  • Do you work and report out on activity from a fiscal year, or a calendar year? How might that affect your planning?
  • Does your mission statement include revenue as a goal? …participation numbers? Whatever the main focus of your program, ensure that the planned trips help you reach your goals.

Calendar planning document

  • UWash – Annual planning Doc
  • MIT – Calendar Year Trip Planning

JUMPSTART Manual : Introduction

JUMPSTART

This Jumpstart manual contains documents generously shared by fellow travel planners. The aim is twofold:

  • Help new travel planners begin a travel program and/or resurrect a dormant program
  • Serve as a resource for veteran travel planners who may want to update their program’s materials

Each subject heading is accompanied by a series of questions. These questions are posed so the travel planner can better understand the processes inherent in creating or maintaining a program.

If you have any questions or would like to add materials to this manual, please contact Abby Jansen Busdeker at abby@educationaltravel.travel.

CONFIDENTIALITY: The Jumpstart Manual – and all parts therein – are made available only to current ETC members that are travel planners. Members are respectively asked not to share the manual – or forward documents to any other non-ETC member other than their internal institutional team. To do otherwise would quickly undermine the ability to sustainably provide this invaluable resource online for members as well as the commitment to contributors that this information be accessible to travel planner ETC members only.

If a travel planner wants access to the Jumpstart information they can easily become an ETC member for a modest fee which helps defray, but not cover, the extensive hours required to update Jumpstart materials, administrate the online tutorials and post and host both online annually.

Thank you!

A special thanks to these institutions for contributing to the manual. As the community’s culture is open sharing, please use these documents as inspiration for your program but please ensure your documents reflect your institution’s brand.

Brown University
CAL Berkeley
MIT
Philadelphia Zoo
Rice University
Sierra Club
University of Washington

JUMPSTART Manual : Table of Contents

JUMPSTART Table of Contents

  1. Creating Your Mission Statement
  2. A Day in the Life of a Travel Planner
  3. Choosing Tour Operators
  4. Creating an Annual Trip Calendar
  5. Organizing your Travel Data
  6. Communication with Confirmed Passengers
  7. Host / Faculty Interactions
  8. Marketing
  9. Justifying your Travel Program
  10. Risk Management: Documentation and Emergency Planning

JUMPSTART Manual : Create a Mission Statement

Creating Your Mission Statement

Questions to consider when developing your mission:

  • Are you a revenue based travel program with an educational mission?
  • Are you strictly building relationships through the educational travel program?
  • Are you cultivating relationships but also teaming with development to continue cultivation?
  • How does the travel program highlight University / Institutional goals and strategic missions?
  • Is a priority to connect alumni, faculty, and/or staff in a more intimate way?
  • Is a priority engaging international alumni with the travel program?

Resources:

  • 7 Reasons Why Your Travel Program Needs a Clear, Written Mission Statement
    • Source: The Growth Coach Houston
  • 5 Tips for a Useful Mission Statement
    • Source: INC

What Does Your Company Really Do?

Examples of Travel Program Mission Statements

  • MIT
  • Rice
  • Sierra
  • Duke
  • Philadelphia Zoo


JUMPSTART Manual : A Day in the Life of a Planner

A Day in the Life of a Planner

Travel planners need to be adept at juggling many tasks and planning well in advance. Two main tracks of planning efforts need to take place at one time: planning a year’s worth of trips for the future and planning efforts for each individual trip, leading up to departure. From there, sub-tracks of planning also need to be established to support your overall effort, including planning for marketing, confirming faculty hosts, budgeting etc. Here are some questions for consideration and below are some helpful documents:

  1. Does your office plan by fiscal year? How would this affect your trip planning, while ensuring that your trip line-up looks right to your members/customers?
  2. How much lead time do you want to have to marketing a trip prior to the departure? And prior to that, how much time is needed to plan the trip?
  3. What sort of communication will be sent from your office prior to departure? Will you communicate once? Twice? More? What can your office sustain?
  4. Are you going to work in a post-trip communication with recent travelers?
  5. Do you have a general annual communication?
  6. How can you streamline trip preparation with travelers and the tour operator, customer communications, program data gathering, trip inspections?

Here are some useful planning documents

  • Rice – Trip Flowchart
  • Rice – Reservation Flowchart
  • Rice – Ship inspections
  • Rice – Faculty & Host Selection process
  • MIT Pre-Trip meeting questions

JUMPSTART Manual : Choose Tour Operators

Choosing Tour Operators

Questions to consider before committing to a tour operator

  • How many total trips should the travel program offer? As a new program, consider the staff resources available for the travel program and the time commitment for each trip added. Each additional trip adds additional phone calls from potential travelers, additional marketing efforts, additional passenger mailings and passenger follow-up. If the institution sends a host, there is also host preparation.
  • How many tour operators can the travel program manage and effectively work with? The more partners you have, the more time and resources it takes to implement your yearly calendar. Too few, and you run the “all your eggs in one basket” risks.
  • Do I need tour operators who specialize in a certain kind of travel or in a certain destination?
  • Which operators provide the right price point for my program? What overall pricing strategy will work best to achieve my mission? Are my trips at different price points to reach different audiences? Do I have a consistent range of prices to signal a certain type of product that travelers can expect from our program?
  • Have I vetted the tour operator to ensure they are a good partner for my institution? Are they willing to sign the institution’s contract? Will they name the institution as additional insured on their professional liability insurance? Do they have an emergency plan in place? What is their contingency planning?

Helpful document / vetting a new tour operator

Philadelphia Zoo – Criteria for tour operators

Risk Management System - Part III

Delivered at the Annual Conference 2018


Audio Recordings:

  • Intensive: Expecting the Unexpected: Dealing with potential problems before they become an emergency or legal issue
  • Understanding Safety Management Plans: No longer an option, but an imperative
    https://educationaltravel.travel/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Feb-8-Understanding-Safety-Management-Plans-1.mp3

Session Handouts:

Understanding Safety Management Plans: No longer an option, but an imperative and related document: Sample Safety Management Plan

Risk Management System - Part II

Delivered at the Annual Conference 2017


Risk Management System - Part I

Deliver at the Annual Conference 2016




2017 Conference Handouts

Sunday, February 12

1:00 – 4:30pm
Jumpstart Seminar-Fundamentals of Affinity Travel (Handouts from this special seminar for newcomers are available to Travel Planners only in Travel Planner Exclusives.)

–
Comprehensive Travel Risk Management System Overview: Plan, Prepare, Put into Action

  • Americans with Disability Act Revisted
  • Communication Tips – Internal and External
  • Comprehensive Travel Risk Management System Overview
  • Contracting with Outside Organizations – Powerpoint
  • Contracting with Outside Organizations Handout
  • Fundamental Legal Issues – Powerpoint
  • Sierra Club’s Detailed Incident Information Collection Form
  • Sierra Club’s Incident Report
  • Sierra Club’s Liability Waiver (revised 2017)
  • Sierra Club’s Medical Form
  • Sierra Club’s Safety Management Plan
  • Tripping and Travel Camps
  • Two Silos and a Crosswalk – Powerpoint
  • Use of Participant Agreements – Releases and Related Issues – Powerpoint
  • Volunteer Legal Issues – Powerpoint
  • Working with Minors – Legal Issues – Powerpoint


Monday, February 13

10:00 – 11:00am
Travel Planner Forum: Working with Foreign In-Country Operators – Greater risk and greater return?

12:30 – 1:30pm
Anatomy of a Rescue: Nicaragua Case Study

1:45 – 2:45pm
Cyber Security and Passenger Info and Records: What You Need to Know but Don’t About Your Liability
  • Managing Risks and Preparing for Data Breach
  • Victim Response and Reporting


Tuesday, February 14

4:15 – 5:30pm
Air Industry Update: Cheap Airfare Doesn’t Always Make a Happy Traveler


Wednessday, February 15

10:00 – 11:00am
Travel in Increasingly Turbulent Times: What’s Ahead for Destinations Around the Globe

4:15 – 5:30pm
The Future of Marketing in Uncertain Times: Except, the Future is NOW!


2018 Conference Handouts

Tuesday, February 6

10:45am – 11:45pm
(Travel Planner Forum) Creating a Partnership Between the Tour Host and Tour Manager: How to plan now for smooth logistics on-site


Wednesday, February 7

10:15am – 11:15am
(Intensive) The RIFF Model: Building an empowering framework of the future with BOLD speaker Nancy Giordano

10:15am – 12:15pm
(Hot Topic) Air Industry Update: Customer service, now a priority conversation in the industry

11:30am – 12:30pm
(Hot Topic) Selling Skills: The danger of being unprepared


Thursday, February 8

10:00am – 11:00am
Understanding Safety Management Plans: No longer an option, but an imperative and related document: Sample Safety Management Plan

10:00 – 12:00
(Intensive) Communicating Effectively: When strangling is not an option with BOLD Speaker Sue Hershkowitz-Coore

–
(Intensive) Development – From Metrics to Mission: Connecting “What I Do” with “Why I Do It”


2019 Conference Handouts

Tuesday, January 29

7:30 – 8:30am
Travel Planner Breakfast Roundtable, Engagement-Based Programs

8:45 – 9:30am
BOLD Talk – Take Your Customer Service to the Next Level: Creating Happy Travelers and Brand Advocates

9:45 – 11:45am
Trip Cancellation and Medical/Emergency Evacuation/Assistance Insurance: Distinctions, Exclusions, Legal Challenges and More

–
Crushing Your Next Negotiation in Three Steps: A two hour Intensive workshop with Susan Borke and read the BorkeWorks Negotiation Glossary

–
Customizing your Customer Service: A two hour Intensive workshop with Sue Hershkowitz-Coore

11:00am – 12:00pm
Quantitative Surveys 101: What to Ask, What to Mine, and Why! (see also audio)

12:50 – 1:30pm
BOLD Talk – The Power of Local Knowledge:Communities at the top of the tourism paradigm

1:45 – 2:45pm
Deal Making: Avoiding flight, fight or freeze when negotiating

–
Exceptional Emails: Creating an authentic connection while selling


Wednesday, January 30

8:45 – 9:45am
BOLD Talk – New Directions for Educational Travel: Trends that are changing your business

10:00 – 11:00am
People to People Experiential Learning: Meeting demand for authentic connections

12:30 – 1:45am
Understanding your Customer: Beyond Demographics, Techniques for Researching your Customers without Breaking the Bank

2 – 3pm
Demonstrating the Travel Program’s Impact on Your Institution: Data, Metrics and Storytelling

–
Sustainable Travel: Where the Value Lies for Affinity Tours and their Travelers
  • Samantha Bray Slides
  • The Case for Responsible Travel: Trends and Statistics 2018
  • The Case for Responsible Travel: Trends and Statistics 2017
  • The Case for Responsible Travel: Trends and Statistics 2016
  • Responsible Travel Tips
  • Anita Jogelkar Slides
  • John Francis Slides

–
Being an I in an E World: Introverts in Educational Travel
  • Susan Ortiz Slides
  • Discussion Questions


2019 Conference Audio Recordings

Monday, January 28

6:30pm
Welcome Remarks & Evening BOLD Talk with Peggy Wallace Kennedy
/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Alexander-Lee-1-Alabama-A-Conference-Welcome.mp3


Tuesday, January 29

8:45 – 9:30am
BOLD Talk – Take Your Customer Service to the Next Level: Creating Happy Travelers and Brand Advocates with Sue Herschkowitz-Coore
/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Alexander-Lee-2-Alabama-AB-BOLD-Talk-Take-Your.mp3

9:45 – 11:45am
Customizing your Customer Service: A two hour Intensive workshop with Sue Hershkowitz-Coore

–
Crushing Your Next Negotiation in Three Steps: A two hour Intensive workshop with Susan Borke

–
To Customize, or Not to Customize?

9:45 – 12pm
Destinations Deep Dive: Part I & II

–
Destinations Uncovered: Beyond the Marketing Campaign

11am – 12pm
Pivoting Positively On Short Notice: When Itineraries Change After Booking

12:50 – 1:30pm
Luncheon BOLD Talk – The Power of Local Knowledge: Transformational Travel as a Process, Not a Product
/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Alexander-Lee-4-Alabama-Luncheon-BOLD-Talk-The-Power-of_01.mp3

1:45 – 2:45pm
Exceptional Emails: Creating an authentic connection while selling


Wednesday, January 30

8:45 – 9:45am
BOLD Talk – New Directions for Educational Travel: Trends that are changing your business
/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Alexander-Lee-6-Alabama-AB-BOLD-Talk-New-Directions_01.mp3

12:30 – 1:45pm
Understanding your Customer: Beyond Demographics, Techniques for Researching your Customers without Breaking the Bank

2 – 3pm
Hot Topics

–
Sustainable Travel: Where the Value Lies for Affinity Tours and their Travelers


Thursday, January 31

6:30pm
Closing BOLD Talk – The Compassionate Journey: Who We, as Travelers, Can Become with Bryan Stevenson (this recording available until March 15, 2019)


Thank You To Our Audiovisual Sponsors

2017 Conference Audio Recordings

Sunday, February 12

4:30pm
(available to Travel Planners only) Jumpstart Seminar: Fundamentals of Affinity Travel for Planners (handouts also available)
/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/FEB-12-100-Jumpstart-SeminarFINAL.mp3

4:15pm
Destinations Salon: Insights and Conversations on Countries in the Traveler Spotlight
/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/FEB-12-300-Destinations-Salon-Insights_ConversationsFINAL.mp3

5:30pm – 6:00pm
Conference Welcome
/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/FEB-12-530-Conference-WelcomeFINAL.mp3


Monday, February 13

8:30 – 9:30pm
Morning Plenary – Jeff Hoffman: The Power of Innovation: Tools and Techniques to Innovate Your Travel Program and Business
/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/FEB-13-830-Hoffman-Plenary-The-Power-of-Innovation-FINAL.mp3

12:30 – 1:30pm
Anatomy of a Rescue: Nicaragua Case Study (handouts also available)
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Enhancing and Differentiating Product Offerings: A Planner’s Perspective
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1:45 – 2:45pm
Cyber Security and Passenger Info and Records: What you Need to Know, But Don’t, About Your Liability (handouts also available)
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Do You Really Understand Insurance Coverage? Candid Analysis of Travel and Emergency Insurance Programs
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Tuesday, February 14

8:45 – 10:00am
Morning Plenary – Peter Shankman: The Traveler and Tourist Economy of the Next Fifty Years will be Run by Customer Service
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10:15 – 11:30am
Educational Travel in a Changing World: Economic Markers that Matter
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Preserving Place, Culture and People: The Reality of Our Impact
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Smart Change Donor Travel Workshop: Increasing Engagement and Motivation
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Connecting Students & Alumni Through Affinity Travel: Early Engagement=Longterm Relationships=Affinity Travel
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12:00 – 12:30pm
IGNITE! Emerging Destinations to Note!
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12:45 – 1:45pm
Afternoon Plenary – Arthur Markman: Leading and Influencing Customer Change: Using Motivational Principles to Affect Behavior and Giving
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4:15 – 5:30pm
The Future of Marketing in Uncertain Times: Except, the Future is NOW!
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Global Sustainable Travel: We are ALL Part of the Equation
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Building Relationships From Traveler to Donor to Lifetime Investor
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Air Industry Update: Cheap Airfare Doesn’t Always Make a Happy Traveler (handouts also available)
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Wednessday, February 15

8:45 – 9:45am
Morning Plenary – Dawn Rodney: Going Farther: Why Brand Matters in Travel Today
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10:00 – 11:00am
Medical Screening: Mitigating Medical Issues as Passenger’s Adventures Amplify
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Special Workshop -Dawn Rodney: Your Brand: Win the Eye (and Heart!) of the Consumer
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Travel in Increasingly Turbulent Times: What’s Ahead for Destinations Around the Globe (handouts also available)
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1:00 – 2:15pm
three_fourth_last]Closing Plenary – David Pavelko, Google Enabling the Digital Traveler: Bringing Travel to Life (session not recorded at speaker’s request)[/three_fourth_last]
2:30 – 3:30pm
David Pavelko’s Google Workshop: Powerful Tools to Help you Run Your Business (session not recorded at speaker’s request)


Thank You To Our Audiovisual Sponsors

2018 Conference Audio Recordings

Monday, February 5

10am – 4pm
Destinations Deep Dive: Enhancing your global awareness and program development

6:45pm – 7:30pm
Conference Welcome Remarks & BOLD Talk by Ron Magill: Our Responsibility: Connecting people and places for a better world
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Tuesday, February 6

8:45am – 9:25am
Joan Russell Memorial and BOLD Talk by Sandy Edwards: The Trifecta: Travel, engagement, & giving
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1:45pm – 2:45pm
U.S. Department of State: Learn the new Travel and Advisory System
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Consumer Characteristics: Digging deeper
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Enduring Business Models: How to build and grow a profitable travel business
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Wednesday, February 7

8:45am – 9:55am
Community Awards and BOLD Talk by Nancy Giordano: Framing the Big Shift: What the future needs from you
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10:15am – 11:15am
“It Factor” Emails = Wow Factor Bookings! Case studies for success
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Air Industry Update: Customer service, now a priority conversation in the industry
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10:15am – 12:15pm
Intensive: The RIFF Model: Building an empowering framework of the future with BOLD speaker Nancy Giordano

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Intensive: Expecting the Unexpected: Dealing with potential problems before they become an emergency or legal issue

12:45pm – 1:20pm
BOLD Talk by Al Merschen: Preparing to Stay Ahead of the Competition: Without being behind your funds
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11:30am – 12:30pm
Selling Skills: The danger of being unprepared with BOLD Presenter Sue Hershkowitz-Coore
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Cruise Trends Ahead: Shifts, ships and services impacting affinity travel
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1:30pm – 2:30pm
Donor Tours Uncovered: Organizing tours that build lasting relationships and generate future gifts
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Escalating Competition, Marketplace Realities: Where driving trends challenge affinity travel, Panel Discussion with BOLD Presenter Al Merschen
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Thursday, February 8

9:10am – 9:50am
BOLD Talk with Sue Hershkowitz-Coore: How to Communicate When Strangling Isn’t an Option!

10:00am – 11:00am
Traveling in 2025: How technology is changing the industry and how we can use it to our advantage
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Understanding Safety Management Plans: No longer an option, but an imperative
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10:00am – 12:00pm
Intensive: From Metrics to Mission: Connecting “What I Do” with “Why I Do It”


Thank You To Our Audiovisual Sponsors

Keynote Videos 2017






Bold Talks 2018








Bold Talks 2019





Nichole McGrew

Nichole McGrew is the Associate Director for the University of Washington Alumni Tours program where she manages tour sales, customer service efforts, and stewardship for the UW Alumni Association. Prior to her current role, McGrew worked in product development & operations for several years at Globus, an international tour operator for the Globus, Cosmos, Avalon and Monograms Family of Brands. Before transitioning into tourism, she led strategic marketing and communication efforts in Colorado for organizations in corporate, non-profit and government industries, including Arapahoe County’s Open Space, Parks, & Trails department. Having grown up in Australia, she enjoys international travel, as well as hiking, dancing, and reading. McGrew is a graduate of the University of Denver.

Stephen Wellmeier

Steve Wellmeier is Managing Director of Poseidon Expeditions USA, a polar expedition cruise operator. He has 35 years of experience in marketing and communications, public affairs, crisis media management, and member association management in the cruise and tour industry. Steve has served as executive director of the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators (IAATO); public affairs liaison at the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) 9/11 World Trade Center Recovery Office; and vice president of marketing at INTRAV/Clipper Cruise Line. Steve holds an MA in English Literature from the University of Cincinnati and a BA in English Literature from Saint Louis University.

Padgett Arnold

Padgett Arnold is co-owner and director of sales & customer relations at Sequatchie Cove Creamery along with her husband, cheesemaker Nathan Arnold.  Her first career as a market gardener and active member of the local food and farming community in Chattanooga, TN lead into farmstead cheese. Their passion for regenerative agriculture & food with a relationship to the land lead Padgett and Nathan to Italy for Slow Food’s Terra Madre in 2004, where their interest in cheese and its unique expression of place was born. She and Nathan founded the Creamery in partnership with Sequatchie Cove Farm in 2010, where they began making raw cow’s milk cheeses originally inspired by the traditional Alpine styles of Europe, with a new vision to capture the character and flavors unique to their particular part of Tennessee. Padgett’s role in the business is tied to the people – from the dairy & creamery staff to customer service and business administration.  Her goal is to create a thriving agricultural enterprise founded on ethically crafted food with utmost respect for farmland, natural resources and the humans & animals behind the products.

Diana Lee Crew

Diana Lee Crew is currently a consultant to nonprofits and for profit educational organizations focusing on developing strategic relationships and consulting in a variety of capacities. Some of her more recent work includes sales consulting and product implementation training with StudySync, an innovative reading and writing Educational Technology company; photography and video work, including recent ETC conferences. From September 2005 to January 2010 she served as Director of Strategic Partnerships with Immersion Learning in Mystic, CT, which was founded by oceanographer and explorer Dr. Robert Ballard as a state-of-the-art communications and robotics technology program bringing yearly ocean-going research expeditions live to school kids, museums, science centers, aquariums, and participating Boys & Girls Clubs of America. Previously, she worked at the JASON Foundation of Education, where she spent over nine years as its Director of Sales for a leading science distance learning program. Prior to JASON, she was with the Denver Museum of Natural History for 18 years, where she developed and directed its museum travel and youth education programs, managed an active travel program, and was an institutional co-founding sponsor of the Nonprofits in Travel Conference, now evolved to ETC, and co-designer of the early Nonprofits in Travel Conference agendas. She also served as President of the Rocky Mountain Direct Marketing Association. She holds an M.A. in Public Information and Communication from the University of Denver and a B.A. from Scripps College in Claremont, CA

JD Harper

JD Harper is a Literary Advocate, Author, Health Care Professional, Outdoor Enthusiast, History Buff and Bookworm

She has enjoyed a career in Physical Therapy for over 25 years, volunteered as co-coordinator of the Chattanooga Youth Gallery, served as board member for the Council for Alcohol and Drug Abuse Services (CADAS), volunteered with KelCurt Foundation, mentored with TNAchieves Scholarship program, and spends her free time outside reading, gardening, scuba diving, writing, climbing, and hiking.

Her goal is to promote the joys of literature to young adults in Chattanooga through seminars, book writing, and sharing stories about how she discovered an unshakable love for reading.

The power of reading is invaluable.  From expanding education to creating empathy, she has always cherished the opportunity to continuously grow through literature.  She want to ensure these positive life experiences endure in Chattanooga’s younger generations.  

Glint, serves as an outlet where she could release creative energy while simultaneously promoting readership to a young adult audience through historical fiction adventure.

Amy Spear

Amy Spear’s love of traveling started as a small child, when her parents began the quest to take her to almost all 50 states in the nation, along with Canada and Mexico.  Then, as a young adult, she had the exciting chance to live and work abroad in several cities throughout Europe. After returning to the United States, she began a dynamic career in the travel industry working for the Nashville Convention & Visitors Corporation (NCVC) as part of the vibrant sales team that skyrocketed Nashville to the top of travel destinations.  After 7 ½ years at the NCVC, Amy received the exciting opportunity to become Director of Sales for Sweet Magnolia Tours- the American South’s premier receptive tour operator. Amy’s passion is to bring visitors to the South, specifically Tennessee, where she was born and has lived most her life. When asked what Amy loves most about her job, she says “I love planning trips and tours where visitors can experience the fantastic genuine ‘Southern hospitality,’ rich cultural history, fabulous authentic music scene and delicious southern cuisine that encompasses many of the things I love about my great state of Tennessee!” 

Donna McKenzie

Donna is a native of Chattanooga. Her parents helped her discover her love of travel when they explored Jamaica in the 1960’s for a vacation. She has continued traveling from group tours to Europe, the USA, Canada, and the UK to backpacking through Europe and the UK. After a career as a teacher and educational consultant, Donna graduated from the International Travel Management Institute. She has been leading tours in Chattanooga and beyond since 2017. She has her Washington, DC and New York City guide licenses. She has led student tours on the east coast. She has led adult tours in the US South and Northeast.

Lima Tourist Guide

Check out the Lima Tourist Guide!

 


Peru Nord and Amazon

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Perú Mucho Gusto

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Birds in Natural Protected Areas


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Turn Right at Machu Picchu

Rediscovering the Lost City One Step at a Time by Mark Adams

Peru Luxury Experiences

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