CSR Peer Learning session #4: TRAVELER SOCIAL AND GIVING INCLINATIONS and YOUR BUSINESS

CSR Peer Learning session #4: TRAVELER SOCIAL AND GIVING INCLINATIONS and YOUR BUSINESS

Watch, listen and/or download the full webinar

A CSR Peer Learning Network?

Purpose Inspiration & camaraderie Connections Useful data nuggets Practical tools & ideas If we did all the things we were capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves. --Thomas A. Edison, via Jessica Cook, VWT Set the stage for collaboration

Series I a 6-session dive into travel CSR 1. CSR value prop and member baseline (April 2, 2015 South Street Seaport, NYC) 2. Making a difference in Nepal and disaster giving: finding and supporting great projects (June 11, 2015, MaCher, LA) 3. Sharing & Storytelling: communicating your good works externally and internally (September 24, Hostelling International, Boston) 4. To Give or Not to Give: Engaging Clients in Funding Projects (December 1, USTOA conference, Chicago) 5. Volunteers R Us: Engaging Employees in Volunteering (National Park Foundation, Washington DC) 6. Clients v2, To Volunteer or Not: Voluntourism (TBD, 2016)

Agenda: CSR Peer Learning Session #4 of 6 I. Who is here? (10 ) II. What do we think about client giving and our businesses?(15 ) III. Question #1: Communicating needs while on vacation? (15 ) IV. Question #2: How to deliver giving options based on my means and business? (15 ) V. Question #3: Making the ask and what then? (15 )

Our national, virtual discussion We want as interactive a conversation as possible warning, you may be called on! All lines will be MUTED to protect our audio quality. Please MESSAGE JOHN Moderator in WEBEX to enter the discussion queue

Who is here? Tauck MaCher Adventures by Disney Avanti Destinations Mayflower Tours Abercrombie and Kent Philanthropy Sceptre Goway Travel McBreen & Kopko Passport Online Percepture Travel Intrepid Foundation/Intrepid Travel Air Canada Un-Cruise Adventures Vacations That Matter Wilderness Travel AIG Travel

Some of today s peer players Keith Sproule Abercrombie & Kent Philanthropy John Stachnik Mayflower Tours Mike Rea Tourism Cares

and you!

What do we think about client giving and our businesses? Survey data read-out

Charitable giving matters to clients at home and on the road

Clients want to know about community needs; we respond and engage, with work to be done

Yet only about half of us engage clients directly on giving, and we feel we could do better We don t ask our clients to contribute; rather, we strive to inspire them to think about giving back to the destination they visited

For those who don t engage travelers in giving why not? We don t insert needs and helping into vacations Charitable giving is a personal matter Our demographic isn t interested We might but don t know where to begin

My greatest lesson we have learned about client giving? Giving Happens! When asked, people do tend to provide. The clients feel good about it. It s personal and worth the education and offer. It is a very personal matter to most. It s very personal and not everyone is interested in it, but it s important to educate and provide the opportunities for those who are interested. Provide education and opportunities, and the results will come. Program positioning and quality Client trust in the [receiving] company/foundation is important Demonstrating real, tangible impact on lives and livelihoods serves to inspire guest giving, especially for guests who have experience with philanthropic investments. Given exposure to a high quality, high impact program in the field, they often make contributions through a family or corporate fdtn. Be relevant and position for authenticity so clients can relate. The clients need to feel connected to the cause.

My greatest question about traveler giving? How to do it in the first place. Where to start When to offer How to select How to introduce. Post-gift How to most effectively engage past/future donors Feedback from clients who have experienced giving and are willing to share their experience with others How to encourage clients to become regular donors. Triggers and the ask What compels someone to act; best call to action, etc. How to give more How to effectively tailor giving to the places that people have visited without it becoming overly complicated to manage. Speaking of calls to action! There s a lot of fluff in the travel industry around giving back. Collectively, as an industry, we need to raise the performance bar.

Q1: Presenting need on vacation?! How do you communicate needs and make the case for giving? What messages seem to work (and have not worked); delivered how, when?

To answer the question of what to do to get started, first we need to say what you don t do. In the tour operator and hospitality business, the greatest fear that we have is making our travelers feel uncomfortable Early on, one of the first mistakes we made was we kept it to ourselves. We would contribute and do things that probably people in our own company didn t even know about. So, you have to first get your own organization involved. Then as you go into the market, there are different levels all the way from making a donation on their behalf, to putting a shovel in their hands. You have to decide your travelers demographic. For Mayflower, we became most comfortable with making contributions on behalf of our travelers such as with the National Parks Centennial, where we donate $5 for every park that each traveler visits with us (through Tourism Cares Centennial Tour Operator Program) and it is altruistic, but from a capitalistic perspective it has ended up being very helpful to our sales. - John Stachnik, Mayflower Tours

In 40 years of being in this space, we ve done a lot of experimentation with giving back, and learned a lot about how to go about this. One thing I learned from Sven Lindblad of Lindblad Expeditions is that you ll move peoples hearts when they re in the destination when they see and experience a need, and feel it in their heart and with the group they re in. If you re going to do something as a company, that s really the most opportune time. It s a very difficult thing to do, but one example of when we worked around a program with the national parks and we did a database marketing sampling, which I would recommend to everyone. You should always do some testing before you roll anything out, because you can test a concept on a group of [a smaller sample, and be surprised to see what works with different demographics]. -Robin Tauck, Tauck

We ve made a deep commitment to engaging our guests when they travel, with the opportunity to learn about the destinations, through our community development work and philanthropic investments. We call them investments because we treat it like an investment; it s not an airdrop or a grant, we like to engage. We never ask guests, but rather we set up opportunities for them to feel inspired With the right mix of smart partnerships, geographic focus on communities, and targeting [specific groups], we present [philanthropy] in a way that s engaging and not overbearing. -Keith Sproule, Abercrombie & Kent Philanthropy

One thing that many B-Corps like us have in common is that they engage their teams. It literally can start with one person but once it starts to expand, there s a mindset of we can do this. Another thing to take into consideration is consumer behavior. All other things being equal, consumers do have a preference for a company that engages in philanthropy versus one that doesn t and probably 50% of B-Corporations have a success story on having customers choose them over the competition because they care [about doing something good]. -Derek Hydon, Macher

(On business and messaging perspectives in Nepal campaign) We got an enormous amount of donations right away...and many people said they chose us because they trusted us and felt we would use the money well; that money mainly went on to building schools. And then we made a commitment that our profits from 2015-2016 trips would go to Nepal and we have 5 projects funded by that. -Anna Wade, Intrepid Foundation

Dilemma #1: Un-Cruise is starting in Panama in 2017 and wants to help: Wants to donate $/guest to a nonprofit; Darien Jungle or elsewhere How to find the right org and think about the issues/impact? Then: how to engage clients in such a place?

We don t yet engage clients in our philanthropy; right now we give cruises or cash donations to nonprofits involved in environmental work. In Panama, we want our money to go as far as possible and have the right meaning so our challenge is to find the right organization that will have the most impact with our donation. -Nathan Krohn, Un-Cruise

If you re looking to do this for the first time, one of the greatest resources is the Smithsonian Group, which has been operating, through the Panama Canal and in those areas and tribes for many many years they ve vetted many of the nonprofits there and can help find the right organization for you. -Robin Tauck, Tauck

Q2: The there there solutions and execution OK, there s lots of needs out there how do I partner or create programs to tackle them confidently enough to engage clients? What are options for different levels of commitment/investment or stages?

Q3: The offer, the ask and follow up, blending customer service and stewardship How do you make the ask? What do you do then?!

What comes next? Will send raw survey results Takeaways deck and follow up resources Session #5 on employee volunteering in Q1 Offer feedback, ideas and dilemmas! Recruit others!

Additional resources

The National Parks Centennial lineup, 2015-16 1. Grand Canyon Natl Park (Williams, AZ) Nov. 1-3, 2015 2. Chattahoochee National Rec. Area (Atlanta) Feb. 5, 2016 3. Mississippi River NRA (Minneapolis) May 19-20, 2016 4. Mt. Rainier Natl Park (Seattle) Sept. 15-16, 2016 5. The Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island (New York) Nov. 3-4, 2016

Watch, listen and/or download the full webinar

THANK YOU! John Yonce Director of Community Engagement John.yonce@tourismcares.org 617.922.0076 Mike Rea CEO mike.rea@tourismcares.org www.tourismcares.org