Tourism cares a lot

To preserve the travel experience for future generations of travelers. 

That’s the mission of Tourism Cares, a US-based non-profit organization that is supported by the travel, tourism and hospitality industries. 

That’s a pretty lofty mission and as its executive director, I often find it a bit daunting. But, as my Scottish mother would always say, "Wee steps and slow and you’ll eventually get there."  And we are.
Perhaps this is the first you’ve heard of Tourism Cares but thanks to TravelMole’s Vision on Sustainable Tourism and other interested travel and tourism websites and publications, the word is getting out about all the great things we’ve been able to accomplish in our brief history.

The History:  Tourism Cares is the result of the merger of two US travel and tourism nonprofits, the National Tourism Foundation (NTF), founded in 1984 by the National Tour Association and the Travelers Conservation Foundation (TCF), founded by the United States Tour Operators Association in 1999. NTF had been giving scholarships to students studying travel and tourism; TCF had been giving grants around the world to natural, cultural and historic sites. Then ASTA and IATAN, two travel agent organizations, placed their scholarship programs under the umbrella of Tourism Cares. Today, Tourism Cares is the official philanthropy of all four of those organizations and more and the list is growing.
It’s the Diversity:  Why do these travel trade associations and their members support Tourism Cares?  It’s because of the diversity of our programs.  We don’t do just one thing. We’re all about education, preservation and restoration.

Tourism Cares is achieving its mission in three ways.

• Education:  The travel and tourism industry needs a knowledgeable workforce to carry it into a sustainable and profitable future. Tourism Cares addresses that challenge by providing academic scholarships to the best and brightest students, professional development scholarships to those who hone their skills and by mentoring those who wish to better themselves. Tourism Cares and the originating NTA, ASTA and IATAN foundations have awarded more than $1 million in assistance.  A recent addition to our educational program is InternInTourism.org, a web-based matching service so those who wish to learn the trade through internships can find opportunities with companies that can offer that training.  
• Preservation: Today’s and future travelers deserve to experience the natural, cultural and historic sites. It’s important to the traveler and those who sell travel.  Tourism Cares’ efforts are aimed at preventing the need to say "there used to be" when describing sites that have been lost through neglect, misuse or overuse.  To date, Tourism Cares has made grants totaling more than $2.5 million to more than 170 sites worldwide.
• Restoration:  For the last ten years, Tourism Cares has brought together more than 3,500 travel professionals who have rolled up their sleeves and donated 30,000 hours of labor at tourism related sites in need of care and rejuvenation.  Sites in the United States such as New Orleans, the Mississippi Gulf Coast, historic Gettysburg, Mount Vernon and San Francisco have benefited from these efforts. In addition, corporate partner companies such as Ritz Carlton and The Travel Corporation and organizations such as NTA, USTOA, Vacation.com  have gathered their employees and members in similar programs organized by Tourism Cares.  The value of these hands-on give back programs now exceeds $545,000.

Going Global:  Beginning in 2012, Tourism Cares has gone global with its Global Outreach (GO) program as it replicates its efforts in America throughout the world.  The initial program, GO Peru, saw 38 US travel and tourism executives visit the World Heritage site at Machu Picchu and the city of Cusco, where they partnered with their Peruvian counterparts in an educational program and a restoration project.  The Peruvian private sector has created a similar non-profit organization, Turismo Cuida, and they and Tourism Cares have made pledges of grants to UNESCO and other important sites in Peru. 

To learn more about Tourism Cares and how you and your organization can become involved, visit http://www.tourismcares.org.

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