Jun 16, 2026 · 22 min · 12 segments
Bruce Poon Tip, founder of G Adventures, reflects on how travel can transform people, communities and societies. He speaks about rebuilding his company after COVID-19, why leaving the comfort zone is…
Bruce Poon TipGuest
Charlotte Lamp-DaviesHostSo, I mean, when I was investigating, as you have already noticed, I talked to some people of the industry about G-Adventures and some people in the environmental things.
So maybe you can tell us a little what's the special thing about G Adventures or what's the USB or what makes it really your company, the profile of it.
Well, I think that we started as a company that was... you know, connected to people, connected to cultures.
Like taking people, like we originally took people on like public transport, stayed in hostels and did family home stays.
But I think that over time, we kind of evolved into what we kind of own, which is community tourism.
When the, I guess, entire industry was going towards eco and environment and connected tourism to climate change and these kind of issues, we believed that travel could be transformational for communities and marginalized communities could create wealth distribution because we're going to some of the 40 poorest countries in the world and bringing marginalized communities into the tourism economy, alleviated poverty and created wealth distribution.
And I think we were the first company to kind of put that as a major selling feature of a program, connecting people to communities and owning that concept and being the global leader in community tourism.
We continue to strengthen our relationships and our dialogue with local communities and people and bring more and more people into the tourism supply chain and giving marginalized communities the opportunity to create cultural heritage preservation using tourism as a vehicle.
So, I mean, when I was investigating, as you have already noticed, I talked to some people of the industry about G-Adventures and some people in the environmental things.
So maybe you can tell us a little what's the special thing about G Adventures or what's the USB or what makes it really your company, the profile of it.
Well, I think that we started as a company that was... you know, connected to people, connected to cultures.
Like taking people, like we originally took people on like public transport, stayed in hostels and did family home stays.
But I think that over time, we kind of evolved into what we kind of own, which is community tourism.
When the, I guess, entire industry was going towards eco and environment and connected tourism to climate change and these kind of issues, we believed that travel could be transformational for communities and marginalized communities could create wealth distribution because we're going to some of the 40 poorest countries in the world and bringing marginalized communities into the tourism economy, alleviated poverty and created wealth distribution.
And I think we were the first company to kind of put that as a major selling feature of a program, connecting people to communities and owning that concept and being the global leader in community tourism.
We continue to strengthen our relationships and our dialogue with local communities and people and bring more and more people into the tourism supply chain and giving marginalized communities the opportunity to create cultural heritage preservation using tourism as a vehicle.
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