Bruce Poon Tip: Interview with the Founder of G Adventures

Bruce Poon Tip is a Trinidad-born Canadian entrepreneur best known as the founder of the adventure travel company, G Adventures and author of the bestselling book “Looptail: How One Company Changed the World by Reinventing Business“. Passionate about the power of travel to change the world for the better, Bruce has become a global leader in social entrepreneurship, leadership, immersive travel, and innovation. Today, he is recognized as one of the pioneers of community tourism. If you are ready, let’s hear Bruce Poon Tip’s outstanding life story and achievements from him.

Biography of Bruce Poon Tip

For those who don’t know of G Adventures, could you tell them a little about the company and what you are doing?

G Adventures is the largest small group adventure holiday company in the world – we’ve been committed to social enterprise and community tourism since the early days. I also started a non-profit foundation, Planeterra, in 1996 with the idea that sustainable development through tourism could be the greatest form of wealth distribution there is. Innovation is at the heart of what we do, finding new responsible ways in which people can see this beautiful planet.

What was your particular motivation to create G Adventures? How has G Adventures changed since the beginning, 1990?

Back in 1990, I saw a gap in the market for a style of travel that bridged the only two options available back then – large organized tours or independent travel. We wanted to create a style of travel that was low-impact and got to the heart of a destination, supporting local people along the way. Today we’re unrecognizable. We have changed in every way, in every capacity of the business. We have an internal challenge to look back every five years with the goal of not being recognizable. The largest contributor is our foundation work – we now have over 100 sustainable community tourism projects all over the world that positively impact local communities – that’s what I am most proud of.

You wrote a book named “In Unlearn, The Year The Earth Stood Still” during the quarantine time. What made you want to write the book?

Unlearn: The Year the Earth Stood Still actually started as a love letter to our travellers. I was being asked to write a corporate letter but everything I wrote sounded like the letters coming from every other CEO…”unprecedented times” “we’re all in this together” and at that time I didn’t know everything was going to be alright, so it felt disingenuous to write something like that. So I just kept writing and ended up with this Instabook which talks about how travel was in a very dangerous place before the pandemic. We have been given an opportunity to rethink how we do things.

Sometimes when we are doing ridiculous things you need to stop and look back to realize we were doing ridiculous things. We’ve been forced into a restart position. The question is whether we want to fight to get back to normal, or do we want to be a transformational industry. We have to restart but we can do things differently – do them better.

How do you see the future of the travel industry and traveling after the COVID-19 pandemic? What are your expectations and thoughts in the short term and long term?

I believe anything is possible. Anything is possible for people to change how they take their holiday time. I am the eternal optimist when it comes to these things. It doesn’t need to be a lot of people, it just needs to be a small group of people to change the landscape of our industry. What I’d like to see is people becoming more connected to destinations, more purposeful in their choices and why they want to travel between countries, and not be booking based on amenities and thread counts on sheets.  That’s a dangerous place for us to be in tourism, and in travel, if people are more concerned about amenities – so it’s my hope that people get more connected and purposeful in their decision making, and understand their privilege when it comes to being able to travel.

There’s a very small population on the planet that has the privilege to decide they want to take a holiday. Travel is a privilege, not a right. When you decide to take a holiday, and to travel, it’s a big decision that can impact a lot of lives, so I hope people change how they think about making a decision to take a holiday – and realize what a privilege it is to be able to make that choice.

You are a great inspiration for young people with the things you did with G Adventures. What is your advice to the young generation who wants to create an impact in the travel industry with their ideas and startups? What do you suggest to them to achieve their goals?

Great leaders come out of a passion for the product. Know your market and don’t try to be everything for everyone. Know your audience/customer. It’s a very romantic dream to own an adventure travel company, but there is work besides finding your purpose.

Your favorite G Adventures trip and the reason

It’s always the most recent trip I travelled up. Japan is next for me though – I had to cancel a trip to Japan in 2020 and it’s calling me to go back.

Your top 3 destinations in the world

It’s so tough for me to nail down my favourite destination, but in recent years I’ve been drawn to destinations where I can disconnect from the modern world and connect with nature. Right now I’d have to say Antarctica and the Galapagos would be at the top of my list because you can really hone in on yourself and your place in the world. And I’ve always loved Namibia. 

Your top 3 favorite travel movies/series.

Passage to India, Baraca, Parts Unknown and Seven Years in Tibet

Your favourite cuisine

Indian / Japanese 

What is your philosophy on life?

If you love what you do you’ll never work a day in your life.

Biggest lesson that you can share with the entrepreneurs of the future?

Be passionate about what you do. There will be sacrifice at first, but once you discover success there is the freedom to keep being innovative. I appreciate that every day.

We sincerely thank you to Casey Mead, (full-time Kiwi ?) the Global Communications Lead of the G Adventures, for her helps to make this interview happen.