On World Tourism Day, September 27th, award-winning tour operator G Adventures unveiled an industry-first analysis and communications tool called the ‘Ripple Score’, designed to report the local impact of *most of its small-group trips around the globe. The innovative scoring system indicates what percentage of a tour’s local expenditure remains in the local economy, benefiting small business owners and members of nearby communities.
Across G Adventures’ portfolio, which includes hundreds of different trips in 100+ countries, the average Ripple Score is an astonishing 93 out of 100. That means: 93 percent of the money its local operations and customers spend within destinations and in connection to G Adventures tours stays with locally-owned businesses -- benefiting local people. The score was determined based on survey results from nearly 2,000 local suppliers, whose services support the 640 different tours measured.
Jamie Sweeting, G Adventures’ Massachusetts-based vice president for social enterprise and responsible travel, explained that the Ripple Score is a way for the company to better understand its impacts and improve transparency with its partners and customers, as well as drive the travel industry forward.
“The G Local survey was a thorough, multi-year analysis of our supply chain, designed to help us find out how many of our suppliers are majority locally-owned, and how much money stays in the destination,” said Sweeting. “When travelers spend their money with local service providers it has a measurably positive effect on communities among both the business owners and their direct employees. But it also creates a lasting ripple effect in their larger communities and villages, supporting families’ basic needs and their neighbors’ livelihoods. That’s why we call it the Ripple Score.”
G Adventures’ non-profit partners, the U.S.-based Sustainable Travel International and the Toronto-based Planeterra Foundation, assisted in the Ripple Score calculations, as well as the company’s development of a thorough “G Local” survey of suppliers, from which the Ripple Score was derived.
Yves Marceau, G Adventures’ Boston-based vice president of buying and product said, “As leaders in responsible travel, it has always been our intention to prioritize the use of local service providers who employ local people. But just how well we were doing, and what benefits we were helping to create, were less than clear. That’s why we decided to undertake this massive outreach effort two years ago, and find out just how well our products are actually doing.”
Marceau added, “I think of it like a voluntary check-up for our supply chain. We peered under the hood, inspected the connections, and discovered how well benefits are flowing. Now, we’re releasing the scores. To my mind, it represents a first in our sector and a sea change in tourism operations. We hope it coaxes the industry forward so that suppliers and other tour operators become more accountable for their local economic and social impacts.”
International efforts to quantify the local benefit of tourism and travel to destinations and their communities have been challenging and complex. One commonly cited statistic from the U.N. Environment Programme estimated that, because of foreign ownership and large holding groups, just five out of every one hundred dollars a tourist spends stays in the local economy. The actual numbers are not clearly known.
Following the survey, 640 of G Adventures’ approximately 750 trips were given a Ripple Score. These scores will appearalongside each trip on the G Adventures website beginning this week,in time for World Tourism Day, September 27. They will also be published in G Adventures’ 2019 brochures, available for digital download later this fall.
“This initiative was neither simple nor quick. But it was important, and I’m proud that G Adventures had the commitment to see it through from concept to communication. We hope it helps educate travelers about the positive impact they can have while traveling, simply through the power of their vacation choices,” said Sweeting.
The Ripple Score is the latest purpose-driven initiative under G Adventures’ ‘G for Good’ social enterprise umbrella, which also includes the company’s suite of responsible travel guidelines aimed at protecting children, animals and Indigenous peoples’ well-being. Its support for more than 65 small business and community development projects around the world, developed with the Planeterra Foundation, help alleviate poverty, conserve cultures, empower women and train disadvantaged youth and are also pillars of this initiative.
For more information please visit www.gadventures.com/ripplescore
* G Adventures excluded its Antarctic and Arctic trips onboard the G Expedition ship, since it operates in remote destinations with few or no local people. In addition, building new trip itineraries and contracting suppliers is an ongoing process. At the time of scoring, there were a number of new trips and trips with supplier changes where no data was available.