Sean knew the travel industry was where he needed to be, resiliently holding course after three initial knockbacks from Flight Centre. After getting a start with STA Travel, he then got that Flight Centre role. He got many more afterwards, too, as he worked his way up to General Manager of Student Flights and Universal Traveller before becoming Managing Director of G Adventures last year.
Karryon caught up exclusively with Sean to talk about leadership, landscape, life and love in this new era of travel.
What’s happening in your business, and how does the forthcoming period look?
We are busy! We have been back operating since September 2020 and have run over 8,000 trips, which we believe is more than any other tour operator worldwide. New destinations are opening every day. Japan is resuming trips in October, which we are excited about.
We continue to work towards our “Project 100” goal of partnering with 100 Community Tourism enterprises globally (we are currently at 90).
On top of that, we have launched Roamies, a brand new youth touring range in partnership with Hostelworld and continue to scale up in the Australian market with our Global Purpose Specialist (BDM) team out on the road.
What are you excited about right now?
I’m excited about people looking at how they can travel differently in a post-pandemic world. More than ever, people are asking questions about where their dollars are going and the impact that they are making.
They are questioning whether they want to spend 14 days in a resort where they never leave. Or do they want every day to be memorable through the people they meet, their experiences, and the difference they make?
Are there trends you are seeing that are driving change in the business or the industry?
The most significant trend we are encountering is customers seeking to travel more responsibly. Throughout the pandemic, we have all done more to support locally owned businesses, so it makes sense that this will carry through to people’s travel plans.
What are the biggest challenges for travel?
Currently, the industry is at a tipping point. Tourists are unintentionally destroying the very things that they have come to see.
The challenge here is to educate people on how we can positively change this.
What about the biggest opportunities?
If done correctly, tourism can be the world’s best form of wealth redistribution. Getting this right is a massive opportunity and will go a considerable way to alleviating poverty globally.
We need to ask more questions about where our customers’ dollars go when they travel.
How important is leadership right now? What should leadership look like?
I think leadership is as important as it has ever been. Leadership should be about changing people’s lives, whether that be the people that you lead, your customers, or in our case, the local communities that we visit. Results are short-term gratification; changing a life sticks with you forever.
What would you like to see change? Or more of?
I’d love to see more questions asked about how we can travel better. If we ask these questions, we can create a product that makes a tangible difference. This is a much more enriching experience for our customers and local communities.
How key is collaboration in the industry?
We all have to work together if we are to make any progress. If we can all learn from each other and share what we know, we are only going to create a better world for our customers, people and those communities that benefit from tourism positively.
Do you think enough emphasis is being placed on sustainability in travel and addressing the climate crisis?
I don’t think we are quite at that place yet. We are getting there, though, and the pandemic has accelerated it. We are very quick to criticise others for not doing enough, which has to stop. What is important is that we are doing something and then can build on that.
What are your learnings from the pandemic?
So many learnings! I think everyone has a Covid story, and no one is worse or better than anyone else’s. They are all relative.
For me, we closed the business that I was running (Universal Traveller at FCTG), made hundreds of great people redundant, had two babies, was then made redundant myself and started a new dream role all within 15 months. I think that if you do the right thing, everything is going to be alright.
What is your message to the industry?
Thank you! In particular to all of our travel agent partners. You guys are the ones who have been at the forefront of looking after our customers and representing the industry.
Things are crazy at the moment, but that will calm down. Let’s do what we do best and have some fun!
You can find out more about Sean or get in touch via his LinkedIn profile.
