The Tourism RESET

This is the second episode of ‘Bred To Entertain’, a three-part series with World Animal Protection dedicated to captive wildlife in tourism. A series designed for travel professionals, business owners and tour operator teams, providing expert-led knowledge to navigate this topic with more confidence and clarity. My guests today are Delphine Ronfot and Dr David Perpiñán. Delphine has more than 20...

This is the first episode of ' Bred To Entertain ' a three-part series with World Animal Protection dedicated to captive wildlife in tourism. My guests today are Dr Jan Schmidt-Burbach and Sarah Blaine. Jan is Director of Wildlife Research and Veterinary Expertise at World Animal Protection, holds a PhD in diagnosing health issues in Asian elephants, and has led the most comprehensive assessment t...

50 episodes of The Tourism Reset and we're marking the milestone with a big topic and a very special guest. My guest today, Gopinath Parayil has spent over 20 years asking one question: how do we create a better place to live? He's the founder of travel company Blue Yonder, an award winning travel company founded in 2004 in Kerala India. His business and team have been first responders across majo...

25 Antarctic tour guides walked away from careers they'd spent years earning, and a place they loved. Not because the work dried up. Not because they changed their minds. Because of what they witnessed on the ice. My guest today, Dr. Elizabeth Cooper, set out to find out why people were choosing to leave the industry. What she uncovered is an inconvenient truth about Antarctic tourism - one that d...

Migration. Present in the places and destinations tourism operates in and sends travellers to. Tourism relies on the idea of freedom of movement - so what happens when those two worlds collide? This story began as one man's dream to cross what he calls "one of the last remaining wildernesses." It became something else entirely. The story of a family's fight to survive. My guest today is Rasmus Kra...

If community tourism is part of your business, if community impact matters to you in the places you operate, or if you publish impact reports - this episode is for you. My guest today is Ewan Cluckie, co-founder of Tripseed, a majority locally-owned, women-owned DMC based in Thailand. Tripseed recently became the first tourism operator in Asia to receive the Fair Tax Mark and is the first business...

What's behind a hotel lobby that invites in a full-body exhale from its guests, and another that does the opposite? The answer? Already written into their nervous systems and missing entirely from most business strategies and ROI docs. My guest today is Dr. Willy Legrand, Professor, author, and speaker based in Germany, where he's been teaching sustainability in hospitality for over two decades. I...

How does tourism hide the voices of communities on main tourism routes? And what happens when this industry is a vehicle to bring back lost stories and heritage instead? My guest today is Professor Sandro Carnicelli, who teaches tourism at the University of West Scotland. Born in São Paulo to an Italian family, he completed his PhD in New Zealand, today he calls Scotland home. A journey that's sha...

What does it mean to really 'arrive' in a place? And what's the compelling business case for stillness in tourism? Some of what we'll explore in today's episode... My guest today is Beáta Szablics , a tourism business strategist, experience designer, and certified forest therapy guide. She was the first-ever guide to host nature therapy sessions on the icy continent of Antarctica. Most tours or ho...

The New York Times called Dr Thomas Doherty (author of Surviving Climate Anxiety) the most prominent American advocate of eco psychology. Jeremy Smith is co-author of the Glasgow Declaration on Climate Action in Tourism and has spent more than 20 years at the front line of tourism's response to the climate crisis. This episode goes somewhere most industry conversations and sustainability conferenc...

Join Katie Thompson and a panel of leading experts live on the 2nd of April for Rethinking Flying, a live learning event only at thetourismreset.com . Or catch the recording. What truths would the aviation industry rather you didn't know? In this episode we find out. This week I sat down with Katie Thompson. Twenty years in the cockpit. Head of Flight Safety at NetJets. Responsible for hundreds of...

Is tourism growing for the sake of growing? Who benefits? And who pays the cost? Just some of the questions we unpack in this episode. This week I sat down with Tina O'Dwyer from Ireland, a renowned strategic advisor in tourism, and one of the few people I've heard put vulnerability and leadership in the same sentence in this industry. Find out why that matters more than you think. Why this is wor...

Welcome back to The Tourism RESET with me, your host, Rebecca Woolford. My guest today is Dr. Lyla June Johnston, aka Lyla June, an Indigenous musician, author, and activist of Diné nation and European heritage. Lyla’s creativity and passion have engaged audiences around the globe. She blends her study of Human Ecology at Stanford with doctoral research focused on how pre-colonial Indigenous Natio...

Welcome back to The Tourism RESET with me, your host, Rebecca Woolford. My guests today are Vitória and Alex, mother and son from Cristalino Lodge, a world leading ecotourism lodge in the Southern Amazon, Brazil. What began as a deep knowing for Vitoria grew into Cristalino Lodge, now safeguarding 11,399 hectares of rainforest (equal in size to two Manhattans). It's a world-leading research hotspo...

Welcome back to The Tourism RESET with me, your host, Rebecca Woolford. My next guest is Dr Freya Higgins-Desbiolles, an academic powerhouse and author who's spent her career advancing justice in tourism. Freya helped create the Code of Conduct for Tourism in the Holy Land, she's co-authored books on climate justice and community empowerment, and she's working with communities worldwide to reimagi...

Welcome back to The Tourism RESET with me, your host, Rebecca Woolford. My guests today are Alessandra Alonso, award-winning founder of Women in Travel CIC - named one of 50 most important women in travel by Wanderlust AND Florbela, a tour guide. For two decades, Alessandra has been championing women in tourism. It started when she noticed she was always the only woman in the boardroom. Women are...

Welcome back to The Tourism RESET with me, your host, Rebecca Woolford. My next guest is a trained beekeeper and Intrepid Travel's B Corp Impact Manager. In her spare time Rochelle Turner is the co-chair of Travel by B Corp UK, and is a trustee of the Travel Foundation. In this episode, discover... What it means to be a B Corp travel business. The good, as well as the challenges Why governance is...

Welcome back to The Tourism RESET with me, your host, Rebecca Woolford. Today's guests isJeremy Sampson, CEO of The Travel Foundation. Here's what you'll hear in this episode: 🌍 "All we want is a hill to die on, and if we die on that hill, so be it." (6:00 mins) 🌍 "I actually walked into the interview thinking The Travel Foundation was TUI's non-profit... it left the Travel Foundation in a preca...

Welcome back to The Tourism RESET with me, your host, Rebecca Woolford. Today I sit down with three incredible women, all chiefs of impact and heads of sustainability from major travel companies. Hear from Sara King from Intrepid Travel, Shannon Guihan from The Travel Corporation, and Kasia Morgan from Exodus Adventure Travels, part of the Travelopia group, as we discuss the misconceptions surroun...

Behind every great travel or tourism business, no matter the size is someone who asks better questions, takes consistent action, and refuses to choose between profit and purpose. In this episode, I sat down with Helen Bateman, founder of Firecrest Travel, a UK-based boutique agency with transformative travel and adventure at its heart. Enjoyed listening? Visit thetourismreset.com , on-demand video...

Welcome back to The Tourism RESET with me, your host, Rebecca Woolford. Today, I’m joined by the inspiring Thomas Newmark for a deep dive into the C word! Carbon. Tom is the Co-owner of Finca Luna Nueva Lodge, who is leading the way in regenerative farming and tourism in not only Costa Rica, but the world. A seasoned expert and public speaker. Previously the chair of the Greenpeace Fund of the Uni...

Welcome back to The Tourism RESET with me, your host, Rebecca Woolford. Today I’m chatting with Jonathan Coleman, CEO of Untours, the world’s first B Corp company. In this episode we dive into the fascinating founding story of Untours and the radical vision of its founder Hal Taussig. As well as what most people don’t realise about how private foundations often work. This episode pulls back the cu...

Welcome back to The Tourism RESET with me, your host, Rebecca Woolford. This week’s episode is a special one, as we join the global celebration of World Female Ranger Week, a powerful movement founded by my friend, Holly Budge. Today I'm joined by Dr. Sonali Ghosh, the first-ever female Field Director of Kaziranga National Park in India. Dr. Ghosh is the 2024 recipient of the World Female Ranger T...

Welcome back to The Tourism RESET with me, your host, Rebecca Woolford. My guest today is a professor of Sustainability Marketing at the University of Surrey. Dr. Xavier Font has served as an advisor to some of the world's biggest travel brands including, Booking.com, Google, Expedia, Skyscanner, and TripAdvisor where he uses his research experience to inform efforts that can ultimately influence...

Welcome back to The Tourism RESET with me, your host, Rebecca Woolford. Today's guest is an award-winning producer and director of wildlife documentaries for BBC, Apple TV+, National Geographic, and Discovery. In an incredibly rare interview, Joe Stevens shares his journey of being inspired by Sir David Attenborough, to later working with him in the Galapagos, as well as why filming the world’s la...