The Travel Growth Podcast

How do you build the highest-scoring B Corp travel company in the world while turning global re-wilding initiatives into deeply immersive, commercially successful experiences? In this season finale of The Travel Growth Podcast, Duncan Grossart pulls back the curtain on how he founded Journeys With Purpose. While you might expect a purely "touchy-feely" discussion on mission and vision, Duncan deli...

How do you navigate the highly competitive African safari industry as a female founder, while building a purpose-driven group that empowers local communities and secures international awards? In this episode, Lydia Eva Mpanga shares her inspirational story as the co-founder and CEO of Nkuringo Safaris. Operating at the forefront of East African tourism, Lydia reveals how she grew the multi-award-w...

How do you turn wildlife conservation and community empowerment into a highly successful, standalone business strategy? In this episode, David Guthrie shares hard-earned wisdom from his 30-year career as a veteran of the East African safari industry. As the co-founder of A Tent with a View and the mastermind behind the innovative Bush Rover Suites, David has been a true trailblazer, helping open u...

How do you scale an adventure travel business, navigate the AI revolution, and find the “riches in the niches”? In this episode, Peter Syme pulls no punches as he shares hard-earned lessons from his journey from the British Army to corporate life, commodity trading, and ultimately mentoring hundreds of tour operators globally as a partner at Tourpreneur. Pete delivers some straight-talking truths...

How do you build a luxury hospitality empire that is both highly profitable and deeply sustainable? In this episode, Portia Hart reveals how she founded Blue Apple Beach, The Pink Mango, and Townhouse in Cartagena. From her early days moving to Colombia to becoming a pioneer of B-Corp standards in the Caribbean, Portia’s approach to business is a masterclass in regenerative hospitality, community...

How do you build an 8-figure travel empire by staying "hyper-niche" and avoiding boring marketing? In this episode, Matthew Newton reveals how he grew Leatherback Travel into a global house of brands, including Patch Adventures and Magnificent Rail. From his early days at Tourism Tiger to leading a multi-day tour operator space, Matthew’s approach to business is a masterclass in modern company cul...

In this episode, we sit down with Sonal Uberoi, founder of Spa Balance, author of The Wellness Asset , and host of the Wellness in Hospitality podcast, to explore the real business of wellness, hospitality, and sustainable growth. From studying law to working at Goldman Sachs, and now advising global hospitality brands, Sonal’s journey is anything but conventional. Her diverse background, spanning...

What does it really take to build a travel business that survives crises, scales globally, and stays true to its purpose? In this episode, Simon and Alistair reveal how they grew a small startup with just £10,000 into a thriving international travel company serving over 16,000 customers a year. From teaching English in Japan to leading a multi-destination brand across Asia, their journey is packed...

We’re starting Season 3 with a bang as we welcome Juliet Kinsman —the powerhouse behind Bouteco and host of the Funny Old World podcast. Juliet has lived a dozen lives in one, from the heady days of Ibiza music journalism to shaping the voice of Mr & Mrs Smith and being the first Sustainability Editor at Conde Nast Traveller. We cover a lot. How do travel brands avoid greenwashing and maintain...

Riva Bacquet is the COO at SA Expeditions, a virtual travel company that specializes in curating bespoke, privately guided travel experiences to the Americas and increasingly to other destinations around the world. She is a strong believer in the power and responsibility of travel to create positive change, and she takes a unique purpose-led approach to business leadership and team building. Trips...

John O’Ceallaigh is the founder of Lute, an agency that provides consultancy, branding and content-creation services to luxury-travel businesses. He was previously the luxury travel editor at the Telegraph Media Group, overseeing all their luxury travel content.  He continues to write for some of the leading luxury travel publications internationally, including the Financial Times, The Times,...

Peter Banks is the Managing Director at Rudding Park, a privately owned luxury hotel with destination spa in Harrogate, Yorkshire. He’s been at the helm of Rudding since the beginning, overseeing the launch and a raft of updates and improvements over the years that have led to Rudding winning award after award. I have a strong personal connection to Rudding, with my brother having got married ther...

Becky Harris is one of the co-founders of Viaventure, a DMC in Central America where she worked between 2001 and 2016. Since leaving she has set up a range of businesses, from SaaS products like Squirellfish to Travel Kinship, her consultancy for DMCs. I’ve known Becky for many years and she’s never been short of ideas or enthusiasm for business and is a wonderful person always looking to help oth...

Nick Pulley founded Selective Asia in 2005, a tour operator that creates unique trips to Asia in a sustainable and meaningful way.  Nick is the founder of One Bottle at a Time, an initiative aimed at reducing the amount of plastic used throughout Asia by working with local NGOs. He was also the behind the launch of the first ‘half moon’ parties in Koh Phan Ngan (which he insists are far bette...

Tom Bodkin is the founder of Secret Compass, an organisation that pushes the boundaries of what is possible, taking people, brands and organisations to corners of the earth which many say isn’t feasible. Tom was an Officer in the Parachute Regiment for 6 years, and commanded on operations in Afghanistan in 2008 and 2010, working alongside Afghan security forces. He’s also a qualified Jungle Warfar...

Zakia Moulaoui is the founder of Invisible Cities, a social enterprise that trains people who have experienced homelessness to become tour guides in cities across the UK. Zakia and her team have empowered countless homeless people to create unique tours of their home cities to give visitors an experience that wouldn’t otherwise exist. She has spoken at TedX, is a guest lecturer and Invisible Citie...

Nick Kershaw is the founder of Impact Marathon, an organisation that uses the power of running to uplift communities and empower runners all over the world. Since 2015 they have raised $1.2m for grassroots organisations where they tackle The Global Goals in those communities, and have organised races in 5 different countries and built a community of more than 400 runners.  In this conversatio...

Melvin is the founder of TravelDudes, a global community of experienced travelers who dig deep to find the best travel tips to share with the world. Travel Dudes has amassed a Twitter following of more than 250,000 people and has similarly huge numbers on Facebook, Instagram and other social media channels. Melvin is at the forefront of the conversation around influencer marketing in travel and pa...

Ben Simpson is the co-founder of Easol, an e-commerce platform specially designed for selling experiences and made specifically for experience creators.  Before this he grew and sold an events business, worked at an ad agency and ran adventure travel experiences before founding Easol, successfully taking it through the YCombinator accelerator programme in Silicon Valley and attracting $4.5 mi...

Sam Mcmanus is the founder of YellowWood Adventures, who offer small group adventures to exceptional destinations, from far flung places like Ethiopia and Mongolia to options closer to home like Spain and Romania. He is so passionate about what he does and that shines through in bucket loads through this conversation. Whether discussing the adventures which led to him starting the business or matt...

Matthijs Keij is the CEO of Withlocals, an international experiential company that connects people to local hosts who offer private, personalised tours from all over the world. Matthijs has had a fascinating journey in business, working for multiple companies that he has gone on to sell, and working in both startups and then corporate environments after selling those businesses. It has given him a...

Paul Johnson is the founder of A Luxury Travel Blog, the world's first luxury travel blog and one of the most popular travel blogs in the world. The blog has more than a million followers on social media channels, thousands of people subscribed to the email list and receives in excess of 100,000 visits every month. It was the first luxury travel blog to be created and continues to lead the way in...

Dave is a man of many talents and achievements, so trying to sum them up in one brief sentence is too tricky, so I haven’t tried! He describes himself as an adventurer, speaker and community creator.  In 2006 Dave skateboarded across Australia (3,618 miles) to break the world record for the longest skate journey which began his Expedition 1000 quest where he is aiming to complete twenty-five...

Darren Burn is the founder of Out of Office, a specialist LGBT travel company, and owner of Travelgay.com - the world’s biggest LGBT travel website.  Before he became a travel business owner he was a journalist for ITN for ten years and we dig into how the lessons and skills he learned in his first career have helped pave the way for success in his travel exploits.  We also delve into th...

Gavin Bate is the founder of Adventure Alternative, an adventure travel company that offers climbing expeditions, trekking holidays and safaris around the world.  He also founded Moving Mountains alongside this - an international charity working in Kenya, Tanzania and Nepal, aimed at relieving poverty through education, health and social welfare programmes. Gavin has walked across the Sahara...