AGENT OF CHANGE

G Adventures has launched a new agent program dubbed Agent of Change. “We believe that travel and travellers can change the world,”says Cyndi Zesk, the tour operator’s vice-president of global marketing. “Travel is the fastest path to peace and understanding, and the tourism industry can be a force for positive change and global good. And travel agents, perhaps most of all, have a pivotal role in that.”At the foundation of the company’s new “Agent of Change”movement is the goal to further engage travel agents in G Adventures’ mission to help travellers understand that their choices about how they travel can in fact play a large part in ideas like sustainability, wealth distribution and simply making the nice places we visit, nice places to live. With “Agent of Change,”G Adventures is calling on agents throughout North America to position themselves within the travel industry as an instrument for enacting social and individual change, to foster understanding between cultures and to make the world a better place for all people. “As a travel agent you don’t sell vacations, you present opportunities,”says Robyn James, marketing manager, Canada. “Every person who walks through your door comes to you anticipating something great. Travel changes people and people change the world. Together, let’s change some lives.”To kick things off, for every G Adventures passenger booked in North America by May 31, the company will donate $1 to Planeterra (planeterra.org), the non-profit organization founded by tour operator that helps empower local people to develop their communities. The agent with the highest number of passengers booked by the end of May will win a free land only seat on a 2013/14 agent fam. (http://www.gadventures.com/travelagent)