Tourism Cares Shares Tips for Gifting & Donating During Holidays
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Tourism Cares, a nonprofit focused in the travel and tourism space has three key missions. These include protecting and restoring at risk destinations like New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and most recently Nepal. You can learn more about the missions here but today we want to share a message from Mike, the CEO of the company, that we find especially fitting around the holidays. Whether making a donation or gifting in the holiday space, consider these tips.
1. Get great charitable gift ideas and tips for the holidays! Travel agents in our Good Travels Advisor community got a gift from us that is just as applicable to you: here are a handful of inspiring, charitable ideas for your clients, friends and family, from amazing Ted Talks to end-of-year giving tips and 7 beautiful gifts that also help great causes.
2. Celebrating the Hearts of Travel! What a treat to hear Abercrombie & Kent, Universal Orlando Resort, AFAR and Mr. Jonathan Tisch speak about their journeys and causes at last week’s Hearts of Travel awards reception, recognizing excellence in giving through travel. If you’re short on inspiration this year, get to know these people and organizations by reading this year’s honoree brief.
3. This holiday season, let’s remember our friends in Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge and Sevier County, Tennessee, as this beloved tourism region recovers from last month’s devastating fires. If you’d like to participate in the NTA Owners Network Recovery Fund, you can make an online donation.
Tourism cares used a slogan, #GiveBetterTogether to accomplish many great things this year.
“Our community is really starting to fire on all cylinders, discovering how to harness both the power of travel and the power of giving.
I think of social businesses funded by you via our Nepal Recovery Fund – and how tour operators are now booking groups there, changing the lives and families of those in desperate need,” says Mike, who reflects more on the wins of the year.
“I think about the year’s National Park Service Centennial effort and the operators who engaged their clients in giving back, too; then there’s the 800+ volunteers whose lives were touched. There’s the new Good Travels Advisor training program for travel agents, promoting good travel giving and volunteering for better relationships and better destinations. And the students we fund who, beyond just dollars, get the chance to work with mentors already in the business.
We are changing lives not just with donations of our dollars and our sweat equity: we are making a new difference with our very businesses and our voices.
I also think of all that is to come in 2017, notably Tourism Cares for Our Cities volunteering series with a focus on Detroit.”