Project approach

Crossing the chasm to creating a sustainable youth tourism industry

*U. Belief System

  • We believe that you can effect the world for the better. After a U.Trip will return feeling more like yourself and part of a community than you have ever felt.
  • We believe that your view on life, on the world and on the challenges we are facing will have changed and that the sense of helplessness will have been replaced with a feeling of optimism and drive.
  • We believe you will make sustainable changes to the way you live and think.
  • We believe that by bringing like-minded humans together, creating friendships and encouraging cultural respect we will enable you break down the walls you have built around you and promote a safe space for that magical vulnerability it takes to be the real U.

Summary of Crossing the chasm model:

Accepting the premise that travel creates better human beings …

Youth tourism is a poorly served sector and while local communities and local projects maybe creating amazing experiences the economics of reaching the youth market, the cut-price nature of existing companies, and the subsequent need for large group sizes means that regardless of the local effort it is unlikely to achieve the desired impact.

U. is changing that landscape by working with these local partners to create regular trips of smaller group sizes of young people from all over the world that offer a product that seamlessly intertwines the party-element with community-action-services.

Look - envision - build model

We based our approach to this Responsible Tourism Framework on the LEB model from McKinsey and Company

We interpreted this into the following steps:

1. Assess and define
  • Asses our dependency and impact on animals and nature
  • Assess our positive and negative impacts on the vultures we travel through
  • Assess our total carbon output
  • What are our biggest challenges
  • Define best practice in responsible tourism
  • Define our nature, climate and cultural positive commitment
2. Dream
  • Build a list of big ideas that could reshape travel-by-U.
  • How can we reduce our impact on animals and nature?
  • How can we increase our positive impact, and decrease our negative impact on destinations?
  • How will we reduce our total carbon output?
  • How will we overcome the challenges above?
3. Prioritise and blueprint
  • Size up and prioritise initiatives
  • Define our priority actions
4. Deliver
  • Document and achieve our objectives
  • Validate our key results with evidence

 

5. Maximise
  • Maximise and scale the value of our efforts – seek out new customers and markets to increase our business reach

 

6. Monitor and report
  • Measure that we are meeting our commitments
  • Measure that we are operating within the best practise
    Report on our efforts
    Strive for incremental ongoing improved results

Contents

  1. Introducing U.
  2. Approach to creating a responsible tourism company
    1. Crossing the chasm to creating a sustainable youth tourism industry
    2. The Look-Envision-Build Model
  3. The project
    1. Assess and Define: Assessment of impact and statement of commitment
    2. Dream: Evaluation of possible objectives
    3. Prioritise and blueprint: Prioritisation of objectives and action items
    4. Deliver: Project management
    5. Maximise: How we maximise the value of our efforts
    6. Monitor and Report: Ongoing review and next steps
  4. Appendices (online available offline)
    1. Travelife Certification Criteria
    2. BCorp Certification Criteria
Download the U. Responsible Tourism Framework.