怎么理解可持续旅游|《财富》专访全球最大旅游探险公司的首席目标官

李·巴恩斯知道你在想什么，因为他也曾经有过同样的疑惑。大概一年前，他出任Intrepid集团的首席目标官时也想知道：首席目标官到底是做什么的？

首席目标官可不是号称“很有趣，认真的！”之类初创企业里随便想出的花哨头衔，巴恩斯这份新工作承担着巨大的责任，远远超出了Intrepid集团自身范畴。谈不上拯救世界，要说不拯救也不准确。

首先，如果了解一点公司背景，就能够更容易理解他这份工作的意义。1989年，一对澳大利亚朋友在非洲大陆旅行后成立了Intrepid集团，目前旗下有四家旅行社，还有一家旅游目的地管理公司（帮旅行社组织活动的本地专家），在全球有20多个办事处，还有一家非营利性基金会。该公司向来目标明确，举例来说，其设计的旅游路线很关注支持当地社区，借助旅游为弱势群体寻找机会，也探索热门线路之外的选择，避免出现旅游过度开发，而且并未牺牲利润。

30年后，该公司提供的旅游路线已经覆盖各大洲，去年的总收入超过2.72亿美元，而且做到了碳中和。（2010之后就已经实现碳中和，目标是到2020年实现对气候产生积极影响。）去年，Intrepid基金会项目中支出超过100万美元，涉及的项目从支持乞力马扎罗山和秘鲁的搬运工，到关怀泰国大象的福利，以及研究海藻降低碳排放的能力等。

尤其是过去几年里，Intrepid已经成为旅游业的领导者，呼吁取消旅行路线中的大象游乐设施，谴责访问孤儿院活动。这两类活动中的参与者（大象和儿童）福利均受到损害，而且由于需求增加变得商业化。教育消费者令需求枯竭是可行之举，一旦没有人想去，供给也会消失。

Leigh Barnes knows what you’re thinking, because he was there too, about a year ago, when he became the chief purpose officer of Intrepid Group: What exactly does a chief purpose officer actually do?

Far from being a gimmicky title akin to those found in “We’re fun, we mean it!” startups, Barnes’s new gig comes with an incredible amount of responsibility—the kind that extends far beyond the walls of Intrepid Group itself. He’s not trying to save the world or anything, but he’s not not trying to save it, either.

What he does makes a lot more sense if, first, you understand for whom he works. Founded in 1989 by a pair of Australian friends after an overland trip in Africa, Intrepid Group encompasses four tour operators, a destination management company (local experts who organize activities and the like for tour operators) with more than 20 offices globally, and a nonprofit foundation. The company’s journey has been purpose based, like the trips it designs, focusing on supporting local communities, empowering underrepresented people with opportunities in tourism, and exploring options off the beaten path to help counter over-tourism—and they’ve done it without sacrificing profit.

Thirty years later, the entire company, which offers trips on every continent and grossed more than $272 million last year, is carbon-neutral. (It has been since 2010, and has a goal of being climate positive by 2020.) Last year, the Intrepid Foundation disbursed more than $1 million among its projects, which range from supporting porters on Kilimanjaro and in Peru to caring for elephants in Thailand and researching the carbon-killing capabilities of seaweed.

In the past few years particularly, Intrepid has become a leader in the travel industry, making the call to remove elephant rides from itineraries and condemning orphanage visits, in both cases pointing to the compromised welfare of those involved (elephants and children, respectively) and increased commercialization owing to demand. Dry up demand by educating consumers, the thought goes, and the supply goes away.

提升体验方面也取得了进展。去年，Intrepid发起了一系列由女性导游带领的女性探险活动，目标是任何人都可以参与，为旅游目标国家的女性提供更多的就业机会，也为混合性别的旅游团提供以前无法享受的独特体验。该系列活动非常成功，除了去年的摩洛哥、伊朗和约旦，今年新增了土耳其、印度、肯尼亚和尼泊尔。

2018年Intrepid也做了两大调整，一是获得了B型企业认证，还在高管层专门增加了职位负责监督和推动相关举措，也就是李·巴恩斯的职位。巴恩斯加入Intrepid十年，一直担任社交媒体经理，如今成为公司的第一位首席目标官。

But it works the other way too: Last year, Intrepid launched a collection of women’s expeditions led by female guides, with the goal being not to exclude anyone but to provide more job opportunities for women in the countries visited as well as unique experiences not traditionally available to mixed-gender groups. It was so successful that itineraries in Turkey, India, Kenya, and Nepal were added this year to the already existing Morocco, Iran, and Jordan departures.

Intrepid also made two big changes in 2018: It earned certified B Corp status and added to the company a C-level position that would oversee and drive a lot of these initiatives. That’s where Leigh Barnes comes in. A decade after joining Intrepid as a social media manager, Barnes is the company’s first chief purpose officer.

他向我们介绍了该职位的重要意义，当今可持续旅游意味着什么，以及旅游业接下来的发展方向。

《财富》：你可能预料到会有这个问题了，首席目标官到底是什么意思？你具体做什么？

巴恩斯：这工作很酷，很独特。总体来说，就是确保每件事都符合业务增长的目标。以前我们的目标是成为全世界最好的旅游公司，现在则是成为对世界最友好的旅游公司。对我们来说，目标是打造最优质的旅行体验，对访问的社区、地球和客户来说也都要是最好的旅行体验。

Here he takes us through the loaded title, what sustainable travel means today, and where the travel industry is headed next.

Fortune: You probably know this is coming, but what exactly is a chief purpose officer? What do you do?

Barnes: It’s a pretty cool job and quite unique. Big picture, it’s ensuring the business is growing purpose—that that’s baked into everything we do. Our goal used to be to become the best travel company in the world. Now it’s to become the best travel company for the world. For us, our purpose is to create the best travel experience ever, and that means the best travel experience for the communities we visit, the planet, and our customers.

现在的日常工作中，我主要负责五块内容：基金会、全球交流、负责任的业务、B型企业框架，还有对人的关注。

不知道你对B型企业了解多少，本质上是个框架和认证，入选企业均利用商业做正确的事，例如本杰瑞、巴塔哥尼亚等。这套框架对我们的作用就像一般公司里的财务审计，可以借此发现需要改进的地方，做得好的地方就打上个“对勾”。框架里涵盖了如何照顾员工、与社区互动、与客户互动以及保护地球。我每天大部分时间都在研究这个问题，看看跟踪情况如何，还有需要做哪些调整。

比如？

调整的例子包括，为分布在全球40多个国家的员工提供生育和亲子关系计划。现在我们知道，一些供应链合同并未达到标准；之前我们在埃及签订家庭寄宿合同，有男性主持但实际经营均由妇女负责。B型企业框架对类似做法均有规定。而且我们知道实际经营企业的人应该持有合同，以确保掌控业务，控制工作进度也控制财务。所以我们做了调整。

从负责任的商业角度来看，最大的工作重点是到2020年实现对气候产生积极影响。旅游业是导致气候危机的一大因素。我们的重点是采取对气候友好的行动。2010年以来，公司一直保持碳中和，做了大量工作，准备明年实现成为对气候产生积极影响。一个例子是，到2020年我们将抵消125%的碳排放。资金将流向全球六个项目。从婆罗洲和巴西的雨林保护项目，澳大利亚阿纳姆地的燃烧项目，还有印度和土耳其的风力发电场。

Now, on a day-to-day, I have five functions that I cover: our foundation, our global communication, responsible business, B Corp, and people.

I don’t know how much you know about B Corp, but essentially, it’s a framework and accreditation for using business as a force of good—companies like Ben & Jerry’s, Patagonia, just to name a few. We use it like you would a financial audit, in that it highlights where we need to get better and provide a “tick” for where we are doing the right thing. It covers how you look after your people, engage with the community, interact with your customer, and look after the planet. A large part of my day is looking through that, seeing how we’re tracking, seeing what changes we need to make.

Such as?

Examples of those changes are global maternity and paternity programs for our staff in over 40 countries. We now know that some of our supply-chain contracting was not up to scratch; we had contracts in Egypt for our homestays that were held by the man in the family when it was the woman running the business. B Corp shone a light on those practices. And we know whoever’s running the business should hold the contracts to ensure that they have control of their business, control of their work schedule, control of the finances. So we’ve made those changes.

From a responsible business point of view, our big, big focus right now is to become climate positive in 2020. We know that the travel sector is a big contributor to the climate crisis. And our big focus is to take climate action. We’ve been carbon-neutral since 2010, so we’ve been doing a lot of work and setting up to become climate positive next year. So an example of that is we will be offsetting at 125% as of 2020. Those funds will go to six projects globally. Everything from a rain forest protection project in Borneo and Brazil; a burning off project in Arnhem Land, Australia; and wind farms in India and Turkey.

当今时代，越来越多的人希望看到全世界，开阔思想，传播同情心，但过程中我们导致了碳排放和对环境的其他影响，还出现旅游过度开发以及外国文化灭绝，对世界造成巨大破坏。鉴于此，你认为未来最大的挑战是什么？

旅游过度开发是越来越严重的一个问题。我们知道旅游业能够创造大量就业，但应该将财富好好分配。这是公司一直关注的问题。我们一直在努力扭转局面，重点关注旅游开发不足的地区，以及社区旅游项目。我们在越南的一个地方启动了项目，当地因为作物产量大不如前，正在面临气候变化的挑战。公司帮助当地人开发旅游产品，还在社区投资建设一些住宿等。现在每年可能都会带几千名游客前去观光，旅游形成了积极的影响。所以，我在思考如何以负责任的方式产生积极的影响，因为大家都知道旅游业有积极的影响，但在出现负面影响时也要认识到，并且采取行动。

第二个问题是应对气候危机。到明年年底，我们很可能解决更大一块的环境问题。然后还有一个，也就是第三个问题就是现代奴隶。公司已经做了很多工作，在供应链中排除儿童，坚决抵制孤儿院旅游。儿童不能当成旅游的噱头。因此，公司可以继续改善供应链，确保多元而健康，以正确的方式开展业务。

We’re in a time when more and more people want to see the world, which can open minds and spread empathy, but in the process we’re also contributing dramatically to its destruction through not only carbon emissions and other environmental impacts but also over-tourism and cultures disappearing under foreign footprints. Given that, what do you see as the biggest challenge ahead?

Over-tourism is becoming more and more an issue. We know that tourism is fantastic in job creation, but we should be distributing that wealth. That’s something that we’ve really been looking at. We’ve been trying to flip that around and focus on under-tourism, community-based tourism projects. We launched a project in Vietnam in a community that was struggling in the face of climate change, because its crops are no longer getting the same output. We helped them develop tourism products and invested in their community to build some lodging, et cetera, and now we bring probably a couple thousand tourists through there each year, and tourism is becoming a positive effect. So I think, How do we keep having a positive effect in a responsible manner, because we know tourism has positive effects, but we need to recognize and take action when it’s not.

The second is how we combat the climate crisis. I think at the end of next year we’ll probably be tackling a whole broader subsection of environmental issues. And the other, the third one, is modern slavery. We’ve done a lot of work about removing children from our supply chain and taking a stance on orphanage tourism. Children are not a tourist attraction. So it’s how we can continue to improve our supply chain and ensure that we’ve got a diverse, healthy supply chain that engages those businesses in the right way.

你以前说过，Intrepid越强大，能够做的改变就越大。那小型旅游公司呢？现在小公司可以做些什么？

我想说有两件事可以做：一是了解真正影响在哪，不管是好的还是坏的还是其他，然后采取行动扩大影响或者解决问题；二是确保做的事情是正确的，产品对地球更好，对客户更好，对社区也更好；如此一来产品本身也会改进。我认为这样赚钱更长久。

第二，我对任何公司的建议都是，在产品中建立目标，产品会变得更好。有了目标，可以增加与客户的互动。如果你对自己的影响很了解，那么目标清晰真的能够提升业务。可以为客户提供更好的产品，也是理想的结果。没有什么借口好找，因为目标明确就是能够提升产品和业务。（财富中文网）

译者：冯丰

审校：夏林

You’ve said before that the bigger Intrepid gets, the bigger difference it can make. What about smaller travel companies—what steps can they take right now?

There are two things that I’d say: One, to understand where the impact is, good, bad, or otherwise, and take action to amplify or fix that; and two, by ensuring that you do the right thing, that your product is better for the planet, better for the customers, better for the community; it actually makes the product itself quite a bit better. I’d argue that it makes your dollar go further.

Second of all, my advice to any company is that by building purpose into your product it makes your product better. It makes customers engage with you more. If you understand your impact this can actually make the business better. It will make a better product for the customer, which is the desired outcome. They shouldn’t be able to make excuses, as purpose will make your product and business better.