A new wave of sustainable and regenerative travel is taking hold in the Willamette Valley.

Looking out over the rolling green hills dotted with lush Douglas fir and vineyards, I swirl my glass, take in the aromas, and sip. Immediate clarity, vibrant minerality, and a smooth, round finish blanket my palate. But it’s not the Willamette Valley’s best Chardonnay I’m tasting. It’s water. Spring water to be exact. And it comes from below ground at Tabula Rasa, a regenerative farm in Carlton, Oregon, that’s raising the bar when it comes to offering engaging and meaningful experiences for travelers looking to reconnect with their inner wild, and leave the land better than the way they found it. 

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PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) – From the Cascades to the coast, Oregon offers a variety of adventures. But one local travel program is leading the charge in sustainable tourism in the Willamette Valley.

Stretching across seven counties, the Willamette Valley Visitor’s Association is promoting regenerative tourism — the idea that tourism should leave a place better than it was before and represents a sustainable way of traveling and discovering new places.

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“Our mission is to look at a grassroots effort how to foundationally support our communities and make sure tourism is seen as a motivation for doing good and giving back rather than just taking from,” explained WVVA Executive Director Dawnielle Tehama.

Supporting local makers and producers, the organization features several attractions like oak rehabilitation with Left Coast Cellars or West Fir Lodge nature tours.

“The world needs innovation,” Tehama said. “Through the pandemic, when everything was quiet and no one was traveling, we really saw where tourism was broken and how tourism was doing more taking than giving.”

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Overcoming community divides and pandemic challenges, the Willamette Valley Visitor Association has been working to change the conversation, rebuild trust, and spark connections within their community. The Willamette Valley Visitor Association talks more about its work, including the barriers they’ve faced and how they’re working to overcome them.

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The Transformational Travel Council (TTC) has been honored with the 2022 Meaningful Tourism Award. The prestigious award — revealed during the Meaningful Tourism Panel at the ITB ASIA in Singapore — was given by the Meaningful Tourism Center (MTC) to the TTC for its leadership and efforts in developing a more regenerative, sustainable, and responsible tourism for a better future of the industry globally.

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Travel – We’ll get back to it. And more sustainable: the focus from DMOs and tour operators has accelerated a decade in three years compared to pre-pandemic. There’s still a lot of revenge travel to be had – big trips that people put off until more secure. And finally, we might see new values born of the Covid-era playing out in consumer choices: fewer but longer, more meaningful trips, considering how they impact and connect with communities and nature.

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Funds will help support 22 tourism efforts statewide

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Destination Marketing Organization in Washington state to develop industry-leading road map for regenerative travel

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WVVA is one of the first in the nation to become stewards in regenerative practices and sustainable travel

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Slovenia is the first European country to host The Transformational Travel Council’s (TTC) annual gathering - TRANSCEND ‘22 - an event designed to shift the tourism paradigm from extraction to regeneration through transformation. The event will take place October 9 - 12, 2022, in Logar Valley.

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WeTravel, along with The Transformational Travel Council, has launched an educational course, “Introduction to Transformational Travel,” in the WeTravel Academy for travel professionals to avail of the applicable resources required to add transformational travel experiences to their operations. WeTravel is an integrated booking and payments platform built for the multi-day travel industry; The Transformational Travel Council is a collective of businesses and organizations committed to impact tourism.

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Shifting travel priorities

On top of this revival in demand, we’re also seeing a shift in the way people want to travel. Our community is seeing an upsurge in demand as people are prioritising unique, sustainable, authentic experiences which broaden their horizons, enrich their understanding of the world, and deepen their connection with others. They want carefully curated trips, tailored to their specific likes and interests when they are finally able to get away again.

As Jake Haupert, chairman and CEO of the Transformational Travel Council observes: “As well as greater demand, people are also being more intentional about how they approach travel. Travellers are becoming actively engaged and understand they have a role to play, it is not just about entertainment. Likewise, experience providers are realising the role they can play in guiding people towards their desired outcomes”.

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Travel and tourism have a long-lasting association with the idea of transformation (MacCannell, 2013; Morgan, 2010; Lean, 2012; Crossley, 2012; Allon & Koleth, 2014; Ozçelik, Aydin & Omuris, 2018) and have frequently been depicted in the literature as instruments for personal enlightenment, self-development, and inner discovery (Kottler, 1997; Smith & Kelly, 2006; Curtin, 2010; Han, Lee & Hyun, 2020). In recent years, there has been growing interest from tourists and tourism providers, destinations, and academia in the concept of transformational tourism, which is also seen as one of the most significant trends for the future of the tourism industry.

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The Transformational Travel Council (TTC) announces new members to its Herald Program, a media membership for journalists, writers, and storytellers. The TTC — a collective of global businesses and organizations that promote the transformative impact of travel on individuals and the places they visit — welcomes the new Heralds into a group that already represents a wide range of impactful disciplines including print, digital, broadcast, and public relations. Here are the new Heralds representing the TTC from Canada, USA, France, Serbia, Latin America, India and Australia. Marinel de Jesus, Elisa Spampinato, Robin Esrock, Claudia Laroye, Jocelyn Pride, Lane Nieset, Ivana Damnjanovi, PhD, Amit Jaipuria, Tim Wenger.

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The Transformational Travel Council, a social purpose corporation based in Seattle, Washington, brings this together with the goal of awakening travel’s potential to make positive change in the world. The TTC is an affiliated group of travel industry veterans working to unite both travelers and the travel industry in its quest for a more inclusive, mindful, and eco-friendly travel sector.

“We are really focused on educating and training the trade — travel advisers, hoteliers, life coaches, retreat centers, on these practices, so they can set the conditions for travelers around the world to have those journeys,” says Jake Haupert, co-founder and CEO of the Transformational Travel Council.

Travelers and industry professionals can apply to join as an ally of the council. They can then participate in projects such as the Transformation Design Program, a workshop that guides participants through a series of exercises designed to help them assess how and why they travel, the impact of that travel on self and planet, and how it can be improved upon to create lasting positive impact. Of course, not everyone can afford the $1,950 tuition to join the program. It is primarily intended for industry professionals and businesses looking to further their positive impact on the sector.

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While travel was put on pause, some travel leaders did the opposite: They rolled up their sleeves and created new initiatives or adapted previous ones to make the travel industry one that's more aligned, responsive and indicative of responsible and sustainable tourism. From individuals who strive to make travel more inclusive to underrepresented communities to companies that decided that climate consciousness is the only way forward, these visionaries are leading the way in the future of travel.

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Transformative tourism places great emphasis on travel as a tool for personal growth, reflection and mindful action. It wants the industry to build experiences around strengthening relationships, inspiring healthy lifestyles, developing social purpose and helping tourists give back to the communities and environment they visit. The Seattle-based Transformational Travel Council has developed programs, workshops and certifications to guide operators, agencies and destination organizations around these important principles, shining a much-needed spotlight on the conscious choices we make and how they can positively impact ourselves and the world around us.

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On Thursday 15 July ANTOR held its Virtual Annual Conference to kick off the anniversary celebrations. The Conference focused on ‘Uniting on Regenerative Tourism and Transformative Travel’ and featured a wide variety of speakers, including keynote speaker Anna Pollock, Founder of Conscious Travel, Ian Dockreay, Chief Executive of Equator Learning and Travel Uni, Nico Nicholas, CEO & Co-founder of Trees4Travel, and Vicky Smith, Founder of Earth Changers

“Destinations cannot ignore the future importance of regenerative tourism and transformative travel, and the conference was the beginning of ANTOR’s commitment to both” commented Tracey Poggio, Chairman.

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Featuring TTC Advisory Council Member, Ingrid Asoni

From ‘self-acceptance’ camps to ‘celestial sufi’ retreats, Ingrid Asoni, founder of Consciously Connected Travel, explains how ‘impact travel’ can improve both people and planet.

What is Consciously Connected Travel?

Consciously Connected Travel focuses on “impact travel” and “wellness with purpose”. We craft culturally rich and locally immersive sustainable experiences. We are a community of “conscious” travellers, promoting positivity and rediscovery of self, curious to expand on people’s perception of the world.

Consciously Connected Travel approaches retreats from an altogether different perspective. Utilising travel as the tool for discovery and as the catalyst for inner and outer emotional and physical change.

Each retreat features a collaboration with a leading health and wellness expert from around the world, providing a specific focus and purpose, in addition to a curated team of some of the best holistic practitioners and a programme that connects clients to people and place. We now offer mixed-gender spaces within some of our retreats, but the fundamentals remain the same.

What’s your connection with the Transformational Travel Council?

I sit on the advisory council. As thought-leaders and drivers in the movement, our board of directors, advisors, ambassadors and operations are working towards building this industry trend into an industry standard.

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Travel — as practiced by most Americans in the 21st century — has increasingly come to be seen as wasteful and aristocratic, a driver of environmental damage and cultural insensitivity, and the pandemic has only increased the pace of the discussion about the future of travel.

As the Boldins discovered, there are a lot of alternatives to the model we currently practice, enabled by jumbo jets, giant cruise ships and interstate highways. There are ways to make travel sustainable, educational, regenerative, philanthropic. Jake Haupert formed The Transformational Travel Council in 2017 to help embrace and focus this way of thinking.

The council promotes travel that’s intensely personal, however that’s achieved. It has more than 300 members and its concepts are gaining popularity as people seek something … more.

“I started to see how people were traveling and what traveling had become in the last 20 to 30 years, especially with the onset of online travel agencies and Expedia,” Haupert said. “There was just a significant disconnect in terms of the power of travel and what was actually unfolding in the field and on the trip. It was centered around and continues to be around entertainment, and then people traveling with a sense of entitlement, and often looking at it from the perspective of, ‘What can I get out of it,’ instead of, ‘What can I give?’”

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