Cornell University's Sustainable Destination Management Course

July 2024

Certified B Corp Intrepid Travel is supporting team members from around the world to undertake Cornell University’s Sustainable Tourism Destination Management course created by the Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise’s Sustainable Tourism Asset Management Program (STAMP). This initiative marks a first for a leading travel company to reach into the STAMP tool bag for destination management.  Twenty-six members of Intrepid’s global team have successfully applied for and been accepted as part of Intrepid’s learning and development program and will begin course work in mid-2024. 

This dynamic and fully digital course aims to train global hospitality and tourism professionals in using sustainable practices across all areas of the tourism industry. It was developed as a follow-up to the 2019 report from SC Johnson College of Business and the Travel Foundation, Destinations at Risk: The Invisible Burden of Tourism. The report highlights a gap in fostering the talent, capacity, and leadership needed to manage the greener, more resilient and equitable destinations of the future.

“Destinations are at risk more than ever before,” states Megan Epler Wood, Managing Director of Cornell’s Sustainable Tourism Asset Management Program (STAMP), course leader and lead author of the Invisible Burden of Tourism report.  “The time is now to train and hire professionals who can implement systematic efforts to protect destinations worldwide,” she adds due to the fact tourism volume are hitting new highs and climate risks are rapidly increasing, many destinations are becoming vulnerable.  Epler Wood states, “Intrepid Travel has a team ready and waiting to be trained in this field, and that is an important step forward, as they can act as agents for change.”

“At Intrepid, we passionately believe in supporting the people and places that we visit and the best way we can do that is through empowering our own global team through education to understand the impacts that travel and tourism has on destinations,” says Meegan Marshall, Intrepid Travel’s Chief People Officer. “By partnering with a renowned international institution such as Cornell, we are proud to be investing in the future through our people, as part of our aim to build the best travel company for the world,” Marshall adds.