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Interview with Christina Heyniger at Off the Radar

This past Tuesday, GeckoGo sat down to talk with Christina Heyniger, founder of Off the Radar (www.travelofftheradar.com) and Xola Consulting, Inc. (a consulting company focused on sustainable adventure tourism) to talk about the new Off the Radar website.

Pokin: Tell us about Off the Radar.

Christina: Our mission with Off the Radar is to educate consumers on how to choose adventure tour operators as well as travel responsibly.  For tour operators, our goal is to showcase operators that are setting good examples.

How did you get started?
Off the Radar started on a lark.  I run a consulting practice on sustainable travel where we often meet interesting adventure companies in different destinations around the world.  Because of this, friends would ask me for advice on where to go and so I decided to create a newsletter for them.

In talking to people who are writers in the print publishing world, one of the initial concerns for me at first was that my views would be seen as biased if I wrote about my clients.  So at first I tried to keep of the Radar apart from my consulting business.    Over time though, I realized that it was our team’s perspective as a tourism consultants when evaluating these operators that had a unique value in the world of travel writing.  We know sustainable travel when we see it, and we are writing with professional awareness.  So about six months ago we decided to make the association between the consulting practice and Off the Radar clearer, and we’re now working to build Off the Radar’s audience with this positioning.

The important thing for us is to be proud of who we are; like we counsel our clients: be authentic!  That’s where people will see our unique value.

What topics do you cover in off the Radar?
When Off the Radar started as a newsletter to friends, I’d write about operators I had met, and I’d write whenever I felt like.  I’d usually feature a couple companies that were doing interesting things that deserved recognition.

Now we have a monthly newsletter where we feature two to three operators we have discovered who are doing great things.   We’ve also expanded our web site, and are taking reader submissions for weekend adventures – for example going tubing in Laos.

So you must be meeting a lot of tour operators?
One of the things that was really important to us in the beginning was to ensure that someone on our team had personally gone on a trip or had interacted with the local operators that we feature.  Since we are always travelling for our consulting business, this was easy.  As we’ve grown this has gotten a bit more difficult, and now also we rely on people in our network who we trust  and who we know share the same values – such as Shannon Stowell from the Adventure Travel Trade Association.  We look for people who share the same philosophy and that live by the principles of sustainable adventure travel.  We’re now also getting a number of recommendations from our readers, which is great.  For these recommendations, we always follow-up personally to get more information.

What do you look for when choosing who to feature in your newsletter?
We look for the “adventure operator with a heart of gold”  in a way.  We want to identify and shine a light on those companies that are providing outstanding trips – involving local communities and work towards conservation and preserving nature.   Many times, the best companies are the most hidden -  they are often the companies  least able to spend time and money on marketing.

It felt unjust that these companies, the ones who deserve to succeed the most, had the least support. The best companies are often the most buried since they are also the least likely to talk about these initiatives.

Do you have any advice to share to our readers on good practices for sustainable tourism?
Anytime there are animals or local communities involved, you want to find out more about the situation.  If you plan to spend the night in a village for example – you want to ask a lot of questions about that.  For example:

• Is there a revenue share with the village you’re visiting?
• Do the local communities want you there?
• How many people do the operators bring in every week?  If they are bringing in lots of people and the village has a population of about 20 people, you can imagine what kind of impact that has on them.

Many times it’s just about asking questions and giving your position on things.  I came back from a conference recently where I heard some new tour operators proudly describe how they chase animals so tourists can get good pictures.   We’ve also all probably seen examples of tourists behaving badly out of a lack of awareness of understanding.   We want the education about responsible travel to go both ways – with educated travellers supporting tour operators and vice versa.

(Eric: Yeah, a lot of times travellers just need to be aware of the situation.  When I went to Cuba, I saw a tour advertised as swimming with wild dolphins.  I was appalled when I got to the location and saw dolphins penned up in holding cages.  Everyone felt very uncomfortable and we couldn’t really enjoy our experience knowing what our money was supporting.)

Christina: I should also say that it’s important to go positive, not negative.  A lot of times local operators have actually thought this stuff through and have programs in place, but won’t advertise that.  They may have relationships in place with local communities and they keep this under their hat unless you ask them.  When travelers ask pointed questions, it helps expose great things that operators are doing right.   For instance, in the midst of rapid commercialization around Machu Picchu, there is a tour operator, Apumayo Expediciones,  who is working in the Sacred Valley to create a nature reserve in the Cachiccata community to help keep the area from being over-developed by big hotels.

I think about the different types of persuasive power – and the most compelling is the power of attraction – people do things that are fun, that are appealing, that offer benefits.  Tour operators want to make their tourists happy.  We hear sometimes these stories about irresponsible tour operators chasing animals, for example – but at the end of the day, it’s because they want the travelers to have the best experience possible and they want their clients to go back happy and think this is the way to do that.  So it’s up to you to let them know what makes you happy.  Tell them for instance that you’re not so desperate to see these animals that you want to chase them and upset their routines.

Eric: This is really cool.  So there’s a mandate to promote responsible tourism in general.  It goes back to what travellers really want – an authentic experience that includes them in the equation.  They want to see the real country they’re visiting, and they want to do it is such a way that preserves the local terrain and culture so that it’s still there for future generations.  So what’s next for you?

What we want to do now is make our mission more apparent on the site.  Off the Radar exists because we believe adventure travel can play a part, in saving the world.  We want the adventure industry to grow, responsibly.  Because we see that adventure travel brings people face to face with some of the world’s most pressing issues, from climate change to poverty to water issues.   Adventure travel experiences can open people’s minds, transforming their perceptions about their relationship with the environment and with people of other cultures.

The sustainable travel industry is growing because people are looking for a real, authentic experiences and want to be connected to the world – so there’s a massive opportunity for positive change here.   As we say at Xola: “Adventure tourism can be part of the solution to some of the world’s most pressing problems because at the root of every problem

and every solution is
a thought,
an idea,
a way of viewing the world.
To change the world, we have to change how we think

Pokin and Eric: Awesome thanks for your time Christina!

Learn more about Off the Radar and sign up to get on their newsletter.

The Xola team comprises Christina Heyniger, Natasha Martin and Jessica Reilley.

About Xola: Xola (www.xolaconsulting.com) specializes in consulting and research services for the adventure tourism industry, providing technical assistance to both adventure tour operators and government tourism boards and destination management organizations. Xola also publishes Off the Radar (www.travelofftheradar.com), a newsletter and online magazine providing information to adventure travelers about the best sustainable adventure travel destinations and trips.