Intrepid Travel has delivered on its commitment to work towards operating under the highest level of social and environmental performance and public transparency with the release of its integrated annual report. This shines a light on the most challenging year in Intrepid’s 32-year history.
NEW YORK, NY – Intrepid Travel has released its 2020 integrated annual report, which provides a transparent view of the challenges the business faced as a result of the global pandemic. Intrepid is the world’s largest travel B Corp and has produced an integrated annual report since 2017 to help meet the highest standards of public transparency. Despite it being a year many travel businesses would rather forget, the company has remained committed to operating openly for their partners, travel agent community and all industry stakeholders.
The report outlines stories of resilience as Intrepid navigated the impacts of COVID-19. From halting global operations for the first time in its 32-year history to being recognized as one of the world’s most innovative companies in 2021 by Fast Company, the report outlines how Intrepid reimagined its business.
Notable information from 2020 revealed in the report includes:
- Refunded over $21 million to customers in response to COVID-19 cancellations
- Processed more than 43,000 trip credits
- Reduced the workforce by almost 50 percent globally
- Reviewed its day tours division Urban Adventures and introduced a new financially viable model, which sees tours operated through its DMC and select third-party operators
- Launched 81 new trips in response to new domestic travel demand. Like all Intrepid trips these are fully carbon offset
- Became the first and only global tour operator with verified science-based climate targets, creating an emissions trajectory in line with a 1.5°C world
- Dispersed AUD $1.2m to communities around the world through The Intrepid Foundation
- Secured the largest investment in its 32-year history with a strategic partnership with French family business Genairgy
Importantly, the report also contains revised targets and goals that Intrepid will work towards as international travel starts to recover.
This is the fourth integrated annual report that Intrepid has produced. Integrated reporting is a modern approach that recognizes that a business creates value in many ways, not only financial, and which provides an integrated view of a company’s activities as a whole. Intrepid’s report draws on the International Integrated Reporting Council’s (IIRC) International Framework to explain the company’s performance during the year ended 31 December 2020.
“We know that we create value through more than just our bottom line. While we’ll all look back on 2020 as a year of loss – there were many opportunities, too” says James Thornton, CEO of Intrepid, who led the business through countless challenges. “We took a story of survival and turned it into a story of strength. We ended the year by securing a new strategic partnership that will help realize our future transformation, and I’m confident Intrepid will come out the other side of this as a more innovative company,” he adds.
Intrepid hopes the release of this report will encourage other travel businesses to adopt integrated reporting as way to create deeper transparency with the travel industry.
“We do not only want to be the best travel company for the world, but we want to inspire other businesses to commit to higher standards of transparency as well,” Thornton adds.
“The trust of our travelers and the trust of our industry will be a key part of our recovery. This report helps us deliver on that, and shows that even in the most challenging of years, Intrepid is a company that lives our values.”
Vicky is the co-founder of TravelDailyNews Media Network where she is the Editor-in Chief. She is also responsible for the daily operation and the financial policy. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Tourism Business Administration from the Technical University of Athens and a Master in Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Wales.
She has many years of both academic and industrial experience within the travel industry. She has written/edited numerous articles in various tourism magazines.
