Rapid Covid testing and vaccination passports key to travel reviving, adventure holiday company founder Bruce Poon Tip says
- The founder of G Adventures expects some great deals for tourists in the short term, but predicts international travel will become more expensive
- He hopes travellers will be more mindful and purposeful about their journeys. ‘There should be some meaning to travel, and to how you travel,’ the Canadian says
Bruce Poon Tip is eager for Asia to reopen to international tourism for reasons both professional – the continent usually accounts for more than a third of business for his tour company, G Adventures – and personal, as he has singled out rural Japan for his first post-Covid-19 trip.
Although hailing originally from the Caribbean, the Canadian entrepreneur – whom Travel Weekly referred to as “the quirky and goofy man behind the world’s most successful small-group adventure travel company” – has strong Eastern roots.
“Both of my parents were born in Trinidad, and I was born in Trinidad. Both of my grandfathers were Chinese, but my grandmothers were not,” he explains. “I do feel a connection to China, and to the Chinese community [in Canada]. I won the Chinese Canadian Entrepreneur award of the year a few years back. That was very meaningful to me – to be embraced by that community.
“My parents moved to Canada, with their seven children, when I was two. They had businesses for most of their lives. I would say that they were entrepreneurs – although not very good ones.”
You couldn’t say the same for their son. In 1990, Poon Tip spotted an opportunity in the international travel market – the gap between backpacking and luxury travel. He bridged the void with a company aptly named Gap, since renamed G Adventures to avoid being associated with the evolving gap-year trend as well as to end a five-year-long trademark dispute with the Gap clothing brand.