Brilliant Concepts in Travel 2026

The Steppes Travel Fund for Female Guides

Tackling tour-guide gender imbalances via coaching and training

While the World Federation of Tourist Guide Associations estimates that roughly 80% of guides globally are girls, workforces in sure areas and industries have steep gender imbalances. In Sri Lanka, for instance, girls make up lower than 10% of the nation’s tour guides; in Botswana, lower than 5%. Steppes Travel, a tour operator and Certified B Corporation, is working to alter that. Since it launched The Steppes Travel Fund for Female Guides in 2023, it has supported the training of greater than 160 girls coaching to develop into guides in Sri Lanka, India, Colombia, Peru, El Salvador, Botswana, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. This yr the fund has paid out roughly about $50,000 to its recipients thus far, prioritizing purposes from underrepresented communities and from international locations the place information roles for girls are much less widespread. The fund is backed by the corporate’s Steppes Fund for Change, which in flip is funded by a per-person payment of 115 kilos (about $156) for each Steppes Travel journey reserving and donated on the traveler’s behalf.

Cayuga Collection

Redefining low season journey in Central America to create lasting, systematic change

In Central America the journey window between May and November is traditionally the low-occupancy interval, when the area is at its hottest and most humid. But it’s additionally when the wildlife is most energetic and thriving. These months are price celebrating, asserts Cayuga Collection, a clutch of seven environmentally minded accommodations throughout Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Panama, and Guatemala, based in 2023. The assortment kicked off its Wildlife Season initiative in 2025, encouraging vacationers to go to Costa Rica on this so-called offseason, when the rainforests are most lush, ripe fruits are drawing out keel-billed toucans and scarlet macaws, red-eyed tree frogs and glass frogs are rising within the rain, child turtles are hatching, and humpback whales are basking within the space’s heat waters. Thanks to the Wildlife Season, Cayuga has begun to easy out its occupancy curve and has elevated bookings by 31%, which has allowed for year-round employment of its employees, over 95% of whom are native to the area. This distribution of vacationers throughout the calendar acts as a stress valve. Instead of concentrating hundreds of holiday makers into just some months, wildlife disturbance and path use are distributed extra evenly all year long, permitting nature to regenerate and relaxation extra, effectively, naturally.