Joseph Whittle: 'Use the human aspect to talk about sustainability'
From marketing temp to sustainability and impact lead, the physical geography graduate has risen through the ranks at Travel Counsellors. He tells Abigail Healy about his drive to improve the future of travel
Joseph Whittle wasn’t looking for a career in travel. Instead, after graduating and a year working at British Telecom, he set off on an 18-month backpacking adventure across Australia and Asia to broaden his experience. His travels included time spent volunteering at a dive school in the Philippines, collecting data about the local reef system.
Returning with a passion for exploring places and little money in his pocket, a friend who worked at Travel Counsellors flagged a temporary vacancy in the marketing team.
“It was just proofreading for a few weeks but I kept thinking of ideas beyond the task I was set and so they kept me on longer and longer,” he explains.
As the placement came to an end, Joseph snagged a place on a new graduate programme starting on a marketing rotation.
“Covid derailed the graduate programme and I couldn’t move departments so I ended up sticking there as a marketing executive for four years,” Joseph says.
As his role progressed he focused more on his interest in sustainability, which his university studies had centred around, and in May 2023 he was promoted to the newly-created position of sustainability and impact lead.
“I suppose the pandemic helped me in a sense. I took on a lot of responsibility early on and had discussions with staff members that someone in my position might not usually have,” he acknowledges.
A path to success
Joseph’s achievements in the role to date are impressively broad. They range from creating a staff checklist to assist in running more sustainable internal events to fostering partnerships that drive the business’ sustainable strategy and building responsible travel microsites.
The accomplishment he is most proud of, however, is creating a sustainable training programme. “One pillar of our strategy is keeping TCs informed. All new starters complete a sustainability training module. Going forward we release a new bitesize training module every quarter, covering areas such as overtourism and we involve suppliers too. In our business model where TCs interact directly with customers it’s essential that they can make more informed decisions,” he asserts.
The availability of information is, in Joseph’s opinion, one of the most important factors in improving sustainability. Looking at the wider industry he thinks one of the most useful changes would be to develop “a uniform way of explaining things around sustainability”.
“That way customers can compare apples with apples as opposed to one company wording something one way and another a different way. Customers are the ones making decisions.”
New journeys
Joseph’s current focus is a collection of itineraries developed with the Travel Foundation. “Adventure touring is a sector that is growing rapidly and having a TC on hand for a customer is especially valuable when doing more complex holidays. As more customers want to do this, we were keen to look at how we could offer it in a more sustainable way. It is a collaborative project working with the Travel Foundation and our DMCs focusing initially on South-east Asia but globally longer term.”
He adds that a big part of improving sustainability is ensuring it engages the customer rather than putting them off.
“Talking about carbon footprint really doesn’t achieve anything. People who go on holiday once a year don’t want to feel burdened by that.The human aspect is a better way to go. Instead talk to them about staying at locally-owned places and doing experiential activities that introduce them to local culture. It is about meeting customers where they are at.”
While the future of the planet may be Joseph’s main focus, he also has keen ambitions for his own future. He says: “One day I’d love to be a company director. Sustainability is such a broad topic and it links into all parts of a business and decision making. I’d like to be involved in strategy to drive more progress as it is embedded into everything.”
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