October 12, 2005

A Conversation with Bruce Poon Tip: Global Travel Entrepreneur with a Conscience

Every once in a while you meet a personality that totally defies standard categorization, an individual who strikes you with their uniqueness and leaves an impression. Well, that’s what happened to me this past week. I had a chance to spend a few hours with Bruce Poon Tip, founder and CEO of G.A.P Adventures.

Today his adventure travel business is the largest adventure travel company in Canada and Bruce has won numerous awards over the years for his entrepreneurial success, his innovative product offering and his commitment to sustainable travel. Here are just a few of his awards:

• Canadian Entrepreneur of the Year & National Citation For Entrepreneurship - 2002
  The National Post, Global Television and NASDAQ Exchange, awarded G.A.P Adventures CEO and founder Bruce Poon Tip with the Entrepreneur of the Year award and a national citation for entrepreneurship.
• Profit Magazine 50 Fastest Growing Companies – 1996 – 2004
  Profit Magazine featured G.A.P Adventures in their annual ranking of the 50 fastest growing companies in Canada. G.A.P Adventures was awarded the Premium Growth Award for appearing on the list for five straight years, the longest of any company. Profit Magazine also recognized CEO and founder Bruce Poon Tip as Entrepreneur of the Decade.
• National Geographic 25 Adventures of the Year- 2003-5
  For three consecutive years, National Geographic Adventure Magazine has selected a G.A.P Adventures tour as one of the 25 Adventures of the Year. In 2004 G.A.P Adventures products were chosen twice, with the Antarctica Classic and Greek Islands Adventure both being featured.
• Top 40 Under 40 - 1999
  This prestigious list of leaders under 40 recognized G.A.P founder and President, Bruce Poon Tip. 'The Top 40 Under 40' is voted on by Industry and Government who choose people who show outstanding leadership under the age of 40.
• 50 Best Managed Companies
  As a finalist for two years in a row, G.A.P Adventures was recognized as one of Canada's 50 best managed companies. From thousands of entries, G.A.P Adventures rose to the top for being a dynamic, aggressive company that has been successful not only in business but in its business practices.
• Canadian Business - 2000
  G.A.P Adventures makes the Canadian Business Performance 2000 list of top-performing companies.
• Global Traders Leadership Award - 1999
  The Global Traders Leadership award was given to Bruce Poon Tip for his dedication to the business community and exporting. The Global Traders Award is given out to companies who show excellence in exporting and international business.
• Global Traders Market Expansion Award of Merit - 1999
  The Global Traders Market Expansion Award was given to G.A.P Adventures for growing its business from exporting. In a five-year period G.A.P Adventures grew their business an average of 3,500% by expanding into new markets internationally. G.A.P Adventures not only expanded into more than 21 countries but also set up new standards in the area of exporting services.
• Ethics in Action Millennium Award Recipient - 2001
  G.A.P Adventures was the proud recipient of the Millennium Ethics In Action Award in recognition of its leadership in socially and environmentally responsible business practices.
• Clean Air Commute Award Recipient – 2001-2005
  G.A.P Adventures has consecutively won the Clean Air Commute Award from 2001-2005 years, for having 100% participation in the event.
• Canada’s Top 100 Employers - 2005
  G.A.P Adventures was selected by Mediacorp Canada Inc. for the 2006 edition of Canada's Top 100 Employers and Maclean’s magazine.
• Top 10 Employees for Young People - 2005

It’s a very long list, and illustrates G.A.P’s unique position as a leading edge company. Today G.A.P has a staff of more than 300 people world-wide with more than 20 operating offices throughout Latin America and soon Africa. It offers more than 1000 adventure tours to over 100 countries on all 7 continents. 40,000 passengers a year travel on small group adventures with G.A.P every year and the company is constantly seeking and exploring new destinations to bring new adventures to their customers.

So it goes without saying that Bruce is a consummate entrepreneur. Yet he also has a strong social conscience and over the years he has supported a variety of non-profit organizations and community projects throughout the world. During the last few years, Bruce has fulfilled one of his life's dreams and set up his own non-profit organization, www.planeterra.org, which is directly involved in helping communities in Latin America.

In addition, G.A.P has a policy of developing local experts rather than hiring local ground operators who generally pay and treat their local employees poorly. In this context, G.A.P has created its own training programs for local guides, porters and cooks who service the travel groups. In addition, G.A.P is also starting to train local tour leaders, a job that formerly used to be filled only by North Americans. In all these endeavours G.A.P pays above average wages, and tour leaders are all on the same pay scale, whether they are North Americans, or local employees.

It was fascinating for me to spend some time with one of Canada's most successful travel entrepreneurs whose philosophies and approach to life are rather unconventional. Here are some of the insights that Bruce shared with me.

Bruce’s early years:
Together with 5 siblings, Bruce grew up in Trinidad of Chinese parents and his family came to Canada when he was 4 years old. He grew up in Calgary where his father owned and ran some gas stations.

His beginnings as an entrepreneur:
When Bruce was 12 years old he had 2 newspaper routes with 2 different newspapers and subcontracted both of them to younger kids. At the same age he also owned several prize-winning rabbits and people started to ask for stud services with his prized animals. As a spin-off of this business, at 13 years of age he wrote a book on how to care for rabbits and sold it to local pet stores.

At 14 years of age he joined Junior Achievement, an organization that uses hands-on experiences to help young people understand the economics of life. As part of this organization he had to set up his own business. Rather than setting up a lawn care or painting business, Bruce came up with something more innovative: he sourced temperature sensitive fabric to create colourful bookmarks and sold 10,000 in his first year.

At 16 years old Bruce had his first job at Denny’s and was fired shortly after for his 'attitude'. The same thing happened at his next job at McDonald’s when he was fired during the training program. Bruce was devastated, but this experience made him realize that the one thing he excelled at was doing his own thing.

When Bruce was 21 years old, he moved to Toronto to start a business. In his own words, he never wanted to be a “big fish in a small pond”, so he decided to move to the biggest pond around. Initially he thought he was going to start a record company, but ended up founding an adventure travel company.

Bruce did not learn entrepreneurship from his parents, with the greatest amount of respect he says that his father was the “world’s worst businessman”. Interestingly enough, none of his siblings are entrepreneurs and his parents' early ambitions for Bruce were for him to work for a big company like IBM, and they begged him not to get involved in setting up his own adventure travel company.

G.A.P. Adventures history:
When Bruce came to Toronto in 1990, he wanted to finish his business degree which he had started in Calgary. He had very little money at that time and decided to travel to Thailand on an adventure travel holiday for $10 a day. The experience of connecting with local people in far-away places left such a deep impact on him that he came up with the idea of setting up a company for organized small group adventures.

Bruce organized his first trip to Belize with a handful of participants, drove down himself from California with kayaks in tow and took several people on their first adventure kayaking trip. The local authorities had never seen kayaks before and actually detained the whole group. Bruce had to negotiate his way out of this dicey situation.

In the early years Bruce used a lot of guerilla marketing techniques to promote his company. He sent out flyers, and did lots of speaking engagements at universities and colleges to convince young people to try small group adventures.

Around 1992/93 Bruce started to export his adventure tours and approached wholesalers in Europe. Once he created brochures in their currencies his export business really started to take off.

In 1996 Bruce won his first award: the United Nations Environmental Education Award, and he became recognized as a leader in sustainable tourism and grass roots travel. In 2002 Bruce represented the world tourism industry at the opening of the UN International Year of Ecotourism in New York and was the keynote speaker at the UNEP Summit on Ecotourism.

In 2002, G.A.P Adventures doubled in size by making its first acquisition of Canada's largest flight consolidator to Latin America, Global Connections. Today G.A.P is able to offer highly competitive air travel in addition to its adventure tours.

In 2003, G.A.P Adventures embarked on its next entrepreneurial adventure when it launched the "Great Adventure TV Series", a TV program that brings the small group adventure travel experience to life. This show has been picked up by CTV Travel and soon will be featured on the UK Travel Channel.

Another landmark event happened in 2004 when G.A.P Adventures decided to purchase the "Explorer", the world's first purpose-built expedition cruise ship. Today the Explorer covers exciting routes in the Antarctic, the Amazon, Spitzbergen and Greenland and has become a major success for the company. (I am very happy to say that G.A.P Adventures is sponsoring our first travel story contest with a fabulous adventure cruise through the mighty Amazon River.)

2005 saw another landmark: the company opened two G.A.P. Concept Stores in high traffic areas in Toronto and Vancouver and several more concept stores are in the works. These stores allow would-be travellers to research their own personal adventure trip and their favourite travel destinations without sales pressure. The stores have also become venues for music performances, multi-media travel presentations and lectures on travel-related topics.

A man who makes waves:
Throughout his history as an entrepreneur, Bruce has at times been a controversial figure, and there is no doubt that he has continued to march to his own drum, unafraid of other people's judgment. Here are a few examples:

In 1996 Bruce refused to accept one of the prestigious awards that he received since it was sponsored by major banks. When Bruce first started his company all major banks refused to give him any financing and he ended up starting his company with an $800 debit to his credit card. Bruce was outspoken about the banks' lack of support and his statements were widely publicized, leading to an extended feud with one of Canada's major banks.

In the mid 90s, when G.A.P Adventures first experienced major success, Bruce was touted as an entrepreneurial wonder child, in his words he was treated " like a novelty, a circus act”, being such a successful entrepreneur in his late 20s. Later on he started to receive more criticism, particularly when he set up his own non-profit organization, Planeterra. Other non-profit organizations did not understand why he would want to set up his own organization and accused him of being arrogant and a control freak. Many people in business and in the non-profit sector don't understand how Bruce can run a profit-oriented business while also running his own NGO.

In 2000, Barbara Walters from "20/20" was producing a special feature story on unusual weddings and requested to cover Bruce's wedding in the Amazon. When the producers wanted to portray him as an American, Bruce did not cooperate and said he would not lie to the audience. They threatened to pull his story, but Bruce stuck to his guns. In the end 20/20 never aired the piece.

Interestingly enough, his story aired anyway when Diane Sawyer from Primetime found his footage and decided to air it after all. Bruce sees that as an example of karma.

As one of the most charismatic entrepreneurial figures in Canada, Bruce is often asked to speak at universities and business schools. When he spoke at a well-known Ontario business school a few years ago, he mentioned that true entrepreneurship doesn't necessarily require a business degree. As a matter of fact, Bruce was "on fire" that day and really inspired his entire audience to the degree that 6 of the MBA students dropped out of the program and showed up on his doorstep the Monday after the speech to tell him that they were going to start their own business. Naturally that did not sit well with the business school's administration and Bruce hasn't been invited back since then. However, Bruce continues to receive invitations to speak at other Canadian business schools and is a popular figure with the students.

The secrets of his company’s success:
In his own words, Bruce says that his strength is focus and single-minded determination. He calls it "firing on all cylinders". Bruce also believes in being innovative and constantly strives to improve his service offerings. He identifies being original and being at the leading edge of his industry as one of his key success factors.

Contrary to many entrepreneurs, Bruce is clearly aware of his strengths, yet equally aware of his weaknesses. Bruce says that he is very limited at what he is good at, but he concentrates on these strengths and brings in qualified people in areas that he identifies as weaknesses.

Bruce believes in the importance of good leadership: an ability to take a large group and focus it towards one unified point. He aims to raise the bar in his industry and works hard to have a positive impact on individuals and communities around the world.

Bruce's biggest challenge:
He identifies his biggest challenge as "running the business" - Bruce says he is a builder and likes to get things off the ground. Over the years he has learned to delegate the day-to-day running of his company and recently hired a Chief Operating Officer with 20 years of experience at a Swiss bank. As a result, Bruce can get out more to talk about his vision and inspire people.

A leader in sustainable tourism
Early on Bruce Poon Tip identified sustainable tourism as one of his primary objectives and as a result, his company has developed strict operating principles to minimize its impact on the environment and on local cultures. Some of G.A.P's trips today involve a component of local volunteering, and Bruce is also at the leading edge of the "voluntourism" trend.

G.A.P Adventures limits its group size to 12 people to have a smaller impact on their travel destinations. G.A.P does not use local tour operators to run their tours, but they hire and train their own people: porters, cooks, local guides and tour leaders get paid above local wages. Bruce promotes ecologically and culturally sensitive travel and believes in a give and take. He is driven by a desire to inspire others and raise the bar in the industry.

Bruce's interest in social and cultural causes:
Bruce understands what it means to be marginalized. As a visible minority he came from Trinidad where his family was treated like first class citizens. Upon arrival in Canada, his family's status was downgraded to second class in ethnically homogenous Calgary. When his mother took him and two of his siblings to a Calgary daycare centre in the in the late 60s, early 70s she was told that "coloured kids weren’t allowed".

A few years ago, in a department store, the cashier served the person behind him first and Bruce had to speak up to bring this to the cashier's attention. Just recently Bruce went to visit a law firm in Calgary and was told that deliveries would only be accepted on the fourth floor.

Bruce's personal experiences have shaped him into the man he is today and he strives to instill respect and understanding for underprivileged groups.

On his role today:
Bruce says that today he talks for a living. He does presentations, gives interviews and shares his vision. He communicates his ideas and Bruce wants to have a positive impact and inspire his audience. He says that ideas come to him during flights and showers, and his co-workers often hope that he doesn’t take too many showers because his newly minted ideas mean more work for them.

Plans for the future:
Bruce says he intends to get into vertical integration and focus even more on sustainable travel and living and on promoting conscious lifestyle choices. He wants to encourage people to get off the cruise ships and into the community and get involved.

Why his company was chosen as one of the greatest employers:
The environment in his company is very casual, there is no formal dress code and co-workers often go out after work to socialize together. G.A.P also invests in training local workers in foreign countries and pays their employees above-industry rates. Tour leaders make the same, whether they are from North America or local Latin Americans.

As part of its commitment to a better environment G.A.P has instituted a “clean air commute program” where the company pays a percentage of employees' bus passes to encourage a more sustainable life-style. G.A.P uses recycled paper and biodegradable soaps in all their washrooms and encourages their employees to conserve energy wherever possible.

On his life-style:
I asked Bruce what his life-style looks like, considering he is one of Canada's most successful entrepreneurs. He said he essentially lives like a regular person and emphasized that he is turned off by materialism and ostentatious consumption. Bruce said he never wants to flaunt his wealth, and he credits this modesty to his parents of whom he speaks very fondly.

Bruce said that he lives a fairly simple life, he’s got a house, a car (a Toyota Prius hybrid vehicle), plays volleyball and picked up tennis and golf last year. He mentioned he doesn’t have any fancy memberships in high-priced clubs but prefers to hang out with regular people.

Bruce admitted that his main vice is his addiction to basketball, and every year he has a hard time justifying the expense for his season tickets to the Toronto Raptor’s basketball team. Dressed very casually and walking on the street you definitely would never be able to tell that he is one of the most successful and wealthiest business people around.

Bruce views life holistically and doesn’t see a strict divide between family and work, his life is integrated. He also considers eating and sleeping gross wastes of time.
Today Bruce has a young family and likes to spend time with his wife and children. His parents and his wife are currently in China where his father has travelled back to his grandfather's village for the first time in his life to explore his family's roots. Bruce wanted him to have this opportunity and from the emails and phone calls that he is receiving, this experience has been extremely special to his father.

Bruce Poon Tip is a fascinating individual - an extremely successful entrepreneur, a committed champion of social and environmental causes, often a controversial figure who marches to his own beat, and a charismatic visionary who knows how to inspire others.

I thoroughly enjoyed my few hours with Bruce, picking his brain and finding out just a bit about what makes this unusual person tick. And as a socially aware entrepreneur myself, I am hoping I'll be able to pick up a lesson or two from this remarkable individual.

G.A.P Adventures is Canada's largest adventure travel company and a leader in socially and environmentally sensitive travel. G.A.P is also the sponsor of the grand prize for our first story contest: an exciting adventure cruise on the Amazon on the historic and unique Explorer expedition cruise ship. Visit our contest page to find out more about our first travel story contest.

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