About — Travel Better

Hi! I’m Emma.

I’m the Founder of The Travel Better Project.

Here’s my story

As a kid growing up on the NW coast of Tasmania, I spent most of my time getting lost in the bush, trying to grow my own veggies, and rescuing wildlife.

Back then in the 1980s, the community in Tasmania suffered intense conflicts and division over the environment.

It was major industry versus radical conservationists. There seemed to be only two choices: 1) Destroy nature, or 2) Lock it up and throw away the key.

To me, both seemed a high price to pay.

When I was 12, I did the Overland Track for the first time through the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area. Six days and 85km later, we finished filthy, tired and sore...but exhilarated.

Ever since that transformative walk, I’ve been committed to finding ways of using nature while protecting the biodiversity and cultural heritage that makes it so valuable.

“In over 20 years working with communities around the world, I've seen the transformative effect that sustainable, ethical tourism can have on people and place.".”

— Emma Pethybridge, Founder

I came to realise that:

It didn’t have to be one or the other.

As I lived and worked around the world, from Asia-Pacific to North America to the Middle East to remote Aboriginal communities, I saw a different way of doing things.

Cultural and nature-based enterprises, and businesses that intentionally set out to have a positive impact, can change the conversation and challenge the status quo.

And so in 2020, I founded Ethical Republic, a for-purpose company that brings culture, conservation and community together with economic opportunity.

The Travel Better Project is an initiative of Ethical Republic.

The Travel Better Project aims to make every trip count.

Our mission is to inspire and enable tourism operators to apply positive impact approaches in their business. Our vision is to build a travel movement in Australia that puts communities and nature first.

We do that through learning products and through partnerships with industry and community stakeholders.

And as we do well, we also do good, reinvesting a percentage of profits to support First Nations and community-led tourism enterprise that are seeking to "start, scale and shake things up" through positive impact approaches.

Positive Impact Tourism

The Travel Better Project

The Travel Better Project was supported by an initial investment through WWF-Australia’s "Innovate to Regenerate Challenge" and the AMP Foundation's "Tomorrow Makers" program.

In 2023, we worked through a co-design process with a group of six tourism operators on the NW coast of Tasmania.

Together we developed a place-based framework to shape practical actions tourism operators can do to have a positive social and environmental impact through their business.

Learn The Core Concepts Of Positive Impact Tourism

Over time, the vision is for The Travel Better Project to help ensure people and place are at the centre by working on both supply and demand sides to shape positive impact tourism in four ways:

Upskilling and inspiring tourism providers to create positive impact products, services and experiences that protect the environment and strengthen host communities
Developing pathways to enable the tourism sector to easily connect with local community initiatives and charitable causes
Democratising travel by supporting local communities with the tools to advocate for greater agency over what they want tourism to look like in their area
Fostering the responsible traveller movement by sharing the power of authentic and meaningful experiences, and encouraging visitors to engage in positive impact actions