On July 8, Mike Rea will replace Bruce Beckham as the executive director of Tourism Cares, a nonprofit dedicated to travel preservation efforts. Rea is currently a senior program officer with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle and founded Give2Asia in 2001, a program that brought together philanthropic travelers with worthy causes in Asia. Last week, Senior Editor Michelle Baran spoke with Rea about coming to the travel industry from the philanthropy world and his plans for expanding Tourism Cares and its visibility.
Q: What attracted you to and about Tourism Cares?
A: Other than the overall mission of fusing travel and philanthropy together, I personally believe and have experienced myself that travel and philanthropy are two of the most powerful transformative forces for people and the community. Tourism Cares has such a neat brand and penetration and competitive advantage with its roots in the industry. To take a group that has such great roots and foundations in the travel industry and build and innovate on all the good work that's already been done, makes itself really appealing and a comfortable thing to do as opposed to something that was going to be a terrible uphill climb.
Q: How much involvement have you had with the travel industry until now?
A: Not much. And everyone sort of knew that.
Q: What were your impressions of your first Tourism Cares event in New York?
A: It was exciting. It was definitely slightly tiring. I did a little bit of painting and a little bit of digging. Next time I can guarantee you I will get far dirtier
It was not just an event, it was the seminal event ... in terms of the incredible energy and emotion around Bruce's impact and legacy and retirement.
Q: Do you plan on keeping the existing Tourism Cares projects, events and fundraising activities?
A: I think there's definitely some more innovative and strategic ways that we can expand and build on the incredible work that's already being done. Tourism Cares is a great solid organization. It is not in crisis. It does not have an identity crisis. People on the board have talked about going from Tourism Cares 1.0 to 2.0. But that doesn't mean we're shelving Tourism Cares 1.0 and building something else.
Q: What are some of the biggest challenges Tourism Cares faces as your prepare to take the helm?
A: Leadership transitions are always a little bit tricky, and I think this one is going to go wonderfully. But there's going to be a leadership and culture shift, and I'm not sure it's a huge risk, but it's a challenge to pay attention to. A challenge to play around with is the branding and how you expand for the industry and how you start to think about expanding beyond the industry a little bit
Another big challenge is revisiting the business model. So, it's not so much "Let's do different programs," but are we doing the sponsorships the right way, are we doing Tourism Cares events the right way? How and when do we do unrestricted fundraising? How and when do relate to the individual traveler?
Q: Where do you see the organization in five to 10 years, whether you are still there or not?
A: That's the easy part: I'm definitely still there. I'm not going to embrace, crank, innovate and sweat and cry with Tourism Cares for a couple years only to leave it.
Follow Michelle Baran on Twitter @mbtravelweekly.