Terry Dale on USTOA’s 50th Anniversary and Looking '50 Years Forward'

The U.S. Tour Operators Association (USTOA) turns 50 this year, but its team hasn’t spent the anniversary year looking to the past. Rather, the association has used its birthday celebration as a vehicle for change, by introducing new marketing initiatives, advocating for responsible travel and building on the membership’s strong sense of community. 

We sat down with Terry Dale, president and CEO of USTOA, to hear the latest news as the association looks “50 Years Forward.”

How has USTOA celebrated this anniversary so far, and what’s coming up for the remainder of the year?

When we were preparing for this milestone, we decided we really wanted to celebrate it as “50 Years Forward.” We wanted to give recognition to the founders and what they gave us to inherit, but we wanted it to be forward-looking and -thinking. So, as part of “50 Years Forward,” we decided to do a campaign called “50 Trees for 50 Years.” We went out to our 50 corporate members and said, ‘We want you to partner with a DMO from someplace around the world and ask them to plant a tree in honor and recognition of our 50th anniversary.’ And then we will collect these images and use that as part of our opening session at our annual conference later this year; we are going to start [the conference] by saying that this is going to be the USTOA family tree.

You’ve also launched some new marketing campaigns and initiatives surrounding sustainability.

As part of this 50th anniversary, we hosted our first Sustainability Is Responsibility Summit in Norway. All associations do webinars, blogs and educational content, but I think we're the only trade association that’s done — and executed — a fully focused sustainability and DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) conference for almost three days.

And then, a couple of weeks ago, we launched our superhero, “Sustainable Suzie.” We take great pride at USTOA in taking calculated risks when it comes to how we tell our story. In preparing for this year, we wanted a new, fresh way to tell it. 

And we decided that we needed a superhero and a comic strip. Sustainable Suzie is this female superhero with superpowers surrounding sustainability. She goes to different places in the world and faces challenges, and you learn how she addresses those challenges. We launched her a couple weeks ago and, thus far, the feedback from members is that they think this is cool.

Speaking of sustainability, can you tell us about your new Future Lights Program?

With 50 Years Forward, we thought it was important to identify leaders in sustainability who are impactful and early in their career. We had 18 nominees, and all 18 were quite extraordinary. We asked our panelists; if there were three who surfaced to the top, who would they be? And the four judges had the same three names. It was a great initiative, and we will continue it; we’re in the process of figuring out how to rethink it for next year.

How have you seen USTOA evolve since you came onboard in 2011?

I’m not saying this to take away from our founders, but we were looked at — even from a product perspective — as a traditional [travel] experience. And when I agreed to come to USTOA, we wanted to reimagine what the travel experience is for a USTOA member. And so, we have translated that into all the marketing that we've done, including Sustainable Suzie.

What tour and travel trends do you see taking center stage in the next few years?

My hope is that meaningful, purposeful travel is a trend that I'm going to help lead within USTOA, but also what I see and hope for in the broader context of travel across all different segments. 

If we are very smart about how we design travel experiences, and we carefully choose experiences that get our economic impact to neighborhoods and businesses that can most benefit from them, we are doing our job. It takes more work. It takes more vetting. It's not as easy. But I think with the younger generations, there will be a broader audience who get it. So, when it comes to trends: [I see the rise of] meaningful, purposeful travel, and making sure that we get our economic power to those communities that can most benefit.

My hope and belief is that meaningful, purposeful travel is a trend that I'm going to help lead within USTOA, but also what I see and hope for in the broader context of travel across all different segments.

In heading USTOA, I have a responsibility in sending that message and helping [tour operators] understand and see how they can put these pieces together in a travel package. I don't expect that every single element is going to fit into that description, but if we start with a couple per travel itinerary and then in five years that two becomes four, and five, I think we can build on it. And I think that they'll hear from their customer base that it resonates and was a highlight for them, too.

Reflecting on USTOA’s impressive history, what do you consider to be some of the biggest milestones and “wins” over the course of USTOA’s existence?

What's unique about USTOA is its sense of community. I have never seen a group of competitors who respect each other the way that our members do. As a result, they want to collaborate to improve the industry and become stronger together.  

That doesn't happen overnight; it started 50 years ago with our founders. I hope we have built upon that, but I think that's the greatest accomplishment of USTOA. It has never been about numbers; that wasn’t our mission. The mission is that if you identify a tour operator that reflects the culture of USTOA, and the integrity that we want to reflect, then we'll add that company to our membership.

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What were some of the key “pivots” USTOA had to make to assist members during the pandemic — and which of them has stuck?

Our members demonstrated great agility going from international to domestic [travel offerings] to help transition during this period when the world was closed. 

What proved very successful for us was establishing working groups. We have a structure of seven committees. But when we were entering the pandemic, we found that there were issues that were popping up that required a specific set of members to help. One was trying to manage where we get intelligence about the current availability and restrictions for global travel. But again, our members were great at sharing what worked and what didn't.

We were also able to create a communication channel that we never had before with the national parks. That really grew into such an asset for our members and helped the parks transition into opening to business again. That dialogue came from a working group that came about from the pandemic. It’s being able to recognize where needs exist, and then getting the right group of members to commit to working on it.

Can you give us a preview on what to expect at this year’s USTOA Annual Conference in Austin, Texas?

At the conference, we are going to highlight storytelling. We’ve all been calling ourselves storytellers for years now. But when I say storytelling, it's not going to be, ‘Oh, here’s another 50th anniversary video.’ I refuse to do that. But we're going to tell our story in a very unique and fresh way. And that’s all I’m going to say about the conference. We’ll leave it at that, and the rest will be a mystery.