Three in four travellers now say they’d choose a tour operator signed up to formal safety commitments over one that hasn’t. On Tuesday, Intrepid Travel—which runs more than 900 small-group adventures across 120 countries—became the latest company to meet that demand.
The Melbourne-based operator joined the Safer Tourism Pledge, a programme that requires companies to open their safety management systems to independent assessment and share anonymised incident data with competitors. For Intrepid, that means contributing information from its global operations to a dataset covering more than ten million trips annually.
It’s an unusual move in an industry where safety incidents are rarely discussed publicly, let alone pooled.
The Pledge itself consists of six binding commitments. Companies must align with the Safer Tourism Foundation’s mission to prevent traveller harm. They must maintain rigorous safety standards and demand the same from suppliers. They’re required to advise customers on personal safety responsibilities, respond rapidly to concerns, share data collaboratively, and use their market position to drive safety improvements across destinations.
Safer Tourism Foundation, the independent charity behind the initiative, conducts validation assessments before companies can sign. The process examines how deeply safety thinking penetrates an organisation—not just head office policy, but practices among destination management companies and on-the-ground suppliers.
“What struck us during the validation process was the penetration of Intrepid’s safety thinking, right to the core of its network of DMCs and suppliers within destinations all over the world,” said Katherine Atkinson, the Foundation’s chief executive.
Intrepid has held B Corp certification since 2018, a designation that covers environmental and social responsibility. The Pledge adds a formal, externally validated layer focused specifically on traveller safety and risk management.
Charlie Newman, Intrepid’s Global Safety Manager, framed the decision as an extension of existing commitments. “Intrepid has long prioritised responsible travel and safety is a major part of that commitment. We’re proud to sign up to the Safer Tourism Pledge, reinforcing our duty of care to our customers and our dedication to responsible and sustainable tourism. We look forward to working with Safer Tourism and other Pledge partners to continue learning, sharing good practice and building the interventions required to minimise risks for travellers.”
The data-sharing component marks a shift from competitive secrecy toward collective intelligence. When incidents occur—whether medical emergencies, transport accidents, or destination-specific risks—anonymised details flow into a central repository. The Foundation analyses patterns to identify root causes and develop interventions.
That dataset now spans millions of trips across multiple operators, creating an evidence base that no single company could build alone.
Atkinson highlighted another dimension of Intrepid’s involvement: the intersection between climate change and travel safety. “Intrepid has also been active with Safer Tourism in illustrating the clear links between safety risks and climate change, an interaction that deserves more attention. We look forward to working even more closely with Intrepid as its global footprint and local expertise will make for invaluable contributions to good practice development across our Pledge partner community.”
The climate connection remains under-explored in travel safety discussions, despite mounting evidence that extreme weather events, shifting seasonal patterns, and environmental degradation directly affect traveller risk exposure.
Intrepid’s global network—spanning adventures from Mongolian steppes to Patagonian glaciers—puts the company at the front line of those changes. Trekking routes affected by unseasonable weather. Coastal destinations facing storm surge. Alpine regions experiencing unpredictable conditions.
For the Safer Tourism Foundation, that geographic spread and local supplier relationships offer valuable intelligence. The charity doesn’t just collect data; it works with Pledge partners to develop practical interventions that can be deployed across the industry.
Atkinson described Intrepid’s decision as “a powerful signal to the industry.” The company’s reputation in responsible travel—built over decades—lends weight to the Pledge concept. Other operators may follow.
The 75% traveller preference figure suggests market pressure is building. Safety commitments are shifting from background compliance to front-of-shop differentiators. Customers increasingly ask not just where they’re going, but how operators manage risk.
Whether that translates into widespread industry adoption remains uncertain. Data sharing requires trust. Validation assessments demand transparency. Both challenge established practices in a sector where reputation damage from incidents can be severe.
Yet the alternative—isolated operators making safety decisions without shared intelligence—leaves gaps that individual travellers ultimately bear the cost of filling.
Intrepid’s move suggests at least some companies are betting that collaboration, even with competitors, delivers better outcomes than secrecy. The Pledge network will test whether that model scales beyond early adopters to become standard practice.
For now, the immediate effect is concrete: Intrepid’s incident data, safety protocols, and lessons from 120 countries will feed into a collective resource designed to prevent harm before it occurs. The Foundation gains access to intelligence from one of adventure travel’s most established networks. Other Pledge partners gain insights from destinations they may not operate in.
And travellers—if the model works—gain the benefit of safety systems informed by evidence spanning millions of trips, rather than any single operator’s experience.
The climate-safety dimension adds urgency. As environmental conditions become less predictable, the need for shared intelligence intensifies. Individual operators can observe changes in their own destinations. A collaborative network can identify patterns across regions and anticipate emerging risks.
Atkinson’s reference to Intrepid’s work on climate-safety links suggests this will become a focus area for the partnership. Given the company’s B Corp credentials and public commitment to sustainability, it’s a logical fit.
What’s less certain is how quickly the rest of the industry will embrace similar transparency. The 75% customer preference figure creates a commercial incentive. But translating that into action requires operators to prioritise long-term collective benefit over short-term competitive advantage.
Intrepid’s decision makes that trade-off visible. Whether it becomes a turning point or an outlier will depend on what happens next—and whether other major operators conclude that shared safety intelligence serves their interests better than proprietary secrecy.
