When Bruce Poon Tip tried to borrow money in 1990 to launch his idea for an adventure-tourism business, the then 22-year-old met closed doors and blank stares at just about every bank and credit union in the country.

Poon Tip had just returned from a package trip to Thailand with his family after having backpacked around Southeast Asia and was certain there was a market for travellers who wanted something in between.

But it was the height of the first Gulf War and overseas travel was discouraged.

At the same time, adventure travel wasn't yet a recognized packageable product. After all, it was something only young mavericks did solo on a shoestring budget, and for months at a time.

File photo by David Lazarowych, Business Edge
G.A.P. Adventures CEO Bruce Poon Tip has helped pioneer the low-impact tourism industry.

Sixteen years later, Poon Tip's idea has evolved into G.A.P. Adventures, one of the world's largest adventure-travel companies. It earns about $100 million in annual revenue and sends 40,000 travellers to more than 100 countries every year.

Poon Tip believes demand for adventure-travel tours has grown due to globalization, and awareness of other cultures and countries. At the same time, people want to experience other countries, but they don't have several months to explore them, he said.

"I used to call it the CNN effect. They made the world look very small. It suddenly gave people curiosity to go to other places," he said. "The resort compounds are good if you want to sleep and get drunk, but people choose smarter these days and want more for their holiday."

Over the last decade, adventure tourism has become globally recognized as a booming business, and several companies offer experiential and sustainable travel packages.

According to research by the Newfoundland and Labrador government, outdoor tourism in Canada has grown 15 per cent per year over the past five years and is expected to grow significantly as international demand rises.

Research by Alberta Economic Development says the average adventure traveller is aged 25 to 55, well educated and a high-income earner. There is also a large segment in the age group of 55 and older.

While the banks never gave Poon Tip a dime in five years of pleading, he did get the money. He borrowed $5,000 from each of his two credit cards, and friends and family loaned him another $5,000.

He eventually couldn't make the payments and the credit cards were taken away, but he held on long enough to launch G.A.P. on a shoestring budget.

Money was so tight at first at the one-man operation that G.A.P.'s first brochure about its Latin American tours was cut and pasted onto a piece of paper and run through a photocopier.

"I have had a contentious relationship ever since with the world of banks," Poon Tip, G.A.P.'s CEO, said from the company's Toronto headquarters.

Now, banks regularly ask him to speak to their employees about understanding entrepreneurs.

G.A.P., an acronym for Great Adventure People, now has about 480 full-time employees and offices in seven countries - 140 of them in Canada, divided between Toronto and Vancouver.

The first tours went to South America, but have since expanded to all seven continents. G.A.P. now sells its packages in 27 countries.

To inspire people to travel on G.A.P. packages, the company has launched a popular television show called Great Adventure People that is broadcast on CTV and the CTV Travel Channel. The company is opening a series of concept stores - the first will be in Melbourne, Australia, in January, and then New York and Calgary in April - where potential customers can learn about G.A.P.'s different travel styles, activities and destinations.

G.A.P. also has a non-profit arm, called Planeterra (Planeterra.org), which supports nine community projects and local non-governmental organizations in the areas visited by G.A.P. tours.

The company directs donations of cash, clothing, school and health-care supplies, as well as tools, equipment, training and technical support. G.A.P. pays all the administrative fees, which means 100 per cent of each donation goes to the projects themselves.

Planeterra also supports a number of environmental and social charities.

All of G.A.P.'s tours fly under the sustainable tourism banner and are geared toward being environmentally, culturally and socially responsible.

Although there are packages for people looking for finer hotels and first-class private transportation, G.A.P.'s tours generally appeal to a different breed of traveller who crave the road less travelled and real adventure.

The company ensures groups are no larger than 16 people. Participants stay in accommodation often run by a local family. Accommodation could include a Tuscan farmhouse or a home in the heart of the Amazon jungle.

Consumption of local cuisine is also encouraged. And there's always a strong educational component so travellers are immersed in the culture of the area.

Although there are actual classes on the company's tours on its Antarctica expedition ship, most packages include less formal teachings.

"It's critical that we have an impact on people," Poon Tip said. "It's all part of our greater plan ... to have impact on people on the ground locally, but also to have impact on people so when they go home they have a greater appreciation for their community or how they live their lives when they get back."

G.A.P. isn't the only Canadian company in the experiential travel market.

Twenty-year-old Kingston-based Routes to Learning is Canada's largest educational travel organization for adults 55 and older. A non-profit organization, it provides learning adventures to nearly 10,000 people per year on 300 trips worldwide.

Instead of simply having a tour guide explain histories, regions and sites, Routes to Learning uses 250 local experts on everything from traditional lore and natural history to enrich its tours. It also uses recognized university experts.

One of the more popular trips goes to Cuba, where university professors discuss all aspects of contemporary Cuban life, from its changing society to its attitudes toward the outside world.

There's also a trip to the Arctic where travellers can investigate the fate of the Franklin Expedition and recreate the search for the Northwest Passage.

"Our clients are lifelong learners," said Cormac Evans, the company's business-development manager. "When they travel, they want to go behind the scenes and really learn about the places they're visiting and interact with the people who live there, not just play the tourist."

Like Poon Tip, Evans said expanding people's knowledge and perspectives about the world is what his company is ultimately after.

Ken Wong, a marketing professor at the school of business at Queen's University in Kingston, suggested that the notion of travel has evolved and many people aren't interested in visiting a city, for example.

"That's not to say there isn't something spectacular about visiting Rome and walking through the Vatican or something of that ilk, but once you've done it once, there's not a whole lot of need to do it a second time," Wong said. "People are looking for something a little more exotic, a little more action filled."

Organizations such as G.A.P. have made it more feasible for regular people to safely and economically experience the exotic, he said. "If you wanted to ride an elephant through Thailand a decade ago, you had to get yourself to Thailand, then find a reputable supplier of elephant tours and frankly a lot of this stuff we wouldn't have known to do until we got there," he said.

"With organizations like G.A.P., you go knowing it's going to happen, you know you can rely on the suppliers and ... there's an element of security."

(Frank Armstrong can be reached at armstrong@businessedge.ca)