How we're tracking towards our 2025 ethical marketing goals
How Intrepid Travel is tracking towards our 2025 ethical marketing goals
August, 2025
Hazel McGuire
Earlier this year, we made a commitment to double down on our investment in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) through expanding our Ethical Marketing Guidelines. At a time when major brands were scaling back their DEI initiatives, we engaged past and new consultants to reaffirm our commitments, updating the guidelines to further support the amplification of Indigenous communities and travellers with disabilities, and committing to invest more than half a million dollars annually in BIPOC owned-businesses and creators.
This saw us build on our existing platform (last year, Intrepid achieved 21 of its 25 goals), with new commitments, including:
A new benchmark outlining a minimum commitment of $300,000 annually to support BIPOC creators.
Expanded representation of creators to include Black, LGBTQIA+, plus-size, Indigenous and creators with disabilities.
Increasing the minimum annual investment in BIPOC owned businesses, events and initiatives through partnerships and sponsorships from AU$100,000 to AU$300,000.
Below, I’ve shared a detailed progress update on how we’re tracking to our new existing goals from January 1st to July 1st, 2025.
Commitment 1: Diversity, equity and inclusion
Create allyship and improve representation of BIPOC travellers
50% (at least) of all content creators hired by Intrepid must identify as BIPOC creators
YTD: 70% (49 of 70 creators hired self-identify as BIPOC creators)
5 global partnerships per year with BIPOC-owned travel organisations
YTD: 4
50% (at least) of commissioned blog stories must be voiced by BIPOC travellers
YTD: 47% (9 of 19 stories)
Invest a minimum of $300,000AUD annually to support BIPOC-owned businesses, events or initiatives
YTD: $279,975
20% (at least) of content creators hired (including talent, influencers, bloggers, production team) by Intrepid must be from the Black travel community
YTD: 40% (28 of 70 creators hired self-identify as Black creators)
NEW $300,000 minimum spend invested in BIPOC creators
YTD: $228,983
Create allyship and improve representation of the plus-size community
10% of content creators hired (including talent, influencers, bloggers, production team) by Intrepid must be from the plus-size travel community
YTD: 10% (7 of 70 creators hired self-identify as plus-size)
20 posts featuring plus-size travellers will be shared on social media each year
YTD: 85% (17 out of 188 first-person posts)
10% (at least) of commissioned blog stories must be voiced by plus-size travellers
YTD: 5% (1 of 19 stories)
Create allyship and improve representation of the LGBTQIA+ community
10% (at least) of content creators hired (including talent, influencers, bloggers, production team) by Intrepid must be from the LGBTQIA+ travel community
YTD: 8% (6 of our 70 creators hired self-identify as LGBTQIA+)
10% (at least) of commissioned blog stories must be voiced by LGBTQIA+ travellers
YTD: 16% (9 of 19 stories)
Create allyship and improve representation of the Indigenous community
10% of content creators hired (including talent, influencers, bloggers, production team) by Intrepid will be Indigenous creators
YTD: 0% (0 of 70 creators hired self-identify as Indigenous creators)
10 social media posts each year that amplify stories of Indigenous communities
YTD: 80% (8 out 188 first-person posts)
10 blog stories published each year amplifying Indigenous communities
YTD: 60% (6 of X stories)
NEW 5% of content creators hired (including talent, influencers, bloggers, production team) by Intrepid will be creators with disabilities or from the disabled community
YTD: 4% (3 of 70 creators hired self-identify as creators with disabilities or creators from the disabled community)
NEW 5 posts promoting, educating or amplifying accessibility and the disabled travel community
YTD: 100% (7 posts out of 188 first-person posts)
NEW 5 blog stories published each year promoting accessibility and the disabled travel community
YTD: 1 of X stories
Commitment 2: Openness & transparency
2 public impact updates (published on our blog and social) that transparently look at our DEI actions
This is the first, the second will be published in our 2025 Integrated Annual Report, published in March next year.
1 integrated report (published annually) to provide full transparency on our business (including the ethical marketing guideline commitments)
Read our 2024 report here: https://www.intrepidtravel.com/newsroom/company-documents/annualreport
Commitment 3: Reject neocolonialism
Zero use of the word “colonial” as a positive adjective and descriptor in blog stories
YTD: 0
Zero use of the word “colonial” as a positive adjective and descriptor on social media
YTD: 0
20% of first-person social media stories are told through the community or host lens
YTD: 18% (34 stories out of 188 first-person posts told through the community or host lens)
Commitment 4: Sense of belonging
This commitment is about creating a safe and inclusive online community. We’ve published our global community guidelines here.
Commitment 5: Ethical Digital Marketing
100% compliance with Google’s webmaster guidelines through an annual audit
YTD: 100%
100% regional data usage and privacy compliance, specifically in our key source markets, including GDPR in Europe, CCPA in the United States, CASL in Canada and APP in Australia
YTD: 100%
48-hour response time (or less) for any customer query regarding data or security
YTD: 100%
Every year, we spend a significant amount of money on marketing. How we choose to spend it has a profound impact on the industry and has the ability to create positive change if invested in the right places.
As a team, we’ve taken note of where we’re falling behind a little over halfway through the year, and put plans in place to accelerate action where needed. Through coordinated and intentional action, I’m confident we will achieve them all.
Learn more about our Ethical Marketing Guidelines.