Not-For-Profit Travel Agency

TRAVEL WITH A CAUSE

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Travel with a Cause is a fully accredited international and domestic travel agency. We are also a destination management company (DMC) also known as a professional service company, we provide and possess extensive local knowledge, expertise, and resources, specialising in the design and implementation of events, activities, tours, transportation and program logistics.

 

Founding director Jane Bendall has been in travel her entire career. Starting with Ansett Holidays in 1981, Jane continued working for Qantas and Thomas Cook before becoming a locum for agencies around Hobart in Tasmania. In 1995 she decided to embark on her own agency and because of her knowledge called it "Know How". Later calling the website Australian Discount Travel & Tours which was the first online travel site in Australia that provided online booking. In 2006 Travel with a Cause was set up to pour profits into third world countries.

 

Up to the present-day Travel with a Cause continues its philanthropic policy of buying mosquito nets and LifeStraws to send with people travelling to developing countries to keep them safe whilst there, and for the traveler to leave behind as a legacy. 

 

Volunteer travel is also an integral part of the business, with people getting a hands-on experience of giving back and making a difference. There are hundreds of different programs available; from helping out in orphanages, to teaching children, to animal conservation.

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We have a desire to provide exceptional travel and online travel services, no matter what the requirements. You can make a difference to our cause by booking your travel with us. We book domestic travel including discounted rates on the Spirit of Tasmania, and exclusive Tasmanian packages and experiences. Of course, you can book your overseas travel with us as well.

 

THE STORY BEHIND

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In 2006 Travel with a Cause was set up due to a series of events.  Jane was on a familiarisation with the Fiji Tourist Board when on Matangi Island (which is a 2-hour plane journey from Nadi, half an hour 4WD to a beach launch and then another half hour by high power speedboat). Whilst waiting on the beach to return with all the agents she noticed a number of dinghies heading for the opposite beach and enquired what they were doing. She was advised the school had been decimated by a cyclone and that the boats were dinghies of children going to school. The Fiji government had only sent one bag of cement and had to study in the central open-air bure.

 

On return to Australia Jane wanted to send books to the resort to send to the children but was advised that there was no mail service and a container only went ever 2-3 years. Dismay soon turned to joy when another invite arrived miraculously with Matangai Island as day 10 on the itinerary. By the time Jane arrived with the books the rest of the travel agents with her were keen to come to the island to give the books. The headmaster of the school told Jane that she would be back to see the school built. Jane laughed and said if he knew how much of a miracle it had been able to return! However, on returning to Nadi Jane won the prize for the best seller of Fiji and was given a prize to nominate anywhere she wanted to stay for a week including airfares. She got to see the school built and the tour for the guests to visit the island once a week and a donation book meant funds were flowing for the school!

 

In the meantime, Richard Parker GM of Australian Discount Travel & Tours was travelling to Zambia. He was taken back to a tree he had sat under in Livingston some 50 years prior and knew that in some way he should be able to make a difference. It was inevitable that Richard & Jane set up Travel with a Cause. Since the inception, the agency has been able to make a difference. Travel with a Cause has saved a Reef and Rain-forest in Fiji and sent computers to Zambia.

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Stemming from a contact in Richard Branson’s Carbon War Room, contact with the landowner resulted in being able to save 4000 hectares of reef and rain-forest (about 50 miles as the crow flies from Matangi Island) from Chinese Loggers and get included under the reduction of emissions scheme. The Education Department of Tasmania donated old computers to our project of Women In Need and VET scheme in Zambia.

The day to day running of a normal Travel operation is enhanced by our support of many projects and with our DGR status you too can assist to support their worthy causes.

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WHAT AND WHO DO WE SPONSOR?

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We support sustainable community development projects that transform communities. We fund projects that focus on long term, sustainable economic and social development that long term move communities from “dependence mode” to economic and social independence. Our company works not only in travel but we also carry the capacity to accept direct donations from the public in order to distribute through its trust fund, offering financial assistance to many projects.

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Initially focused on supporting OECD-designated “Developing Countries” in Nov 2009 the Board extended its sponsorship pool & mission to include humanitarian work in developed countries as well as supporting organisations that work in Australia.

Importantly with the exception of “Emergency Relief” funding, Travel With a Cause funds organisations that provide a “hand up” rather than “of independence”. In other words, we support projects that provide to our long term, sustainable community development and therefore, move needy communities from positions of “dependence” to position. 

 

SO HOW CAN WE HELP?

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If you have skills and experience, why not travel and spend some of your time working on the projects that we are sponsoring?

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Are you a Medical Practitioner? A Dentist? An Optometrist? A Builder? A Cook? An Artist? A home renovator? Any skill you have can be used to great effect in the third world countries we are sponsoring. You just have to choose to make a difference. You can place a financial donation to our projects.

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Australian Citizens can claim legitimate tax deductions for gifts to some of our projects. Just ask us for more details as we are constantly moving forward in this area. If tax-deductible is not important to you, then you are assured that 100% of your donation will go to the project of your choice. Tax-deductible donations incur a 10% administration fee which is provided to over-arching organisation (World Relief Australia Inc.) which provides to TWAC its tax-deductible status. TWAC never withholds donation money for itself and 100% of the non tax-deductible donations received by TWAC are passed on to our sponsored projects.

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Why not contact us today and ask us how you can make a difference to the thousands of poverty-stricken children of the third world?

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We support sustainable community development projects that transform communities. We fund projects that focus on long term, sustainable economic and social development that long term move communities from “dependence mode” to economic and social independence. Our company works not only in travel but we also carry the capacity to accept direct donations from the public in order to distribute through its trust fund, offering financial assistance to many projects.

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Initially focused on supporting OECD-designated “Developing Countries” in Nov 2009 the Board extended its sponsorship pool & mission to include humanitarian work in developed countries as well as supporting organisations that work in Australia.

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Importantly with the exception of “Emergency Relief” funding, Travel With a Cause funds organisations that provide a “hand up” rather than “ of independence.”. In other words, we support projects that provide hand outslong term, sustainable community development and therefore, move needy communities from positions of “dependence” to position.

SO HOW CAN YOU HELP?

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Q&A

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Belows are questions that we've received from our clients. If you have any further questions about us, please don't hesitate to contact us directly via our phone number: 03 6231 3844 or email: info@twac.org.au or you can com directly to our office: 41 Victoria St, Hobart CBD, TAS 7000.

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• What is your mission to make this world a better place? Yes, most definitely I want to do that through sustainable travel. After being in travel for 42 years, it became obvious on my visits to amazing countries worldwide, that these unique cultures were being decimated. Each time I went back to these places where there was once rainforest there were palm oil plants, where there once was a thriving market there was a McDonalds. Plastic bags and garbage  strewn over the once pristine beaches. Responsible management out the window, replaced by what the West had seduced them to become. Everytime I went to Asia I would be choked by the smoke of the forest fires, burning in Indonesia.  Wildlife was being threatened and reefs were poorer everytime I went under the water.   I set up Travel with a Cause 16 years ago due to an epiphany I had when visiting a remote island in Fiji. By remote, this is 2 light aircraft, a 4wd and a high powered speed boat to make our way to this Paradise called Matangi Island, a 4 and a half star resort in the Vanua Levu area. Here I saw dinghies heading across to an opposite island and learnt that the children were going to the village for school but the school had been destroyed by a cyclone and they had only one bag of cement sent to them to rebuild it! Through a series of serendipitous events it ended up I helped build the school and got to travel back twice within 6 months and see the butterfly effect. Wealthy travellers were now taking a tour to the village  and leaving behind a donation to fund the school. The books we hand delivered, as there was a container only every 3 years for supplies, contributed towards one boy I met from Tonga school that went on to become the skipper on Captain Cook cruises. 

• If you had to choose one SDG as your signature goal, which one would it be and why? I would like to choose the most pressing issue Climate Change, however ultimately to address this, it is education. To have a global impact on students' education on the environment by giving them touring modules where they get out of the building and in amongst nature and appreciate and compare with other children worldwide. Such a project has been offered to us with constructivevisions.org and we are the Australian Representative for the delivery of post pandemic narrative and artworks  from over 50 National Geographic journalists on their environment.  

• What is the greatest impact your company created in relation to sustainability? Saving Reef River and Rainforest in Vanua Levu which just happens to be 50 miles as the crow flies from Matangi Island. I was in touch with Richard Branson's Carbon War Room and asked for a project in Fiji and was able to give the Landowner Two Thousand Dollars to fly to Suva, to keep out Chinese Loggers and to be included under the Reduction of Emissions Scheme. We saved 10 villages and their environment. So you could say that we operate with a positive carbon footstep as our legacy. 

• What impact did the pandemic have on your project and future projects? Imagine how devastating it was for a travel business to have locked borders, no planes,  no income.  We were sending out lifestraws (which suck out 99.9% of the bacteria in water) with our travellers to keep them safe alongside a mosquito net from the CSIRO that has a lifespan of 7 years to developing countries. Laptops from the Education Department in Tasmania that were destined for land fill we also sent out with travellers flying to their projects. Extraordinarily the pandemic  made us dig in further,  producing volunteer tours within Tasmania for the international students that were stuck here! They helped us clean up beaches and plant trees and do conservation work whilst enjoying a tourist destination as well.

• How will the Skål Sustainable Tourism Award inspire you for your future projects? Gives me a focus to break through the barriers that have been introducing environmental education into the curriculum. The modules are relevant and students are marching onto the streets demanding and thirsting for someone to stop this cruel treatment of our planet.  Our future goal is to deliver this urgent action on sustainable education. I am very appreciative at the opportunity SKAL has given our business Travel with a Cause. We have Constructivevisions.org modules on relevant post pandemic studies on the environment. This is how we are going to fish for our future and there are schools all around the world. I have been an active member of SKAL since 2000 and the second woman in the Hobart Tasmania Australia club, once voted best club internationally as well. Networking amongst each other was even more essential during the dark days of the pandemic and I am proud to say all the tour operators in SE Tasmania are still operating. TWAC is an inbound specialist to Tasmania as well as operating as a normal travel agency as a charitable not for profit.