S6/E16 Where Sustainable Travel Meets Impact Investing with Jonathan Coleman, CEO, UnTours
Imagine a travel company where the business itself fuels impact, not just through donations but through ownership. That is the UnTours story. In this episode, CEO Jonathan Coleman shares how the world’s first certified B Corp tour operator became part of a foundation that invests every dollar into small businesses creating meaningful change in destinations.
Jonathan walks us through Hal and Norma Taussig’s remarkable origin story, beginning with apartment-based, slow travel in the 1970s and evolving into a vow of poverty that redirected profits into a foundation, eventually transferring company ownership. We then explore the Reset Tourism Fund, which transforms corporate philanthropy from partners such as Expedia Group, TUI Care Foundation, Skyscanner, Tourism Cares, Agoda and XO into flexible, low-interest loans for small tourism enterprises.