{"id":18378,"date":"2022-09-12T14:32:12","date_gmt":"2022-09-12T14:32:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spiritours.com\/?p=18378"},"modified":"2022-09-12T14:32:30","modified_gmt":"2022-09-12T14:32:30","slug":"agency-different-touch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spiritours.com\/en\/agency-different-touch\/","title":{"rendered":"An agency with a different touch"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>BY MARIA DALGARNO AND TOM SHERRARD<\/strong><br>LIVING CITY, AUGUST\/SEPTEMBER 2006<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">THE WORST SEEMS TO BE OVER FOR the beleaguered international travel industry. Things are fi nally looking up, and travelers are in search of interesting alternatives. One tour operator\u2014Spiritours\u2014has added a unique dimension to visiting other lands. Based in Montreal, Canada, Spiritours offers travelers an opportunity to focus on the spiritual dimension of life, a chance to stop, refl ect and refresh themselves on their journey through encounters with other cultures. Anne Godbout, the founder of Spiritours, has always loved to travel and only recently understood its haunting call. She had decided to take a one-year sabbatical from her previous job to travel around the world, when she met several members of the Focolare Movement. \u201cTheir spiritual- ity of unity attracted me,\u201d she says, \u201cand I really wanted to learn more about it and experience it in the Focolare\u2019s little cities around the world.\u201d She visited the one in Kenya, Mariapolis Piero near Nairobi, and there experienced a warmth and friendship \u201cthat moved me to tears.\u201d She continues: \u201cIt was there that I experienced in a new way the great love of God for me; I could respond to that love by seeing him in others and by offering even the smallest actions out of love for him.\u201d When she heard about Focolare founder Chiara Lubich\u2019s proposal for a new \u201cEconomy of Communion in Free- dom\u201d (see page 31), she took up the invita- tion to develop a profi table business that could contribute to eradicating poverty and creating a culture of giving. \u201cThis way of doing business,\u201d she explains, \u201cseemed to me a practical way of helping the needy and of putting my talents at the service of others.\u201d At the end of her year-long journey, Godbout returned to Quebec and decided to start a travel business based on these objectives. After 10 years in the travel industry, she had both the skills and the passion to launch her idea for a business in which human and spiritual develop- ment would be facilitated. With great enthusiasm she began Spiritours by print- ing 1,000 fl yers advertising the tours she would organize and thought this would be enough to get the phone ringing. \u201cWhat an illusion!\u201d she recalls. \u201cThe fl yers brought in no business at all!\u201d \u201cThen I spotted a notice that a lecture was being given on \u2018Tours of the Abbeys of Europe.\u2019 Not only was it one of the best lectures I had ever heard, but I recruited the lecturer to become one of the guides for Spiritours, and the tour of the Monas- teries of France was created.\u201d The group sponsoring the lecture offered to include the Spiritours brochure in their publicity materials, and the fi rst bookings began to pour in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The savannahs of Kenya and the Holy Land and are among the destinations offered by Spiritours. Opposite page: Anne Godbout (front row, center) and other travelers with children and villagers during a tour of Kenya.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Things started falling into place: events and circumstances seemed to indicate she was on the right track and Divine Providence was at work. Many other organizations contracted with her agency to coordinate their group travel arrangements, and her profits increased. \u201cLast year,\u201d she continued, \u201cseveral Catholic dioceses asked me to help with the organization of the trips to the World Youth Day in Cologne.\u201d This important contract allowed Godbout to clear her start-up debts and share a portion of her profits with the needy who are part of the Economy of Communion. \u201cOur tours welcome everyone, no matter what their religious belief. Most of my clients are between 35 and 65 years of age and are looking for something meaningful in their lives. Some clients have confided to me that during a tour with us they became reconciled with the Church through their meeting with vibrant communities of persons actively living out their faith.\u201d This philosophy of service extends beyond her clients to her employees, whom Godbout strives to treat very fairly and to her contractors, whom she respects and pays on time. It also extends to her competitors, to whom she often refers clients who want to travel to destinations that she doesn\u2019t serve. She is also keenly aware of the reciprocal relationships with her tours\u2019 host countries: the mutual enrichment for the travelers as well as the country\u2019s local economy and sustainable development. \u201cWhen I am traveling, I find that contact with nature has an important part to play. In our spiritual safari to Kenya for example, I suggest game drives and walks in silence as nature invites contemplation. I have experienced that through creation one can be in communion with the Creator.\u201d \u201cA soulful journey will enable you to get the relaxation and distance from your daily life in order to reconnect with your inner self,\u201d says the brochure for Spiritours offering an invitation to live the words in the Gospel of Mark, \u201cCome away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while\u201d (6:31).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ecotourism and Spiritual Traveling<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A CHARACTERISTIC OF ALL SPIRITOURS excursions is that they subscribe to the beliefs of ecotourism and equitable tourism. The International Ecotourism Society defines ecotourism as \u201cresponsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment and improves the well-being of local people.\u201d Before departure, Godbout hands out a pamphlet to all Spiritours participants that outlines the rules of ecotourism, namely to respect local culture, minimize the impact of the travelers\u2019 stay and encourage positive interactions that benefit both parties. Once there, the tour leaders sensitize partakers to their new environment as they visit national parks, deserts, mountains and so on. \u201cWe call attention to the importance of respecting the environment, by not dropping litter, stepping on corals in the ocean or taking things away from national parks,\u201d says Godbout. Tourism, according to Godbout, should provide the grounds for a meeting of two cultures, a stimulating interaction between people of diverse backgrounds, as opposed to being an economic exchange. \u201cWe have made tourism into a commodity. Now we\u2019re trying to reinstate its raison d\u2019\u00eatre.\u201d Spiritours trips encourage cultural exchanges that benefit both the tourists and the locals. Moreover, participants occupy hotels booked by local tour operators. They ensure that all services chosen are locally owned\u2014from hotels, tour operators and restaurants to transportation\u2014in order to stimulate local economy and the community\u2019s sustainable development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size wp-block-paragraph\"><em>\u2014 From \u201cBeyond Resorts\u201d by Michael-Oliver Harding, published in Siafu magazine<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BY MARIA DALGARNO AND TOM SHERRARDLIVING CITY, AUGUST\/SEPTEMBER 2006 THE WORST SEEMS TO BE OVER FOR the beleaguered international travel industry. Things are fi nally looking up, and travelers are in search of interesting alternatives. One tour operator\u2014Spiritours\u2014has added a unique dimension to visiting other lands. Based in Montreal, Canada, Spiritours offers travelers an opportunity [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[235],"tags":[299,297,298,285,295,296,291],"class_list":["post-18378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-economy-of-communion","tag-faith-based-travel","tag-living-city","tag-pilgrimage","tag-religious-tourisme","tag-soulful-journeys","tag-spiritual"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritours.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritours.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritours.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritours.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritours.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spiritours.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18378\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritours.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritours.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritours.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}