CEO

The Travel Foundation

Jeremy Sampson is the CEO of the Travel Foundation, a leading NGO in the travel and tourism sector. Under Jeremy’s leadership, the Travel Foundation is working with travel companies and destinations to better understand the impacts of tourism and maximise its benefits for local people and the environment. He has also been instrumental in spearheading the launch of the Future of Tourism Coalition.

With experience in the tourism, conservation, and sustainability arenas, Jeremy has lived on three continents, and worked extensively in more than 30 countries with the public sector, SMEs, multinationals, and civil society. He spent five years as VP of Communications and Partnerships at Sustainable Travel International and another two years as President of international tour operator, GreenSpot Travel. He served as an Adjunct Professor at the George Washington University International Institute of Tourism Studies, was elected to serve on the Executive Committee of the WCPA Tourism and Protected Areas Specialist Group (TAPAS), and currently serves on the Destination Stewardship Working Group of the Global Sustainable Tourism Council.

Immediately prior to joining The Travel Foundation, Jeremy worked at the IUCN Centre for Mediterranean Cooperation, where he helped to design and manage large-scale transnational EU-funded initiatives, such as DestiMED, and was instrumental in launching the MEET Network, a regional-scale ecotourism network and destination management organization for protected areas across the Med.

Jeremy is an experienced and inspirational speaker on sustainable tourism topics. Recent examples include Phocuswright Europe (2020), Sustainable and Social Tourism Summit (2020), Colorado Governor’s Conference on Tourism (2020), World Travel Market (London 2019), keynote speaker at Netherlands Tourism Summit (2019), Mediterranean Sustainable Tourism Convention (Barcelona 2019), EU Maritime Day (Bulgaria 2018 and Portugal 2019), UNWTO Conference on Tourism, Jobs, and Inclusive Growth (Jamaica 2017), IUCN World Conservation Congress (Hawaii 2016)