Jeff at Gap Adventures. Copyright CareerBreakSecrets.com

I’ve been working on a big project and today, I finally get to share it. I’ve teamed up with Gap Adventures to raise awareness of career break travel in Canada.  This week, I’ll be in Canada speaking to the media about career breaks and more importantly, sharing the results of the 2011 Gap Adventures Labour Day Survey. The survey reflects the results of almost 1100 working Canadians.

When Gap Adventures contacted me earlier this year to work with them on this project, I was so excited for a number of reasons.

First, Gap Adventures is considered the world’s adventure travel leader, is one of the most respected travel companies in the world, and one of the most respected in Canada in any industry. One reason is their recent campaign to help build water stations in Kenya to help people cope with the severe drought going on in eastern Africa. The campaign raised $50,000 in only 2 days!

Second, this campaign included a quantitative survey on career breaks. There is precious little data out there about career breaks. And, what is out there, typically focuses on the UK, the country with the most developed market for career breaks. So, the chance to be part of a serious effort to understand career break attitudes and interest in Canada was exciting.

Waiting for a call with the CBC. Copyright CareerBreakSecrets.com

Third, the campaign execution is really cool (business geek alert). The content of the campaign, which includes a quantitative survey and career break advice, is being shared with traditional media (TV, radio, print), new media (online media and blogs) and social media (YouTube, Twitter, Facebook). How could I refuse?

Fourth, this is the first opportunity I’ve ever seen to get the topic of career breaks into the mainstream. Too often, the idea of taking a career break seems an activity that only others do. But, we found out in the survey that this truly is a surging idea. Interest is shockingly high, beyond my expectations. We didn’t know what the results were going to be, especially in this environment. So, I give a lot of credit to Gap Adventures for embracing the idea behind career breaks, and finding out more about career break attitudes in Canada.

Fifth, I found a lot in common between the things career breakers want to get out of their trip and what Gap Adventures has to offer. I’m a big believer in independent travel, which can easily include a tour. On my career break, I took a couple of tours when it made sense. The more I got to know Gap Adventures (which included going on a tour to Rajasthan in India), I came to respect the company’s philosophy about travel and how it implements that to go beyond words to make it real: Sustainable tourism, using local transportation and service providers, getting off the beaten path.

Finally, having now worked with Gap Adventures over the past few months, I have been really impressed with how they operate. Partnering with them has truly been a pleasure. Gap Adventures was interested in my ideas and expertise in this market. They gave me the opportunity to give input throughout the process leading up to today, including the survey. And, they gave me the chance to share my message, tips and advice through the video series.

Pre-interview with the CBC. Copyright CareerBreakSecrets.com

Over the next week, I’ll be criss-crossing Canada talking to the media about the survey and we’ll start releasing the videos and blog posts giving lots of great career break travel advice both on CareerBreakSecrets.com, and DitchtheCubicle.ca, the Gap Adventures career break site.

Hope you enjoy everything we’ve prepared for you. It’s been a wild ride and it all comes together this week. All the best.

Jeff

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Tags: career break travel

This entry was posted on Monday, August 29th, 2011 at 4:00 am and is filed under Ditch the Cubicle, Features, Jeff's blog, Planning. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.