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It’s been six years since Intrepid Travel changed Emme McKay’s trajectory forever, opening up a new career path as well as a new way of travelling
Now, at 27, McKay is as passionate to promote the tour operator and its responsible travel ethos as ever.
Her passion and determination haven’t gone unnoticed as in April McKay won PR Rising Star of the Year at the TravMedia Awards, while three months later she joined the 2024 class of TTG 30 Under 30.
Born and raised in New Zealand’s Kapiti Coast, McKay was a young journalist in 2019 when she first came across Intrepid Travel.
She was in fact working at a local news outlet, dabbling in all sorts of reporting, when she was invited to an Intrepid Travel press trip to Thailand and first got a taste of what the company stood for.
“It was Intrepid’s values and everything it stood for that attracted me,” she says. “During our press trip, we met a lot of local communities, went on walking tours and had cooking classes with refugee women – and that really transformed the way I looked at travel.”
Despite working in journalism in New Zealand for another three years, McKay tells TTG she knew she wanted to eventually work at Intrepid.
And that’s why, without prior experience, she applied to a PR position at the company when she moved to London in 2022.
She started out as PR coordinator and within 12 months got promoted to EMEA PR executive, a role she has held for the past two years.
“This is my first PR and communications role as well as my first role in the travel industry,” she tells TTG.
When asked about her favourite part of her job, McKay is sure: helping Intrepid’s local partners share their stories.
“We work with thousands of local leaders and partners who are trailblazers and are doing amazing things,” she explains. “I love speaking to our guides and leaders, hearing their stories and then pitching them to journalists.”
Local partners are not the only ones with incredible stories to tell, McKay goes on.
“Customers have gone through amazing as well as horrible experiences and travelling has really helped them,” she says. “My job is to help them tell their story, showing how travel can really transform lives.”
A champion for social equality, McKay has joined Intrepid’s diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) collective to make travel a more accessible workplace for all.
“We want to make sure that people come to work and do their best job knowing they’re accepted,” she adds. “Sometimes the travel industry can look a certain way but it’s so important for people to see the opportunities that there are in it.”
Talking about opportunities, McKay believes that young people wanting to break into the industry should research the company they want to join and see what opportunities are available.
“The travel industry is so vast and there are so many different roles that when you are younger you have no idea that they actually exist,” she explains. “Also don’t be afraid to reach out and ask for advice from both people and companies.”
Looking back on her career so far, McKay has a lot to be proud of: not only did she win an important accolade but she also managed to get Intrepid’s global environmental impact manager, Susanne Etti, on the BBC’s 100 Women 2023 list.
When asked about the future, McKay wants to keep working at Intrepid, working even harder to make a positive impact not only at the company but also in the wider travel industry.
“We’re growing significantly in the UK and in the northern hemisphere, which is really exciting,” she concludes. “So there’s a lot more purpose-led storytelling that I really want to do while working at Intrepid. There are so many stories to tell.”
