PHOTO: Celine Cousteau is continuing her relationship with Contiki. (photo by David Cogswell)

Contiki reupped its partnership with filmmaker Celine Cousteau as a spokesperson for the company and its efforts to protect the environments that constitute the resources upon which its business is built. The partnership was initiated in 2011.

Contiki chose Cousteau because she represents many of the qualities they want to emphasize with their own brand. She is young, vibrant, an explorer, a creative artist and a champion of environmental protection, especially of the oceans. Contiki says 82 percent of the destinations it visits have oceanfronts. Oceans tie everything on earth together. For those who are familiar with Celine Cousteau’s father and grandfather, the name Cousteau evokes the image of the ocean.

Celine Cousteau is a filmmaker, also known as an explorer, the granddaughter of explorer Jacques Cousteau and the daughter of explorer Jean-Michel Cousteau, but she prefers to think of herself as a storyteller. She also thinks of her life work as part of the travel industry.

“I started with Contiki three years ago, but I’ve been in the travel industry for a long time,” she told an audience gathered at a media reception in New York on Tuesday. “I consider filmmaking part of travel because that’s what we do when we’re making film. Instead of going on vacation when we’re traveling we actually shoot stories and bring them back.”

Cousteau also worked for six years for Butterfield and Robinson as a guide and also as a regional director. “That gave me a good idea how trips run, how it happens from beginning to end and about the experiences people have when traveling.”

But even more fundamental from Cousteau’s point of view, is that we are all storytellers. “It’s all about storytelling,” she said. “It’s one of the oldest art forms. It started with oral storytelling before we had the written word. You can see this from all cultures and all people. This is very important I believe to our human race because it’s what connects us to people around the world. The stories we share, whether they’re from memories, whether they are written, a blog, online, videos, photos … all of it is storytelling. When you come home from a trip and are sitting around with friends you’re a storyteller. It’s something that’s innate in all of us.”

In her environmental protection quest, Cousteau feels the travel industry is key. “I really feel that in the travel industry you have a tremendous power to influence how people think and how they make decisions because it is about where they go but it’s also about how they think of those places, how they interpret those cultures and those ecosystems. The experiences they have can change who they are.”

She uses herself as an example. “When I was 9 years old I went to the Amazon for the first time with my grandfather. Unbeknownst to [her family] that was going to determine who I was for the rest of my life. I’ve gone back at least a half a dozen times. And one of my biggest projects to date is in the Amazon. So not just as adults but as children, as a 9 year old that changed me. That changed how I felt about other people, other cultures, how I found my own reality.”

“Reality” – that’s another word Cousteau likes to discuss. “A couple of years ago I returned from a trip to the Amazon and someone said, ‘How does it feel to be back in reality?’” she said. “And I stopped and I said, ‘This isn’t real. This is a creation of our wonderful imagination.’ And that is fantastic. But what’s real is when you go in the middle of a forest and it’s so quiet, and you start hearing individual insect noises and you talk to a shaman who understands and can explain to you how they knew that certain plant would help cure an illness in their tribe.

"That’s the real connection we are losing. And by going back and getting those stories and sharing them we are reconnecting to our own history and our own past and also to other cultures. And hopefully that creates a sense of unity in what is now a separated community of people as we’ve become more individuals.”

On Feb. 1 Contiki will launch a new project to help protect sea turtles with the Sea Turtle Conservancy. The company has also worked with the MesoAmerican Reef Leadership program (MAR Leadership) and Shark Savers. 

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