USTOA’s Molly Laycob on Helping Tour Operators Tackle Sustainability

It’s been just over two years since Molly Laycob stepped into the United States Tour Operators Association’s first-ever global social impact manager role—a newly created position responsible for overseeing sustainability, diversity, and inclusion initiatives. 

In that relatively short time, the industry has changed significantly. Sustainability is in tour operators’ minds more than ever. 

The USTOA 2024 Economic Impact Study revealed that overcrowding at destinations has risen to the third-top concern among Active Members. Meanwhile, roughly 7 in 10 respondents are either fairly or very confident that they are taking sufficient action to address sustainability issues to remain competitive, and only 8% have no formal sustainability strategy—down from 14% in 2022.     

In her role as Global Social Impact Manager, Laycob acts as a point of contact for members, keeping track of resources and information and offering support. 

“My job was created out of demand for members, and that demand is only going up,” she told TMR. “I’m not the end all, be all expert—I just am the keeper of the resources. I feel like so I can easily filter through them and provide [members] what they need”

A self-described environmentalist, Laycob is passionate about the work she’s doing in the tour operator community.

“I feel very lucky to have this job” added Laycob.

TMR sat down with Laycob to discuss her role with the USTOA, sustainability trends within the industry, and this year’s USTOA Sustainability is Responsibility summit. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What do you do in your role as the USTOA’s Global Social Impact Manager?

I am a longtime sustainability supporter. I’m an environmentalist at heart … I made my passion into my career with the support of a lot of amazing people.

My role at the USTOA is to lead all sustainability and DEI operations. When I say sustainability, that includes environmental and social impact. It’s both sides of it—DEI is baked into sustainability at the USTOA, they’re not siloed.

I provide a point-person resource hub for all things sustainability, so members never feel alone at any part of their sustainability journey. Whether they’re just getting started or if they’re B Corp certified—no matter where they are, I can help them.

What kinds of resources are USTOA’s members coming to you for?

I harness the expertise under the USTOA umbrella of sustainability. So if someone says they need help on animal welfare policy, [they can] go to the resources hub, and find a drop-down [menu] with all our members’ animal resource policy examples: different templates they can use, different tool kits, [and] organizations that we believe would be helpful for them.

We have 22 different focus areas on our resources hub. It’s called the Responsible Travel Library. We [also] have our monthly webinar series, our search education series, and our Sustainability is Responsibility (SIR) Summit. I truly focus them on what members are currently telling me that they would like to learn about. 

I like a challenge. If [members] come to me and say, ‘Molly, you don’t have this subject repersented yet,’ I’ll find it and then I’ll learn more about it myself as well.

What is the purpose of the USTOA’s SIR Summit? Who should attend?

The SIR Summit is open to any USTOA members whose roles are the people doing the work for sustainability. It’s a complete chance to come, collaborate, foster this environment of learning and sharing, and just making sure that everyone feels heard in sustainability every year.

It used to be more of a C-suite, executive-level summit. Now, the sustainability team member of the staff is there [so] they can speak on behalf of what’s happening with sustainability and go back and implement these changes.

We have about 35 to 40 people, so we do keep it intimate because we want it to be a learning experience. We have a lot of repeat people who come, but I’d say about 50% of those coming this year are new people. Same tour operators, but new people, which is exciting.

We don’t invite any press or media to the summit. We want people to be very vocal, transparent, and honest with us about what’s going on. Sometimes that includes challenges.  

What’s the focus of this year’s SIR Summit?

The 2025 summit is really focused on a lot of challenges happening in the tourism industry.

The destination really serves as the backdrop for what we’re currently talking about. In Norway, it really was about the innate sense of sustainability that has always existed there with the people and the culture, and how you incorporate that then into new initiatives within your role or company. 

With Singapore, it was a lot about top-down sustainability and regulation—about creating something brand new, making sure it’s as sustainable as possible from the start and then moving forward with it.

Valencia is going to be very interesting. Overtourism has been a very interesting topic with Spain. That’s gonna be discussed there: How we can work with the local communities to ensure that tourism is only having a positive impact, not a negative impact. 

We really want to make sure we’re learning from the local community on how to best keep these destinations happy with tourism, and Valencia is doing a great job at that. [Valencia was] the European Green Capital in 2024. 

Also, climate change is a huge topic we’ll be discussing. There were floods [in Spain] in October. Heat waves are hitting Europe every summer, and that affects travel and tourism. 

What are some other concerns you’re hearing from members regarding sustainability and diversity, equity and inclusion?

I don’t like to use the word “trends” in sustainability because it’s really a shifting and highly evolving field, especially in travel—it’s more what they’re getting stuck on and what they’re being challenged by.

Accessibility is a huge one right now. Members are learning more and more that the standards and criteria within the industry changes depending on what destination you’re in. 

I’d also say regulations for carbon and reporting regulations is a big one, especially for our European and Australian members. That’s something that I’m learning with them; there is really no set of standards that people can follow.

How can the USTOA help travel advisors support sustainable tourism?

We help the travel advisors figure out ways to help the customer navigate the tour operators. We help with the transparency of how their dollars are being spent—ways that people can know that [their money] is going back to the local community.

We have information on what tour operators include educational opportunities throughout the trip to understand challenges that the local community is facing, what tour operators include public transit that’s easy to navigate…[tour operators that include] local food at restaurants and family-owned businesses…

Whether or not it’s a B Corp certification status—which isn’t the only way to know—we highlight which of our operators have these sustainability standards, and which ones are doing awesome work in this area.

We do have our blogs that highlight [this information] and that’s readily available to everyone.