Beyond Tourism provides travel advisor services for individuals who want a culturally immersive international experience.
and
Cultural training services to enhance your ability to connect
across cultural lines.
Summary of Services
Travel Planning Services
For those who are looking for a more meaningful travel experience beyond resorts and cruises.
For those who are open to growth through travel and exploring unique places in the world.
Travel can be used strategically to build cultural competency skills, which will benefit you for life,
Individual Intercultural Training
Great for moving abroad, solo travel, digital nomads, and individuals looking to improve their cultural competence.
2 hours. Cultural assessment included.
The training is tailored on your cultural behaviors, and the culture into which you will be interacting.
$300
Signature Workshop
Group workshop focused on improve cultural competence and ability to connect cross-culturally.
Recommended to include an assessment for each attendee. Assessments cost $60 per person.
4, 6 or 8 hour workshops are available, depending on the group. Price varies depending on the timeframe.
Have you ever booked an international trip, thinking you would explore the world and change your perspective? Then you ran into unspoken cultural expectations, got confused and embarrassed, and walked away? You walked away from the exact thing you said you wanted.
Being culturally unprepared for international travel is common, because it’s rarely discussed.
But just because you cross an international border doesn’t automatically mean you will be changed. You can visit the Eiffel Tower, The Great Wall of China, Victoria Falls, and come home with the same assumptions you had when you left.
Common mistakes travelers make when they interact cross-culturally.
Not understanding how their own culture impacts their behavior.
Allowing unexplored assumptions to damage cross-cultural friendships.
Not knowing the right questions to ask when engaging interculturally.
Not knowing how to act when confusing situations arise.
Beyond Tourism can teach you how to travel for change, and take advantage of your international experience in a way that will impact you for life. These are lessons some people never learn, even after decades of travel, because they continue to travel in a bubble.
If you want more from your international travel, you have come to the right place.
Recent Blog Posts
See my blog post featured on
Travel Massive, entitled:
If Travel Is The Best Education, Are We Missing The Lesson?
Featured on the following podcasts:
Moving Abroad Coach Podcast: Episode #129 Want to Adapt Abroad? Cultural Intelligence Is the Skill you Need (with Renae Ninneman)
List on Spotify ** Listen on Apple Podcasts ** Listen on BuzzSprout
The Thoughtful Travel Podcast: Episode #358 Solo Travel for Women
List on Spotify ** Listen on Apple Podcasts ** Listen on YouTube
Book a one-on-one session to receive an individual session, so you can be prepared for engaging cross-culturally.
“International travel is consistently listed as being among the top three to five transformative experiences in the lives of adults. Experiencing the jarring nature of being removed from our familiar surrounding, when combined with these other practices, is one of the most powerful ways to look below the tip of the iceberg. Those of us with opportunities to travel abroad are entrusted with an amazing resource for deepening our interpretive CQ.”
— David Livermore in
Cultural Intelligence: Improving Your CQ to Engage With Our Multicultural World
Hi! I’m Renae and I own and operate Beyond Tourism. I love talking about, thinking about, and teaching about cultural intelligence. It’s one of the most exciting things I’ve discovered in life, and has allowed me to get to hear the stories some of the most remarkable people on the planet.
I lived abroad in South Korea for a year in my 20s teaching English to kids. That’s when I first started to understand the significance culture has on a person. It was a challenging and growth-filled year for me, not to mention when I came back and struggled to find the words to describe what I experienced.
I have spent many years of my career working and volunteering with refugees and immigrants, so while I have lived abroad, I also know a lot about building cultural intelligence from home. You can read more of my story here, including about my passion for music from around the world and radio show I have every week. I am certified by the Cultural Intelligence Center and you can see my credentials below. I can’t wait to help you grow your cultural intelligence!
What customers say…
“Renae was a great facilitator and provided engaging content and conversation.”
“I feel like I understand myself better by looking through a cultural lens.”
“Working with Renae and going through the initial CQ Workshopping is just the beginning of a new understanding for me as I continue to work closely with many people from other cultures. I was challenged to consider ALL the cultural backgrounds and cultural containers in which I live and interact with daily. Though it will be a deeply introspective process with much “mind-“ and “heart-work,” I’ve no doubt the journey will be richer and interactions with others more genuine than had I not embarked on this relationship with Beyond Tourism & CQ. Thank you, Renae, for sharing your passion with me and encouraging me!”
“Love the combined knowledge and stories of cultural differences - from visits, life, research and readings. Great info.”
Values and Logo
In the Beyond Tourism logo, there is a paper crane. The paper crane is a symbol of peace and hope, illustrated by the story of Sadako Sasaki.
Sadako Sasaki was a young girl when the atomic bomb fell on Hiroshima, and as many others in her community, came down with “A-bomb disease.” While she was in the hospital, a friend told her that if she folded 1,000 paper cranes, she could be granted a wish. Sadako folded over 1,000 cranes before she died.
In Japan, you can visit the Children’s Peace Monument, built in her honor during the 1950s, where people from all over the world bring folded paper cranes to wish for peace in the world. Renae had the opportunity to visit in 2017, and the experience of visiting the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum and the Children’s Peace Monument made a big impact on her.
The most important idea at Beyond Tourism is that when individuals are able to genuinely connect across cultural lines, those individuals can change the world. It’s not easy to do. It’s easier to stay in your own comfort zone. But we don’t learn or grow from being isolated from each other. Beyond Tourism challenges you to examine your cultural behaviors and learn to adapt. How you use your new cultural intelligence skills are up to you; it might be for international travel, to help an immigrant or refugee neighbor, in a multicultural work environment, on a missions trip, or an international work trip. In the adaptation, you find the real riches of the world, which is its people.
