Martin Randall Travel Sustainability

Our sustainable Tourism Vision

Many of our tours feature visits to towns and villages off the beaten tourist trail, enabling you to experience local traditions and practices, such as artisan pasta-making and cheese production on our gastronomic tours to Italy.

In the Middle East, North Africa, Asia and certain European countries, we employ local agents who take care of many of the logistical tour arrangements on our behalf. Most of our current relationships have been built up over the course of many years of business.

In addition to supporting the communities and local economies of the places we visit, we also strive to limit our impact on the environment. Our itineraries are designed to spend more time in places visited than on conventional tours; this often means there are days without travel.

Like us, you can also choose to donate to the local heritage sites we visit, such as York Minster (visited on The Cathedrals of England tour), where donations contribute to restoration and conservation of the buildings.

View our full policy at https://www.martinrandall.com/responsible-tourism.

Sustainable Tourism Projects from Martin Randall Travel

Reducing single-use plastic bottles on our tours and festivals.

From July 2019 Martin Randall Travel started implementing its pledge to reduce single-use water bottles on its tours. For a long time staff were appalled at the thought of how much plastic is wasted and clients had also commented. We started by asking all clients travelling on tours in the UK to bring a reusable bottle and told them that we would no longer provide water on coaches. The response was so good that we rolled out the policy to all destinations where tap water is potable in October 2019.

The cost-savings of £3,500 will be donated to Action for Conservation (AFC), a UK charity which inspires young people, predominantly from deprived areas, to become the next generation of nature conservationists. We also partnered with Water-to-Go, offering our clients a 15% discount. They donated 15% of the proceeds to the India Solar Water Heating project, which provides renewably fuelled water heaters to households and businesses in India. In total we estimate that we saved 4,000 single-use plastic bottles.

We were worried that the reaction from our clients would be negative, as our pledge has a direct impact on their experience. However, the vast majority responded approvingly and were happy to accept the inconvenience for the sake of the undeniably positive impact on our planet. We are really pleased that they are so keen to mitigate the impact of their travels.

It was exciting to work out the number of bottles saved and to tell AFC how much we would be able to donate. The Chief Executive of AFC said ‘Thank you so much! That is absolutely wonderful news, we are so very grateful to MRT for this support!’

Reducing single-use plastic means that our clients leave less of a trace on their travels, and has generally raised awareness. Our clients engaged so well with this that we feel we can be more ambitious with future pledges. It has also made us aware that we need to be ahead of curve, implementing sustainable policies before our clients criticise the way we do things.

Funding places for four young people on conservation summer camps

Martin Randall Travel is thrilled to have raised £2,555 for Action for Conservation in 2018.

AFC is a UK charity which aims to inspire young people, aged 12–18 and predominantly from deprived areas, to become the next generation of nature conservationists. The money raised has enabled two young people to attend AFC’s life changing residential summer camp, returning home empowered with the motivation, skills and support to promote conservation in their own communities.

We thoroughly enjoyed the fundraising journey. We are extremely grateful of the support from our clients who donated generously and it was very exciting when the first few donations came in following an email we sent out over Christmas. Martin Randall Travel also raised money by forming a Christmas Choir which entertained the commuters at Gunnersbury Station, resulting in £174 in donations. The Sustainability Team also held a bake sale with delicious home-made treats in our Voysey House office and raised over £165.
The main fundraising challenge was spreading the message to our clients and the community. AFC stands for such an important cause.UK wildlife has suffered significant damage over the past 40 years, with over 50% of species now in decline. Despite this, 52% of people are unaware of the threat to biodiversity in the UK. We hope that through our fundraising efforts we have helped share AFC’s values and created an awareness for conservation. It is rewarding to know our efforts will allow children who have never left London before to broaden their horizons and learn about nature and possibly become the next generation of conservationists.

As a company we believe that by educating and creating environmentally conscious young people now, we can create an exponential impact and shape the future of sustainable business. Supporting AFC to educate young people has helped us to achieve this goal and protect our destinations so that travellers today and into the future can enjoy them.

For more information about AfC and their summer camps visit https://vimeo.com/237880168. To donate to our pledge go to…https://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/Team/MartinRandallTravel

India Solar Water Heating

Martin Randall Travel is proud to now support the India Solar Water Heating project through its carbon offset scheme.

This project provides in-house hot water supplies fueled by renewable energy to homes, community buildings and small to medium-sized businesses throughout India.
We are partnered with this project through the organisation Carbon Neutral.