Members Practising Sustainable Tourism

Buying ‘carbon offsets’ has become an increasingly popular option. This is a way to balance carbon emissions by paying for projects that save an equivalent amount of carbon dioxide elsewhere. Whilst this is a valid option, Llama Travel is less comfortable with this approach. Many of the organisations offering offsets are commercial enterprises. Additionally, a lot of the activity undertaken is planting trees, the environmental benefits of which are much disputed. We prefer to support projects introducing renewable energy sources in developing countries, so communities can advance economically and socially without developing a ‘carbon habit’.

Llama Travel is proud to support the work in Africa and Latin America of Practical Action, a development charity founded in the UK in 1965 by Fritz Schumacher, who coined the phrase ‘small is beautiful’ to describe the need to apply small-scale technology to reduce poverty. One of the areas we are supporting is the development of renewable energy in rural communities, allowing them to develop without using polluting forms of energy generation.

The going rate for carbon offsets for a Llama Travel holiday is approximately £25 per person. We ask each customer to donate £25 after they have travelled with us. We match this donation and use the money to support the work of Practical Action.

• Llama Travel supports Practical Action.
• We ask each customer to donate £25 after they have travelled with us, which we match and donate to Practical Action.
• We aim to increase our donations by 66% in 2019/20.

In 2019 Wild Frontiers pledges to support women from low-income households in Jaipur, India, through our new sustainable tourism project with the Pink City Rickshaw Company.

Helping the Pink City Rickshaw Company to empower women through employment, we aim to raise £4000 through the Wild Frontiers Foundation to build two new electric rickshaws and train four local women to be driver guides.

Wild Frontiers will continue to support the women and the project by booking our clients onto their tours with the Pink City Rickshaw Company when visiting Jaipur. The aim is not for the ladies to provide an in-depth tour full of historical facts, but instead to allow visitors to step behind the scenes of one of India’s most beautiful cities and soak up their surroundings away from the typical tourist crowds.
In what is traditionally a male dominated profession in India, the project not only offers the women the opportunity to learn new skills, including basic English, and gain regular employment, it builds confidence, self-esteem and self-worth in a safe and structured environment.

We believe this initiative is responsible and sustainable tourism at its best, breaking down barriers and offering our clients a truly unique travel experience, while supporting a local enterprise that offers disadvantaged women the chance to build a career and drastically improve the livelihoods of themselves and their families.

This will hopefully be the beginning of Wild Frontiers’ involvement in a larger initiative to empower women through tourism across other cities of India.

• Empowering women from low-income families in Jaipur, India
• Supporting local enterprise, the Pink City Rickshaw Company
• Building two new electric rickshaws
• Training four local ladies to become driver / guides

2019 year marks the10th anniversary of the Wild Frontiers Foundation! Supporting communities that we have the privilege to visit has always been at the heart of the Wild Frontiers ethos.

Since the company’s humble beginnings in 2002, we have contributed to projects in places we've travelled, from landmine clearance in Afghanistan to providing educational materials to rural schools in India.

Taking that commitment a step further, in 2009 we established our own charitable foundation, which has allowed us to raise funds to develop our own initiatives and support grassroots projects through our inspiring charity partners.

In the meantime, here's a snapshot of our work over the past decade and the projects that have benefited from over £100,000 raised, none of which would have been possible without the support of Wild Frontiers' clients.

• In the past 10 years The Wild Frontiers Foundation has......

In 2018 Bamboo Travel successfully supported eight charitable projects in Cambodia, Laos, India and Sri Lanka. Our aim for 2019 is to increase the number of projects to 10 and add new experiences in Vietnam & Indonesia.

These projects provide locals with important new skills and a more sustainable income, and they also offer enjoyable experiences for our clients as well, giving them the opportunity to help and support the local communities they visit.

This year our new projects include a cooking class in Hanoi, which provides invaluable training and job opportunities for disadvantaged youths, and a visit to a school in Sri Lanka, which offers vital skills and employment for young adults in Sri Lanka’s under-supported Hill Country community.

We will donate US$10 to one of the following charities for each client booked onto one of these experiences: Bicycles for Girls in Nepal, and a fig-planting program in Borneo. By the end of this pledge’s two year period we hope to have raised $2,000 (200 clients) which will be split between our selected charities.

We are aware that the success of our pledge is very much reliant upon creating awareness of these experiences. Therefore this year we also intend to inspire interest through a sustainable tourism themed newsletter, a series of blog posts and by actively promoting our pledge to clients travelling to one of the above destinations.

We are excited to be supporting new projects and charities this year that we are confident can really make a difference to local people’s lives.

Find out more: https://www.bambootravel.co.uk/pages/responsibletourism

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Successful sustainable tourism depends on travellers personally engaging in authentic local experiences. Clients return having enjoyed a richer holiday experience and communities gain from direct investment in small businesses and the preservation of traditional crafts. Bearing this in mind Kirker will improve and increase such possibilities in Italy, France and Spain over the coming years.
In 2019 Kirker will focus on implementing this long term goal in Italy, our most important destination. We will update and extend our Guide Notes for Italy, to recommend more locally-run and independently-owned businesses that contribute to the long-term social and cultural fabric of the destination and to communicate better the benefits of sustainable tourism. .
In addition, we will introduce a new weekly walking tour in Florence for all Kirker clients at a subsidised cost to help them discover smaller museums, local restaurants and traditional artisans where authentic crafts, customs and skills are preserved. We will also better promote travel to Italy at off-peak times for more authentic experiences and to help reduce over tourism.
Finally, Kirker will raise more than £10,000 in donations from client events and sponsorship by the end of 2019 for charities, including the Venice in Peril Fund which is devoted to the preservation of cultural and social heritage. Kirker is delighted to be able to continue to support local individuals, businesses and charities in our most important destinations. In doing so we aim to raise awareness and encourage more responsible and rewarding travel among our guests.

• Help visitors to engage with authentic local experiences
• Promote local businesses: bars, restaurants and shops
• Subsidised walking tours with local experts
• Raise a minimum of £10,000 for charity to support conservation

In 2019 Absolute Escapes have chosen to focus on becoming a more environmentally conscientious tour operator by introducing comprehensive sustainability policies for our employees and promoting sustainable practices to our clients.

More specifically, we aim to create a comprehensive Sustainability Policy covering all areas of our business for each member of our team to actively engage with. We will also promote sustainable tourism practices in communication with clients prior to their holiday (approx. 1000 clients per annum) as well as through our social media channels.

In order to further highlight our commitment to sustainable tourism, we will continue our work with the John Muir Trust, dedicating 30 volunteer days to the Trust; organise a monthly litter pick-up in the green-areas of Edinburgh, our hometown; and our staff will also pick up litter on their trips outside the office. We will also participate in a charity fund-raising event in aid of Venture Scotland (www.venturescotland.org.uk), aiming to raise £500 for them to improve the lives of young people in Scotland by teaching them outdoor skills to help with their personal development.

The promotion of the protection and preservation of natural landscapes in the UK is important to us as we benefit directly from the natural beauty of our surroundings. It will benefit our clients and destinations by protecting the landscapes that they visit on their holidays with us.

We hope that by engaging in these promises and promoting them to our clients we will encourage further interest and discussion on conservation.

• Create a comprehensive sustainability policy
• Promote sustainable tourism practices with our clients
• Continue our work with the John Muir Trust
• Monthly litter-picking activities
• Fund-raise for Venture Scotland

In 2019 KE Adventure Travel is focusing on reducing litter and single-use plastics in Morocco. We’ve seen first-hand and heard from clients that litter is a significant problem there and want to ensure we leave no trace when we travel there and help combat the issue too.

This year we will arrange 2 unique departures for 2020 on our Edge of the Sahara Trek. This will involve using 2 extra camels so we can responsibly bring back litter collected by clients. Our aim will be for each client to collect 1 kilo, so that for 2 full trips with 12 pax each we will collect 24 kilos from the Sahara desert in total. If successful we will run these special departures each year.

We also want to continue to develop our project from last year by providing our leaders in KE's top 10 destinations, with 10 free Water-to-Go bottles per country. Leaders can then reliably access clean water and lead by example for our clients. We’re going to get clients involved and make this sustainable by giving them the option to buy a KE branded Water-to-Go bottle at a discounted rate, whereby one filter is donated for a guide. In the next 6 months we aim to sell 125 Water-to-Go bottles generating the same amount of filters for the guides.

• Our customers will benefit greatly from both projects as they’ll contribute directly to the issue and give back to an area they love to visit.