Members Practising Sustainable Tourism

In 2019 Mountain Kingdoms offered most of its clients a free Water to Go filtered water bottle. In 10 months we have given away 367 water bottles which has stopped many thousands of plastic bottles being used just once; helping to reduce plastic production and the subsequent possible litter problem.

• We now offer clients the choice of a free filtered water bottle on the majority of our trips.
• This could stop over 20,500 single use 500ml plastic bottles being used by Mountain Kingdoms clients annually.

Scandinavian Travel deliver carbon neutral holidays by offsetting the carbon footprint generated per person on all our holidays.

We do this by:
- Supporting reforestation projects in the UK and Amazon
- Supporting a sustainable project as voted for by our customers. The chosen project this year was for the supply of energy efficient stoves in Kenya

These certified carbon offsetting projects have been chosen by Scandinavian Travel and our customers to match our values and provide real and significant improvements to carbon generation both here in the UK and in developing countries.

• https://www.scandinavian-travel.co.uk/carbon-neutral-holidays

Tucan Travel has been committed to the principles of sustainability and environmental and species protection since its inception over 30 years ago. Despite this on-going commitment, we have yet to formalise and make public our approach to sustainable and responsible travel.

Our involvement in the AITO PROTECT Project is by way of remedying that by explicitly stating our vision and our road map for change.

We would like to live in a world where our experience of adventure is open to everyone. We are realistic enough to now that as a small independent company there is a limit to what we can achieve. Doing nothing isn't an option, so we act with purpose to do what we can where we are and will guide and trust our tribe of Tucan Travellers to do the same.

Our goal is to operate in a manner that is responsible to this generation, whoever or wherever they are, without compromising the potential of future generations. This applies to all species. To achieve our goal we must first check that our house is in order. To that end, or 2019/2020 pledge is to critically review our practice and prepare for change wherever it is needed to achieve our goal.

• By April '20 we will:
• Update our internal and external communications to reflect our position on sustainable and responsible travel
• Critically review our tours
• Plan for change
• Collaborate with stakeholders re potential change

Pintando El Cambio project uses art to lift spirits, preserve traditions and generate much-needed tourism in Santa Catarina, Guatemala. This year Journey Latin America raised funds for six of the 400 houses painted with Mayan traditional designs.

• This is a project that we could tangibly see was lifting the spirits of a town by using art. We at JLA have a long term and deep rooted affiliation and affection for the people and traditions of Guatemala.

In 2019 Explore’s pledge will focus on boosting our Start-up-Fund programme, something that we are very passionate about and proud of. The aim of this fund is to enable local people in the countries we visit, and care about, to start sustainable, self-sufficient and reliable businesses. Since its launch in 2016, this initiative helped eight businesses to get off the ground. They include purchasing looms for women’s’ cooperatives in Morocco, a vertical garden project in Cambodia and a bike repair shop with apprentice scheme in Tanzania.

In 2019 we aim to grow the Start-up-Fund by supporting three more projects. We will fund these with £3,000 raised by commission from the sale of Water-to-Go filtered bottles to our customers (15% per purchase) and by Explore’s Responsible Business Forum budget.

In August we will ask our local agents around the world to nominate brand new business ideas or small, grass-roots start-ups that need a boost of funding. The ideas must be sustainable and be able to continue to flourish without continued financial support. The winners will be announced in September and communicated in customer publications, on our social media channels and the specific charities page of Explore’s website. In some locations there will be opportunities for our customers to visit the projects and see the benefit to local communities.

• Our Start-up-Fund has a sustainable impact on the livelihoods of the communities our trips visit, reaching beyond the recipients by providing inspiration, skills training and job opportunities.

Tribes Travel takes responsible and sustainable tourism seriously. Since we started Tribes Travel in January 1998, we always aimed to offer travellers authentic, high quality holidays, and to do it in a responsible and sensitive way in regards the earth’s natural and cultural assets.

We developed TRAVEL + PROTECT, a digital booklet to give clear information to our clients about how Tribes organises trips that promote responsible travel, how we help our destinations and to highlight various grass roots projects that we support through our charity, The Tribes Foundation. TRAVEL + PROTECT includes informative articles for clients to help them travel responsibly through their own actions.

We believe that, given the facts & opportunity, most travellers would choose to make a positive difference to their world. We hope that our TRAVEL + PROTECT digital booklet helps point the way to more responsible travel.

• Promote sustainable tourism practices
• Help clients to make the right choices when travelling
• Use website, blogs, newsletters to convey message
• Raise awareness for The Tribes Foundation
• Promote grass roots projects we support

In 2019 Scandinavia Only will research and develop a programme of packaged holidays which are based on, and include, in-destination public transport as the primary means of transportation. Our target is to introduce and promote an additional three public transport holidays for the summer of 2020 and an extra two for the winter of 2020. This will increase our public transport holidays from 5 to 8 tours in the summer and 3 to 5 tours in the winter.

Public transport services, especially buses, are a means of transportation many customers do not use regularly at home. We will therefore present these journeys in an exciting and adventurous way making them more desirable experiences and not just a way of getting from A to B. Once a customer arrives in their destination country, their transportation between resorts i.e. the places where they will spend the night/s, will be by public transport following a detailed travel itinerary with pre-purchased tickets for all domestic journeys. This will provide the customer with a more authentic, ‘everyday’ experience and an opportunity to meet and travel alongside local people.

By doing this we will be supporting local transport companies who will benefit from additional income for their service, benefit the environment by using existing transport services and reducing CO² emissions from the alternative car hire option, and providing a steady and sustainable level of individual, experiential tourists who spend more in the destinations they travel to.

• Research local bus routes.
• Ensure bus journeys can be included in package.
• Create holiday itineraries.
• Promote tours via website and brochure.

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.