Members Practising Sustainable Tourism

Greece is in the blood of the team at Sunvil and GIC The Villa Collection. We have travelled the country, far and wide, since 1969 and are passionate about the culture, history, gastronomy, nature and - above all - the warm and generous people. We care about the islands and the islanders, and we want to preserve their natural and cultural attractions for generations to come.

Over recent years islanders have faced an increasing problem with waste management, exacerbated by a lack of recycling facilities, poor sorting facilities and the closure of landfill sites.

Sunvil and GIC have always strived to mitigate the impacts of our holidays and have used our influence with local businesses and governments to affect change. In 2018 we vow to take our commitment to waste reduction in Greece.

For the 2018 season we have will introduced a waste separation and crushing facility at the Kalami Bay on Corfu, a property exclusive to Sunvil, with the aim to introduce the facility to further 5 units throughout the year. The waste collected will be measured and then transported to the correct facilities and recycled. We will use our figures to educate those in authority and to introduce further facilities for our guests, residents and local businesses. On top of this we will provide reusable bags within a number of our resorts and traveller tips for reducing waste.

• Join with Sunvil and GIC this year to make a notable difference to those who live and work on our favourite holiday isles.

We chose a pledge with an emphasis on animal conservation - it is a topic that resonates with our travellers, & many of them want their trips to focus on wildlife, often the ‘Big 5’.

Narrowing down a specific pledge was challenging, as many of our suppliers already carry out valuable sustainability projects. Our initial plan to work with one initiative unfortunately fell through, but after helpful input from wider members of the team, we chose to support a women’s cooperative in Zambia (Little Ndaba) that crochets toy rhinos, with profits going to Save the Rhino as well as the local community. We’ve previously worked with Save the Rhino and this pledge enabled us to further our collaboration with them.

It was an exciting time when we consolidated our (many!) ideas into a concise pledge, to financially & materially contribute to Little Ndaba. We have been a support network for the very small administration team behind Little Ndaba in terms of the development of their website and brochure materials. We also donated £2,000 to create an updated website and are helping to increase their product exposure by providing our travellers with information about the initiative. “Many thanks again for reaching out to us - what a super Christmas gift!” Charles, Little Ndaba.

We also donated £1,200 to the Tanzanian charity Equality in Tourism (supporting women farmers in rural communities) and $1,050 to Azizi Life (a women’s cooperative in Rwanda, supporting 30 adults to learn how to read and write over 12 months), as part of our commitment to contributing a total of £15,000 to selected charities in Africa throughout the year.
Implementing our pledge has helped us recognise that what may seem like a small commitment from us can make a huge difference to others, and that not only money is required to make a difference, a diverse range of skills can provide invaluable support.

• We aim to develop our pledge over time, as well as set sustainability and charitable principles in place within Expert Africa that will form a solid basis for the foreseeable future.

For our 2017 pledge we had hoped to partner with, or set up, a grassroots project in Africa. However, as the majority of the suppliers we work with already carry out many worthwhile sustainability projects, we found it challenging to pick just one.

As such, for our 2018 pledge, we aim to get a better understanding of the sustainable practices and initiatives that our suppliers have in place. Working in collaboration with Professor Xavier Font and around 180 undergraduates from the University of Surrey’s School of Hospitality and Tourism Management, we will research the sustainability practices of a range of the camps and lodges we offer, across a dozen countries in Africa.

Students are contacting suppliers with the aim to produce a concise case study on an initial 200 properties and their sustainability initiatives over the course of the next year. We have found that our travellers are increasingly more concerned with responsible travel and are looking to book with suppliers leading the field in this respect. We will therefore use the results to add a sustainability section on each lodge on our website highlighting the valuable work they carry out. This will help our travellers make a more informed decision, as well as encouraging an increased focus on sustainable tourism.

We are excited to be supporting these students in their tourism and hospitality management degrees and hope that the opportunity to work with real-world examples will be a valuable addition to the knowledge gained throughout their course.

Japan is a fascinating country which captures the heart of our clients and staff at InsideJapan Tours. At first sight, however, it’s not apparent that 20 million people in Japan live below the poverty line and struggle to make ends meet.

For this reason, InsideJapan Tours has been supporting Second Harvest Japan (2HJ) since 2015. 2HJ is an NGO which collects surplus food from manufactures and distributes it to children’s homes, single-mother shelters, centres for the disabled, soup kitchens and individuals in need.

In 2018 InsideJapan Tours are continuing this partnership by making it easier for our clients donate to 2HJ through administrating a transport card return scheme. We provide our clients with a transport card pre-loaded with credit so they can travel around Japan’s cities with ease, however after their holiday this card is no longer any use to them. From summer 2018 we’ll provide a pre-paid envelope to our clients so they can send their transport cards back to us. We’ll exchange the cards and donate all remaining credit to 2HJ. Over 12 months, we aim to receive 1000 cards and donate £3,000. We will also promote the work of 2HJ and encourage clients to donate extra funds to the charity via an online payment portal.

This project allows InsideJapan Tours and our clients to work together to make a positive contribution to Japanese society. Japan has enriched our lives so we’d like to return a token of our appreciation to those in need.

• Giving clients an opportunity to donate the credit on their transport cards to a Second Harvest Japan, food banking charity which runs multiple programs including providing emergency help after natural disasters.

Absolute Escapes already works closely with the John Muir Trust (www.johnmuirtrust.org), a charity dedicated to protecting and enhancing wild places in the UK. The philosophy of the Trust fits in with our Company ethos about promoting the great outdoors and making it accessible through the walking holidays and self-drive itineraries we create around Scotland.

In 2018 we pledge to further promote our partnership with the Trust. We will include their logo and information about their activities on our website, social media channels and in all documentation that we send to our clients. This will reach over 150,000 people via our website, and 5,500 people via our social media channels. We will also include a leaflet in every information pack and details on our pledge to approx 1000 clients per year including details on how they can make their own donation.

We also pledge to arrange two conservation Volunteer Days for our team at Glenlude estate in the Scottish Borders. This will involve planting 200 trees on the estate to assist with rewilding this former sheep farm and conifer plantation into a mosaic of native habitats.

Finally, we will use the Give as you Live (www.giveasyoulive.com) website so all stationery and printing purchases we make results in a donation of £150.00 to the Trust.

Our aim is to help the Trust provide wilder, more beautiful countryside for our customers to enjoy and to demonstrate that we can all contribute in small ways to the restoration of wild land and responsible tourism.

• We will arrange conservation days at Glenlude estate in the Scottish Borders where we will plant over 200 trees
• We will promote the Trust in all our communications with our clients
• We will raise money via an online fundraising platform

In 2018/2019 TransIndus pledges to help build roof rainwater harvesting systems in villages in Rajasthan. These rural communities face drought forcing women and children to walk over two kilometres in a desperate search for water. Rajasthan is a location which has given us and our clients a vast array of enriching experiences over the years and we want to give something back to these wonderful communities.

We will help protect these communities by providing them with safer, cleaner and sustainable water by installing rainwater harvesting systems for five households in rural villages. We will do this in cooperation with the charity “Water Harvest” which has already installed 112 of these systems working with one village at a time.

This year, Water Harvest aim to install 50 new systems. Each one costs approximately £300 including material costs, building work, support, education and maintenance. Each of the five systems TransIndus helps install will be funded entirely from company profits. We are proud to be supporting this work and helping to change the lives of these villagers for the better.

In addition to the above funds, we aim to involve our customers in the project. We encourage them to visit some of the villages to see the systems being built, to contribute in person by offering expertise and support or to donate money towards the installation of further rain water harvesting tanks.

To learn more about the project and how you can make a difference

• In 2018 TransIndus worked with “Water Harvest” to fund five water harvest systems for five families in remote villages in Rajasthan and Gujarat, India, thus providing them with sources of safe, clean and sustainable water.

Plastic waste is becoming an increasing problem in travel. In 2018 KE want to help prevent this and ensure sites remain beautiful for all to enjoy by making an official commitment to reducing single-use plastics and by encouraging the use of other reusable items.

We will educate clients on the effects of using non-reusable items. Our kit-lists and pre trip information will remind all of their clients to take their own water bottle and a non-plastic reusable bag. We will begin to establish links with companies who provide alternatives to single-use products so we can provide a customer discount and empower them to buy reusable items.

We will also inform our ground agents that reducing single-use plastic is a priority and work with them to resolve any issues surrounding this. We want 70% of agents to agree to stop providing single-use plastic bottles on their trips within the year. This will prevent the use of around 10000 plastic bottles.

Finally, we want to start lead by example at our HQ. New guidelines and access to discounts will persuade at least 70% of our 34 members of staff to use alternatives for plastic bottles and single-use coffee cups. We will also take part in at least one local litter pick, starting with The Great Cumbrian Litter Pick, and better promote our efforts to protect the planet by improving our responsible travel web pages.

• In 2018 KE Adventure Travel made an official commitment to reducing single-use plastics by contacting 118 agents worldwide to combat the problem, forming a partnership with Water-to-Go, educating clients and assessing and reducing our impa

Here at Bamboo Travel we care deeply about the countries in which we operate. There are a number of worthwhile projects already being run in these destinations which support the sustainable tourism ethos. Our aim is to create a range of travel experiences incorporating these projects, which our clients can add to their tailor-made tour.

In 2018 we will introduce two experiences from four of our main destinations. In Cambodia we selected a tuk-tuk foodie tour of Siem Reap which supports training restaurants for underprivileged young adults, and in India, clients will be able to take part in a walking tour of Delhi conducted by former street kids. Similar projects will also be chosen for Laos and Sri Lanka. These tours, many run by not-for-profit organisations, invest in the community by providing employment and training for local people, and our clients can make a direct impact by taking part.

By the end of the year we will have eight experiences in total, which will be detailed on our new Sustainable Tourism webpage along with information on how clients can get involved and how they can make a difference.

We are aiming for a minimum of 100 clients to take part in these tours over the coming year. In addition to this, for every Sustainable Tourism experience booked, we will donate $10 per person to the Safe Haven Children’s Charity in Cambodia, a project we have supported for a number of years. This will generate an additional $1,000 in donations.

• In 2018 Bamboo Travel booked 69 people onto 8 sustainable experiences in 4 countries across Asia, thereby increasing support for several worthwhile projects, while also raising US$690 for a children’s charity in Cambodia.