Our Responsible Travel Statement

 

Our region of expertise encompasses some of the world's poorest nations, where the gap between rich and poor is huge, and the threat of destruction of natural resources a real concern. Responsible Travel means at a minimum the awareness that tourism can, and should make a positive contribution to the environment and local people. From our establishment in 1994, years before Responsible Travel became a buzz word, we have had ethics as the basis of our existence. This statement puts in words what we bring in daily practice, and constantly work on to improve.

 

Responsible Travel on our trips

We aim to give our clients the most authentic experience possible on their trip. This means we will always have a preference over locally owned restaurants, businesses, and accommodations if the choice offers the best possible for our clients. We specialize in low-impact small group and individual travel. While adventurous travel in some of the most remote areas of this developing region comes with risks, we are committed to the safety of our clients, the local people and our staff. We will advise our clients and agents about risks and demand all our suppliers to adhere to our safety standards. We stress the importance of travel with local guides. It will bring our clients closer to the local culture, which in turn gives an even warmer welcome! Besides, it helps the trip contribute financially to the local community. We are aware that for most of our clients travel in our region means a long-haul flight, which of course contributes to global warming. We encourage our clients to look into organizations such as Trees for Travel and Climate Care that offer the possibility to offset the output of greenhouse gasses by planting trees and in other ways.

 

Responsible Travel in our offices

The personal approach we take to our clients and our business relations, means the involvements of many staff. We prefer hiring women, and employ the physically challenged. Our operational offices in Laos and Cambodia are co-owned and managed by local people. Where possible, we use recycled materials and promote electronic communications within, and between our offices to reduce paper We recycle our paper internally, by using the flip-side of printed material for our fax and xerox machines. We minimize electrical consumption  with our specially designed office, and by switching off al electrical equipment after office hours. We limit our printed promotional materials and instead encourage our clients to use this web site as their primary source of information about our products. We serve guests to our head office tea and coffee from Royal Projects, which in turn are there for the benefit of tribal minorities in Northern Thailand. We comply with local, national and international laws and regulations applicable to our business activities.

 

Responsible Travel for our field staff

We support the use of local guides and operators in preference to foreign guides and operators. We aim to achieve a "zero litter" policy. We provide ongoing training to our field staff, including the principles and practices of Responsible Tourism. We aim to buy equipment at locally owned stores. We look after the safety of our clients and supporting staff, such as mahouts, drivers, boatmen and porters We assist in getting photos taken by our clients to the local people in remote areas.

 

Responsible Travel for our clients

The support and input of our clients is of the utmost importance to the overall success of Responsible Travel. A lot has been written on how to behave in a responsible way. Click here to see our few do's and don'ts that sum up some of the basics for travel in our region.