Responsible Travel Update - Feb 2009

There's been lots going on in Imaginative Travellers responsible travel, much behind the scenes to be launched shortly.. but here's a taster!

This month we have arranged for the following donations to go out to some of our
Worldwide projects:

• GBP1500 to our new project in Luxor, Hamida’s nursery school. This will be
  used to buy new school equipment including some computers.
• GBP269 from our Laos Water coolers for schools project to buy 4 water coolers.
  These will be donated during our next few Magical Laos tours.
• GBP500 to Chandelao Village to build a water storage tank to collect rainwater
  for the local villages. A donation handover will be done on one of our Rajasthan Safari departures.

Get on your Bike!

Following on from some client requests for suggestions of where to buy a bike in
Thailand and a suggested charity to donate bikes to at the end of the Bangkok to Saigon by bike tour we have now included information about this in the responsible travel section of the trip dossier. We have also included this info for the Cycling Thailand tour – although bikes are provided on this one should clients want to bring their own or buy locally we can always try to help them to do this, and are more than happy to suggest local charities that would value bike donations at the end of the tour.

Website

The responsible travel website page and Worldwide projects page is now up-to-date and old projects have been deleted. Our Responsible Travel guidelines for clients are now included in the predeparture  information so that all our clients, UK and international can access them.

Trip Dossiers

I am in the process of updating all our new 2009 trip dossiers with our responsible travel statements, clarifying what makes that particular tour responsible.

News from TUI:

The UK’s Observer newspaper ranked Tui Travel as 16th out of the FTSE350 companies for sustainability performance.
A question we have been asking ourselves is whether the credit crunch means the end of travel industry efforts to address sustainable development? The answer is ‘no’! The
reason: it’s good for business, addressing our contribution to climate change can deliver significant financial savings as well as reduced emissions, working with communities and suppliers in destinations has helped develop greener, more authentic holiday experiences and increase economic opportunity for local people, and despite consumers rising concern about the economy, research shows that their environmental concerns remain strong and constant. Two thirds of those questioned in the recent Future Foundation research said they would have a higher opinion of companies that continue with their social and environmental programs when economic conditions are challenging.

Tui have released the sustainable development strategy for the activity sector. The vision is for the activity sector to become the benchmark for sustainable development within Tui and the travel industry overall. This document outlines the steps Tui are taking and how they hope to help businesses implement policies.

• Tui travel online survey Dec 07:
  59% of customers said that ‘holidays with a low impact on the environment
  would influence their decision in making a holiday purchase’
• 77% of customers said that ‘holidays with a fair deal for local people would
  influence their holiday purchase choice’

Thanks for reading!

Sam - Responsible Travel Officer.