Morocco holidays, Atlas Panorama

As a part of our continued commitment to responsible tourism, we operate this trip in a way that aims to reduce impacts and to give as much back as possible to the local communities. Whilst staying at the gite in the mountains we will have the opportunity to visit the local school, which has been adopted by as one of our Responsible Tourism projects. We have already supplied a water pipeline system to the village as well as a toilet block for the school and we are keen to continue much much-needed improvements for the people of the village.

We also support the Terre des Jeunes Project based just outside Marrakech. This project was set up to help young, underprivileged children, to be integrated back into society. The school gives these children a support network, offers them education along with the skills necessary to gain a gardening apprenticeship. They are then supported in the task of finding employment at a local hotel. The projects aims are both to help these children and to promote environmental awareness.

In Tighza you stay in a local gite, which has provided direct benefit and employment to the local community. We use a locally run operator, who employs local leaders. We have worked with them for many years and over this time have built up an excellent working relationship, we have regular training sessions with the local leaders to help them in all aspects of their jobs, to encourage them to think about the responsible tourism issues and to implement these ideas on the trips. We are also working with our operator on issues such as reducing our impact by not buying plastic drinking bottles but developing a refill system on our centre based trips.

We use local leaders and they receive regular training from us, which covers all aspects of their jobs including Responsible Tourism and ensuring that all clients are given a responsible tourism briefing. Leaders are also encouraged to take all clients to visit our responsible tourism projects in the areas they visit.

We use all locally owned and run accommodation on this trip. This contributes directly to the local communities as local staff are employed and locally produced and sourced goods are bought for the accommodation benefiting the wider community. The group is limited to 16 and this small group sizes means we can stay in small locally run accommodation so helping to benefit the local communities who employ local staff and source supplies locally. This also means that the groups do not have a dramatic affect on the local communities in terms of litter and resources.

We have at our offices worked to reduce our carbon footprint through a reduction of energy use and energy conservation measures. We also actively reduce the waste produced by having active reduction and recycling policies in place. We run annual staff workshops on Responsible Tourism. Global warming is a reality and to help you make a difference by reducing the carbon dioxide that is produced when you travel we offer a chance to carbon balance your flights. We encourage all our clients to do this and do so for all our staff travel. Go on do your bit!