Family cycling holiday in the Loire Valley, France

As this is a cycling trip, we have reduced the environmental impacts in the local destinations as well as enabling ourselves to have a much greater interaction with the local communities we visit along the way. 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 Not only do we maintain a long standing partnership with our suppliers in France, we encourage them to employ the use of a local company to transfer the baggage from hotel to hotel and also use a local bike supplier to make sure the economic benefits are shared. As it is self guided there is no leader on this trip. We do, however give our clients all the information they need to utilise local businesses, including restaurants and shops.

We use predominantly 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. All the hotels we use employ local staff and are small locally/family run accommodation. As they are all small hotels you will have the opportunity to interact with the owners and staff. They are aware of any and all environmental concerns and are willing to accommodate any requests. Another benefit to small hotels in quiet towns is that the food is more often than not brought from local suppliers.

As part of our policy the number of passengers, on any of our self guided trips, travelling each week never reach a number that could be threatening to the rural communities we visit. 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!