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Responsible travel and sustainable tourism are fundamental ideas that we have been committed to since our birth. It is our strong belief that these words should not be simply ‘tagged on’ to dossiers and websites but should be at the very core of each trip, and our adventures are therefore designed with the local people, culture and eco-system in mind. We believe that a successful trip not only delivers a unique and unsurpassable journey for our clients, but that it also benefits the peoples whose lands we are privileged to visit.
In India as well as having our own ongoing projects, which include a tree-planting scheme, financing a school and small rural hospital, we support both the Hope Foundation in Kolkata and the Ladakh Project in Ladakh. The Hope Foundation works to help the street children of Kolkata by providing education, nutrition and health care and ultimately removing them from the street into better lives, ie The Ladakh Project was established in 1975 to help the people of Ladakh explore sustainable patterns of development, based on the use of local resources and indigenous knowledge.
We have a strict environmental policy on our tours to make sure that the environments we visit are not damaged or spoilt in any way. All our guides are trained to uphold this policy and all clients are fully briefed on appropriate/responsible behaviour whilst in wilderness areas. Our “Leave No Trace” ethic is applied to all trips in all regions and, as tour operators, is something we are careful to promote.
In order to facilitate an enduring support structure for the communities we visit, and to show a commitment to these values, we have set up a charitable foundation through which we can channel funds to both existing NGOs and our own development projects. In addition to organising ethically sensitive tours, having our own charitable foundation allows us to raise money – through the cost of our tours, charity trips and fund raising events – which can then be used to fund various projects in education, sanitation, reforestations and a number of other important issues facing developing communities. Wherever possible we are happy for our clients to visit these projects to see for themselves where and how this money is being spent.
In Bhutan & India we have developed unique relationships with many people, some of whom help us with our tours, others that simply live in the different regions to which we travel and through. Through our form of interactive, socially conscious tourism we have helped them adapt to the modern, changing world by providing an important additional income. By incorporating home-stays, locally owned hotels, restaurants and the services of guides into our itineraries, we ensure that money goes directly into the local economy and local communities benefit from tourism.
Profits from the trip are used to support several NGOs around the world which are all carefully selected to improve the standard of living for the communities we visit. As part of an ongoing campaign this trip offers financial support to several local schools and monasteries, as well as Hope Foundation, an organisation in Calcutta devoted to helping and improving the living conditions of street children by offering education, health services and nutrition and to help give them a better chance in life.
When you take one of our trips, we make a contribution to “Carbon Clear” – an organisation devoted to ‘offsetting’ or ‘neutralising’ harmful greenhouse gas emissions caused by your flight. This is done by funding projects across the world that will reduce greenhouse gases on your behalf through sustainable energy or rainforest restoration.
We invite every traveller who books a holiday via us to send in a review. Because we don't run the holidays they're completely independent and unedited... remember to read between the lines though, as two people on the same holiday can have different views!
