Mekong luxury cruise through Vietnam and Cambodia
How this holiday makes a difference
Environment
We encourage all of our travellers to travel responsibly and offer advice on how they can best help local people through charitable donations and the purchase of certain goods. We also offer guidance, both verbal and written, on how travellers can best help and preserve the local environment.
This company is also committed to measuring and assuming responsibility for our carbon emissions. We have worked with Cleaner Climate to offset emissions from our Australian, United Kingdom and USA offices during 2011. The emission reductions are generated from Clean Technology (Kyoto compliant) projects in India (run-of-river hydro), Thailand (rice husk biomass), and China (hydro). These not only reduce emissions, but also contribute to the sustainable development of disadvantaged communities.
Community
We believe that travel should entail an exchange of knowledge and perspectives, a sharing of wealth, and a genuine appreciation of Vietnam’s beautiful natural environment. This philosophy underpins the heart and soul of our style of travel. We recognise that well-planned itineraries and well-informed tourists contribute positively to cross-cultural understanding and the livelihoods of local people.
On this journey our local guides are trained to share their knowledge of cultural and other local issues in a balanced, informative way; in this journey alone you are likely to meet several local guides from different areas across the country. They share real experiences from their own lives and insights into family life, influences and beliefs, thus providing our travellers with a deeper understanding of the places they visit. This is what motivates our guides, not shopping commissions.
In Phnom Penh travellers will also have the opportunity to visit the Child-Safe Network; a proactive child protection network involving local people, businesses and international communities, including travellers. Furthermore, this company actively encourage our travellers to patronise or financially assist numerous not-for-profit organisations in Cambodia including Friends Restaurant in Phnom Penh (which trains and is staffed by disadvantaged young people), Made in Cambodia in Siem Reap (which sells items made by underprivileged Cambodians)
This company is also a proud supporter of the inspiring Angkor Hospital for Children, in Siem Reap in Cambodia. This pioneering hospital provides much needed medical care to disadvantaged Cambodians and also runs a sustainable health care professional training program. For the past few years, this company has also paid for the employment of nurse Phannsy.
Our operations head office offices in Vietnam finance the Loretto Foundation in Saigon (which assists disadvantaged, poor and disabled children through education), and The Fred Hollows Foundation (which provides ophthalmologic services to underprivileged Vietnamese).
Our offices in Vietnam (Saigon, Danang and Hanoi) are also staffed with local people wherever possible and we have a long term aim of filling management roles with competent local staff. This presence in Vietnam means we are much better able to control the content, the actions of our suppliers, and the style of our small group journey.
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