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We recognize our responsibility to develop and operate in a manner that makes a positive contribution to the natural, social and cultural environment. We also recognize and accept our responsibility to operate in ways that reduce environmental impacts, benefit local communities, safeguard the future livelihood of local people, and ensure the protection of destinations for future generations
Community
This Tour has been designed to explore a beautiful territory most of the times not covered by the more “touristic” tours in the Tuscany region. You will visit the Apuan Alps, where the local economy is still based on the hard work of “Marble Extraction”. You will support this local economy, while enjoying the beautiful landscape and admiring the great pieces of art taking life from the marble. You will admire one of the most beautiful Italian landscapes at “Le 5 Terre” and visit these little villages by the best point of view: walking. Your accommodation will be in a beautiful 5 stars hotel, located in an old restored building, one of the few luxury hotels in Italy fully certified as “Eco- Hotel” by Legambiente Turismo.
As our Tours are designed exclusively for very small groups (from 6 to maximum 12 travelers), this allows travelers to get in close contact with the places visited, easily interact with local people, while not overburdening them with visitors. This means greater opportunity for cross-cultural understanding.
We plan our tour calendar to coincide with local events and celebrations. Special events open windows into the local culture, and the money spent on food and crafts stays in the community. In every tour we include one or more “Slow Food” Restaurants (Slow Food is an Italian Association, founder of the international "Slow Food" movement, whose aim is to combat fast-food globalization by promoting local products, traditional cuisines and ways of life).
We participate to local Chambers of Commerce Programs aimed to sustain the tradition and the work from small local artisans and in every Tour we include visits to local artisans workshops: this enables travellers to understand the tradition and buy true handmade crafts from local artisans; and enables artisans to show their talent and get a fair reward for their valuable work.
Environment
Our office building is solar powered: 100% of the energy we use for our office operations is produced by solar panels. We strive to have a paperless office. We are very careful not to waste any paper for our prints (and we always use both sides of each paper sheet); we try to minimize the use of paper brochures. We recycle all our waste (paper, plastic, organic). We drink “filtered” tap water instead than bottled water, that allows us to reduce of 95% the use of plastic bottles.
Our Tours are designed exclusively for very small groups (from 6 to maximum 12 travelers). Small groups allow travelers to get in close contact with the places visited, easily interact with local people, while not overburdening them with visitors. This means greater opportunity for cross-cultural understanding. Small groups have a much “softer” impact on the environment: less pollution (they travel by small bus and public transportation rather than by a large coach; walking tours can be more easily organized); less waste (it is easier to give waste guidelines and control a small group of people).
We only use small hotels, ones that have a much lower impact on the environment. We prefer accommodations that formally adhere to the sustainable tourism principles or that can demonstrate efforts to reduce their environmental impact. We use as reference the guidelines indicated by “Legambiente Turismo”: waste reduction, through less single portions versus more refillable containers and separate waste collection; water saving, through saving appliances and indications to customers for rational use; certified-quality detergents and indication to customers for rational use; energy saving through energy saving lamps and appliances; healthy food (local fresh products; typical local food; organic food); noise abatement.
Our local guides agree with our responsible tourism principles and will help the travelers to respect the environment while enjoying their visits (encourage travelers not to litter, by indicating the proper way to recycle waste, even in public areas; encourage travelers to respect the places they visit: art pieces, architecture, environment).
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