Ace the Himalaya

Aims
Ace the Himalaya is committed to responsible travel and sustainable tourism. Our main focus is to ensure that our travel destinations, Nepal, Tibet and Bhutan continue their natural and cultural diversity for generations to come. Allowing every traveller to make a positive contribution to the people and places we visit.

Economic responsibility
Ethnic tourism
We at Ace the Himalaya believe in contributing to the reduction of poverty by encouraging protection to preserve cultural heritage, high mountain regions, nature reserves, and parklands with constant and improvements to monuments, shrines, museums as well as historic sites which will enhance its beneficial impact on the local economy. We get great satisfaction out of sharing our amazing country with you.

• Along our tours and treks we use locally owned hotels and lodges to insure the local community benefits directly.
• Our transportation is locally owned and wherever possible we minimize the use of fuel resulting in pollution, by other means of transport.
• Ace the Himalaya supports local economy and businesses by visiting locally owned shops, restaurants, and markets on our tours.
• All our tours guides and porters are from the local communities that we travel in.

Porter trekking policy
Ace the Himalaya understands and appreciates the hard work the guides and porters perform. Therefore we treat and obey the following Guide, Porter Policy to ensure the conditions for our guides and porters are of a humane standard. We work towards eliminating avoidable illness, injury and death. If you employ our guides or porters and follow our guidelines for ethical trekking and treat them as you would like to be treated yourself.

• All our Guides and Porters receive Medical care when ill or injured.
• We provide basic accommodation for our guides and porters or tent with sleeping gear, and they are provided food and warm drinks.
• We have insurance policies for each of our employees.
• We provide appropriate clothing for each season and altitude, ensuring protection from cold, rain and snow. This means windproof jackets, trousers, fleece jacket, long johns, suitable footwear, socks, hat, gloves and sunglasses.
• We never overload our porters for us it’s not all about making money we strive on being able to employ local people; we respect and treat each and every one of our employees with the up most respect.

Environmental responsibility
We have adopted eco green practices and taken on the role of educating our staff to ensure they follow our company guidelines while helping to deliver improved ways of traveling, by minimizing our impact on the environment. With each and every one of our treks or tours we are always conscious of the impact that we have on the environment and limit our group numbers to a maximum of 15 at any one time.

• At the office we run energy saving bulbs and turn off any un-necessary electricity, each night we switch all power sources, including computers at the power point.
• As conscious business owners we have minimized our paper output by creating online brochures and e-newsletters.
• Along our tours and treks we use stainless mugs for tea and coffee to reduce paper wastage.
• We use gas for cooking and heating purposes to protect the forest by eliminating wood fires while reducing gas emissions.
• Rubbish is placed in bins provided, unless where are at high altitudes then we Porter the rubbish out, to main city where it can be disposed of correctly.
• We ask that trekkers and tour groups remove unnecessary packaging and store items in reusable containers
• Leave the campsite area clean and free of rubbish and plan to leave the site in better condition than we found it..
• Don’t pollute water source, with soap or rubbish wastage.
• Every one of our employees minimizes the water usage.
• We protect natural aspects and avoid creating new trails across switchbacks, fields and in high fragile areas.
• We request that our clients bring water canisters to re-use for boiled/treated water instead of buying bottled water.

Social responsibility
As you are traveling to gain an insight into the Himalayan existence, while observing the different cultures and heritage of the Himalayas, there are many aspects to Indigenous traditions we ask that you observe and respect the local way of life, after all this is what you have come to experience. Our employees and clients are given a guideline list to follow of the acceptable behaviors and practices as we have listed.

• In the developing world begging is one of the harsh realities of poverty in this country; most communities and Ace the Himalaya believe it should NOT be encouraged.
• If you want to make a difference and support the local community in some way, we are associated with the Sambhav Nepal Foundation, with many children benefiting from your kind donation. Please don’t hand out pens, sweets, chocolate or anything else as this only encourages the children at every opportunity to ask the westerner and it’s not something we want to promote.
• As we are dedicated to giving something back to the local community the Sambhav Nepal Foundation is a registered Nepalese charity the Ace the Himalaya are associated with. With the foundation our aim is to offer English Medium schooling and health services for a remote isolated region of Gorkha. For more information please go to the website www.sambhavnepal.org
• Nudity is completely unacceptable for local cultures. Swimming, costumes should be conservative and it is acceptable to wear a sarong or t-shirt over a swimsuit.
• As for a dress code, you should be conservative in your dress code as locals do get offended by the sight of tourists wearing tight fitting, skimpy clothes. Shorts, singlets are not advisable at any time and must not be worn to visit monasteries, dzongs and other religious institutions. These are offensive to locals, especially on women.
• You will have many photo opportunities please ask if it is ok to take someone’s photo. Photography in, monasteries, shrine rooms of dzongs and religious institutions is generally not permitted but outdoor photography is permitted. To be sure when visiting such places, ask your guide. We do not believe in discriminating against any person because of their color, sex, religion, nationality, race, age or size.
• Public displays of affection even kissing and holding hands is considered confronting and should be saved for later. It is rare to see couples displaying affection for each other.