Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam family holiday

Planet

Our environmental commitments include working closely with suppliers to encourage and support good policies on environmental protection and wildlife conservation. Our provider for the Halong / Bai Tu Long Bay cruise in this tour, Dragon Legend Cruise, has long been a proactive player in efforts to ensure that cruise tourism in the greater Halong area has a net positive effect on the local community, in which environmental protection and efforts to prevent pollution and remove rubbish from the sea are a big part.

Whenever possible we work with suppliers who have a demonstrated commitment to environmental sustainability – by, for example, avoiding single-use plastics. We are currently working with our transport providers here in Vietnam to supply drinking water tanks in all vehicles to support our travellers using refillable bottles. Both our offices in Vietnam are participating refill stations in the RefillMyBottle (https://refillmybottle.com) program, offering a feasible alternative to the ubiquitous plastic bottles which are such a big part of the litter problem in our region.

This tour also includes an amazing experience with elephants at Mandalao Elephant Conservation in Laos. We are very happy to be able to cooperate with Mandalao, as we fully support their efforts to provide a non-riding experience allowing visitors to connect with elephants within their natural environment, to as great an extent as possible. The emphasis on education, on protecting both domesticated elephants and those in the wild, and successful cultivation of sustainable relationships with the local community, are all reasons why we choose to offer this experience on our tours.

People

As a local tour company in Vietnam, we well understand that tourism growth does not always translate into increased opportunity for local people. As a result, we work hard to ensure that our tours play a part in putting tourism income into the hands of local people. In order to accomplish this, we place a strong emphasis on:
- Employing local guides, who have the best knowledge of and insight into the local communities we visit, and can best connect visitors with local people. On this tour, as on all our tours, you will have a different guide in each region, as all our guides specialize in the area of their expertise.
- Cooperating with other locally run suppliers, such as local artisan cooperatives which we rely on to provide authentic traditional gifts for travellers. We also use locally-run restaurants when quality options are available, as well as charity association restaurants, such as Hoa Sua or Koto in Hanoi, which provide invaluable vocational training for disadvantaged local youth.
- Mekong Rustic, our provider for the Mekong Delta portion of this tour, focuses on low-impact tours which positively impact both visitor and host, working to create sustainable tourism opportunities embedded within local communities. The experience for the visitor is an authentic window into local life, and locals benefit through fair-wage jobs and training offered, as well as through direct support such as scholarship programs for students and funding housing construction for the poor.
We are an active member of The Responsible Travel Club of Vietnam (RTC) and adhere to the RTC programme and policy to support locals.