Rare wildlife holiday, Costa Rica

Planet

CARBON REDUCTION

Costa Rica is a very small country and very accessible, so ground transportation is used in 90% of the trips. The suppliers we work with need to have all legal requirements in place, prove that they have energy savings systems. We work with preferred suppliers that train and hire local guides and drivers and in most cases vehicles should not be more than 2 years old thus making sure efficiency is paramount with fuel consumption and Carbon output.
Preferred suppliers have the CST certification recognition.

All suppliers we use go under a sustainability evaluation process we conduct through our Horizontes Foundation where we evaluate:
Environmental performance; social commitment and financial sustainability.

We also prefer accommodations certified by the local scheme CST. This way we make sure they are saving energy, using alternative energies like solar or biomass and that there is also a huge component on giving back to local communities.

Depending on the age and disposition, we have a broad range of activities where human powered transport is the main attraction on a day to day basis. Walking tours, cycling tours, every destination has different alternatives for physical activity. Although we are not an ‘adventure company’ we can arrange multi day trips where only human power is used for transport.

We have a How to be a Sustainable Traveller Guide with recommendations about physical activity, respect for local cultures and taking care of ecosystems.
Car Rentals have these options available, and their offer is growing gradually but currently the charging facilities are limited to safely offer long trips this way but that is being worked on.

Gastronomy in general has evolved in Costa Rica in the last 15 years, and vegan options are available in almost every hotel. There are restaurants available in most of the destinations serving vegetarian, vegan, farm to table menus. Most of accommodations source locally, we also work with TUMODELO, a national program that promotes sourcing locally and minimizing waste.

ENVIRONMENT AND WILDLIFE

Through the Horizontes Foundation we support more than 70 local NGOs and institutions dedicated to improving livelihoods and saving ecosystems.
We launched the Wanna Help campaign with the Horizontes Foundations in other to gather funds from travellers for local communities in need.
We have a pool of about 100 freelance tour guides that have been working with us for many years. All our tour guides have to comply with government regulations and licenses. Many of these guides are from local communities. We have on-going training for them and every year we organize a Tour Guide Training Course of 3 to 4 days for updates, new trends and more relevant topics.

We currently have our own yearly evaluation, energy and water savings are key. Recycling programs, reductions plans, we evaluate every detail. And for those suppliers having the CST certification make it easier to control.

We give priority to suppliers complying with Good Practices. And since 54% of our land in protected, we do actively promote visits and national parks and protected areas.

All entrance fees to national parks and protected areas are included in the final price. We do not only use local guides, but we also have a training program for them, so they can comply with quality and performance levels. We have a broad list of tours and activities that promote voluntourism and community projects.

People

LOCAL ECONOMY

About 60% of the lodging infrastructure in Costa Rica is owned by locals. We also work with over 22 organized communities with homestays.
There is an integral plan for each community that we have developed For example, the community of Mojollones in Turrialba is a project where we are supporting local trough tourism visits from colleges, universities and groups of students dedicated to voluntourism. In the Osa Peninsula we work with 7 different communities empowering locals with small enterprises that we promote internationally as a sustainable itinerary. All these work involves educating locals, promoting capabilities, training local guides, educating about sustainability standards and more.


EMPLOYMENT, INCLUSIVITY AND DIVERSITY

In our office 100% are Costa Ricans. Same with suppliers in the different regions, and there are immigrants that comply with all the immigration requirements.
Through the Horizontes Foundation, we have worked with a group of 1500 women around Costa Rica providing opportunities for better livelihoods. All of them had no opportunities to find decent jobs. At the moment, with our travellers, we are helping many of their small enterprises thrive.
Every employee working with us comply the wages range and we work only with suppliers that comply as well. We work hand in hand with the International Gay and Lesbian Association with training to our staff, guides and suppliers. Depending on each case we have specialists that can better help travellers with limitations.