Explore has been acknowledged for its deep-seated commitment to responsible travel (RT) by being awarded the Travel Editors’ Green Award of the Year accolade at the Travel Press Awards last Thursday, 25th November.
The award was made all the more prestigious by the fact that it was judged by travel media royalty – Graham Boynton, Group Travel Editor of the Telegraph Media Group and Simon Calder, Senior Travel Editor of the Independent. Explore faced tough competition from a shortlist of finalists consisting of Greentraveller.co.uk, Snowcarbon.co.uk, Tourism-vision.com and Thomas Cook UK and Ireland.
Since Explore launched 30 years ago, RT has remained central to its ethos. The adventure travel company prides itself on its holistic, inherent approach that is integrated into every aspect of its workings – both overseas and in the Farnborough-based head office.
Here are just a few examples of Explore’s RT approach:
- Responsible tourism is built into every tour. The vast majority of these take place on a bed and breakfast basis, meaning that customers spend approximately ?9 million in local economies by eating and drinking in local restaurants and taking excursions with local operators. Through working with local operators (rather than with companies owned by internationals), the company spends over ?16 million in the local economies in which it operates
- Over the last few years, Explore has increased its emphasis on using local leaders, which now account for 90% of its tour leaders, with the remaining 10% based in the UK. This allows more money to stay local. As a result of Explore’s overseas training programme, skill levels have also increased locally
- Explore is the only company of its size to CO2 offset all flights for customers, tour leaders and staff at no extra cost to its customers. The company has spent close to ?500,000 on CO2 offsets in the last three years. To date, this has supported hydroelectricity schemes in China and Russia, as well as energy-efficient stoves in India
- Local charities and initiatives continue to be supported and promoted. One example is that Explore issues a complimentary hemp bag to all customers going to South-East Asia, to reduce the use of plastic bags. The company works with dozens of local charities in its tour regions
- In head office, everything from paper to bras are recycled; the company’s RT policy is central to the induction programme of new staff and, on a recent ‘Get to work by any means but car’ day, one staff member walked 30 miles rather than drive
John Telfer, Product and Operations Director at Explore, commented, “Some operators view RT as a ‘nice to have’ rather than a necessity, especially in the current climate of economic austerity. However, as a tour operator that encourages people to travel, we have a duty of care to the areas we visit and the communities that we come into contact with. We want to be welcomed back and we don’t want to spoil the places for future travellers.”
He continued, “Over the last few years, many RT-related initiatives within our industry have been tarnished by a reputation of green-wash, or ignored because of customer apathy. We don’t ‘fluff’ about what we do – we have been active in this field long before the term ‘Corporate Social Responsibility’ was even coined. We hope this prestigious award will go someway in showing people how committed we are in this sphere and how important RT is to the future of world travel.”
For more information/images/interview please contact: Stella Brown, Explore PR Officer – [email protected] www.explore.co.uk
Foto Flickr