Responsible Travel

Make a positive impact

These tours are a meeting of many worlds designed to provoke questions and stimulate debate. They are about taking those who have many life choices and freedoms to meet those who have few, in a way that builds bridges and understanding between people. As a small but essential by-product, we aim to leave those we visit better off and more empowered than before.

Our tours are designed to be run responsibly and seek to:

• respect all people - both travellers and those who provide services to them

• work with local partners in long-term relationships ensuring local people benefit economically and socially from our visits

• ensure that guides and others involved are paid a fair wage

• respect the environment, minimise impact on resources and the natural environment and encourage recycling where possible

• respect local culture and traditions and report on our impact on them

• build links with locally-based tourism projects that have a pro-poor focus

• operate in line with all Traidcraft’s existing best practice policies towards suppliers

• ensure travellers are given advice on how they can travel more responsibly

We make no grand claims for how these tours will change the world, but we do believe that they will change those who go on them and those who are visited by them.
 

Travelling with awareness 

The environmental impact of travelling can be significant, not least when it involves flying. We believe meaningful impact in the fight against climate change can only be achieved by us all lowering our carbon footprint, so carbon offsetting alone is not the long term solution. 

WWF has a footprint calculator that helps you calculate your carbon footprint and makes suggestions on reducing it. Click here to find out more 
  
Our Travellers Code has lots of tips and suggestions for being a responsible traveller. We send the code to everyone travelling with us on our tours and you can access it on our website by clicking here
 

Our footprint

Both Traidcraft and Skedaddle have a recycling scheme for a variety of materials, including waste paper, packaging and print cartridges. We use FSC paper and we are reducing our volume of print materials (lower quantities and smaller size brochures).

We encourage staff to cycle, walk or use public transport to get to work. Skedaddle provide staff with a bike free of charge and Traidcraft has signed up to the government's Cycle to Work scheme. In the UK, staff use public transport as the preferred means of travelling longer distances.

Making a contribution

Over 60% of the land-only cost of your holiday goes into the local economy and in addition a contribution equivalent to a minimum of 4% goes to producers and projects visited. 

It is often the poorest and most vulnerable who suffer most from the impact of climate change and pollution. Traidcraft Exchange believes in supporting trade and business to become environmentally responsible and climate resilient. When you make a booking you can choose to donate an extra 1% to support their work. To find out more about Traidcraft Exchange, visit www.traidcraft.org.uk 
 

Our Responsible Tourism Policy 

Global adventures start with a local perspective. Saddle Skedaddle Cycling Holidays and Meet the People Tours are designed to provide a quality experience for our customer while respecting the environment, the traditions, way of life and cultural practices of the local people and their country and contribute positively to the local economy.
 
Our holidays enable people to travel at a pace only small groups allow, making the most of what each country has to offer while sensitively interacting with its people, their way of life and their natural environment. We recognise that in operating our holidays we have a responsibility to respect other people’s places and ways of life. As such our aim is to be responsible in the way we impact on a destination. We will inform our clients about our travel policy and encourage them to participate through their own actions and activities. Through our own practices and through work with our suppliers and partners we will aim to achieve the following: 
 

Protect the Environment and conserve natural resources

• Encourage our staff to cycle, walk or use public transport to work.

• Operate recycle paper systems in the office and use print cartridges that are recycled.

• Use recycled and environmentally friendly paper for our promotional publications and letter-head.

• Provide travellers with Travellers Codes that encourage the reduction of water usage, systems for collecting, recycling or safe disposal of litter and relevant suggestions to minimise damage to the environment, wildlife and marine ecosystems.

• In each destination we will aim to work with or encourage local destination partners to work with appropriate local projects with direct or indirect environmental benefits.

• We will design holidays with a maximum group size of 12 to 15 people minimising both the social and environmental impact.

• While recognising the need for motor vehicle support and back up in certain circumstances we will where possible use locally owned and appropriate vehicles and look to minimise their impact on the natural environment.
   

Provide economic benefits to the people and places we visit

• In all our destinations we will work with small local destination companies or locally based people that contribute fully to the local economy and employ local guides.

• We will aim to work with these partners on a long-term basis developing close, transparent and mutually beneficial working relationships.

• We aim to ensure that the local supplier, their employees and guides receive a fair wage for their activities measured by locally appropriate standards.

• Working with local people in designing itineraries and holidays we will aim to use small locally owned accommodation, equipment and food providers that employ local people.

• In each destination we will inform travellers of the ways in which they can do more to ensure their purchases or activities benefit the local economy.
   

Respect local cultures and communities

• In all our destinations we work with smaller local suppliers or locally based people that employ local guides who understand and work with local communities to provide authentic experiences in a sensitive way.

• We will provide travellers with accurate pre-trip information on the social and political situation and with suggestions of ways to minimise negative impacts on local cultures.

• Where appropriate our holidays will involve local guides to accompany visits to local communities

• Working with local people in the design of our holidays we will only visit areas where local people are happy to be visited and do so in a way that supports understanding of the local community.

• In each destination we will inform travellers of the ways in which they can do more to benefit local social projects with direct or indirect benefits to the host community.

As a company, within the constraints of our organisation’s size, we will encourage and support practices and policies that ensure that the benefits of the world’s tourism industry are maximised for the local economies and ideally have a positive impact on the broader development and specifically poverty of the countries visited.

Developing responsible tourism policy and tours is an ongoing process. Let us know your thoughts on our tours and how you feel they could be more responsible and on our policy more generally. Email [email protected]