Responsible Travel membership criteria
WHAT IS A RESPONSIBLE TRAVEL POLICY?
A Responsible Travel policy lays out your businesses commitment towards practices and standards designed to improve the sustainability of your operations. Sustainability is an aspiration that can only be realized if we take responsibility for our impacts.
At Responsible Travel we operate a two-step screening process. Firstly, at application stage where we screen companies and their responsible travel policies and secondly, if accepted onto the site, where we screen how their trips make a difference.
DEVELOPING YOUR RESPONSIBLE TRAVEL POLICY
We recommend that you consult as many relevant stakeholders as possible. The list could include your staff, local communities, suppliers, conservationists and experts in the relevant areas of operation. Look at other company's policies, all members of Responsible Travel have their policy displayed on the site.
We ask that each prospective member provides us with the following (policy requirements can be built into a single document representing the companies responsible travel policy for staff and suppliers:
Your policy
The emphasis of your policy will depend on your area of operation with different products requiring different forms of responsibility.
However, at Responsible Travel we believe that three things matter more than anything else and are relevant to the vast majority of travel companies:
- Reducing carbon emissions
- Protecting and restoring nature and biodiversity (relevant to all vacations)
- Providing local benefits from tourism, especially to the marginalized.
We would like your policy to identify your commitment in each of these three areas. Some specific suggestions are shown below (as well as some wider suggestions). We do not expect you to have addressed all the points below in your policy.
Reducing carbon emissions
Measurement
- Renewable energy use in accommodations.
- Shared local transport (buses or trains that effectively reduce CO2 per person).
- Human powered transport (walking, cycling, kayaking, etc).
- Electric cars or other forms of transport.
- Vegetarian and vegan food availability.
- Accommodations with food waste plans.
- Do you offer/suggest that customers pay to increase the percentage of sustainable aviation fuel used in order to reduce CO2 emissions flying? More information here from KLM.
- IMPORTANT but not applicable to all, efforts to reduce flying – rail options or reduction in avoidable internal flights.
Measurement
- Scope 1,2 or 3 carbon emissions.
Protecting and restoring nature and biodiversity
- Choosing/screening accommodation with good environmental standards.
- Pollution (solid, noise, air), water reduction and rainwater harvesting, building materials, plastic reduction, renewable energy.
- Restoring nature in and around their property.
- Visiting and contributing entry fees to Parks or Protected Areas.
- Funding environmental or wildlife NGO’s.
- Have you considered adding an opt out conservation fee to each trip for named NGO’s?
- Policies to reduce (or switch to certified) palm oil, soy and forestry products (wood, paper).
- Providing customers with information about reducing their impacts on nature (our film as an example). May feature plastics.
- Expert nature guides from the local community and how are they qualified?
- Assessing risks from invasive species.
- Animal welfare guidelines.
- IMPORTANT but not applicable to all, efforts to reduce flying – rail options or reduction in avoidable internal flights.
Providing local benefits from tourism, especially to the marginalized
- Locally owned accommodations (vs international chains) and restaurants.
- Maximizing other local economic opportunities – local guides, craft or cooperative markets, paid for village visits, local produce and manufacturers.
- Providing income generating and employment opportunities for people who are often excluded or marginalized – for example extremely poor, those with a disability, indigenous people, women.
- Adopt the principles of the ILO guidelines on decent work and socially responsible tourism including – social security, enabling transitions from informal to formal employment, decent jobs for young people.
- Support for social projects with direct or indirect benefits to the host community.
- Workplace diversity strategy.
- Provide travelers with accurate pre-trip information on the social and political situation in each destination and suggestions of ways to minimize negative impacts on local cultures.
- Operate a Trip for a Trip scheme, providing day trips for disadvantaged local children? Our scheme.
TERMS AND CONDITIONS
Registration Terms
Tour Operators who have satisfied the minimum requirements for pre-registration will be admitted as members of Responsible Travel upon agreement to the following:
Tour operator policy and practice, as provided for pre-registration, will be published by Responsible Travel to demonstrate how the company meets responsible travel standards. Members will also be encouraged to provide additional stories for publication on the site, to celebrate best practice and to differentiate their own products from those of other operators.
Responsible Travel will publish travelers' feedback on the site. In the case of negative feedback, Responsible Travel will contact the operator prior to publication so that the operator can write a reply for simultaneous publication. Travelers' feedback will remain anonymous.
In the event of a member tour operator being found to have misrepresented their responsible travel practices, they will be provided with the opportunity to correct this. Should they fail to do so, they will be removed from the site and their membership fees returned. Should the member disagree with such an action, Responsible Travel will refer the decision to an arbitration committee consisting of a director of Responsible Travel, an elected tour operator member and an external arbitrator. The decision of the arbitration committee will be final.
Tour operators will respond to inquiries generated by Responsible Travel within 2 days. In the event of Responsible Travel receiving information from travelers of inadequate response time, members will be given the opportunity to rectify the situation. Should they fail to do so, they will be removed from the site and their membership fees returned. Should the member disagree with such an action, Responsible Travel will refer the decision to its arbitration committee.
Admission
Tour operators meeting the pre-registration criteria and agreeing to the registration terms will be admitted to the Responsible Travel site. All information to be published will be made privately available to the tour operator member before it goes live.
Membership will be reviewed annually except in the event of circumstances as detailed in the registration terms given above. Responsible Travel reserves the right to improve and evolve the standard criteria of responsible travel based on feedback from members and travelers
Use of the Responsible Travel logo
Tour operators who have passed the minimum Responsible Travel criteria and have been accepted as members are encouraged to use the Responsible Travel logo in the marketing of their responsible travel products. The logo may only be used in the format provided by Responsible Travel and only in association with products that meet all the designated criteria. Tour operators may not use the logo as a general endorsement of their company or products.
