We aim to:

Reduce the negative and increase the positive impacts that our company’s operational practices have on the social and physical environment of our areas of our operation.

Inform and demonstrate to our staff, suppliers and guests our commitment to social and environmental best practice.

Educate and inform our guests about responsible travel and any beneficial actions they might take outside of their travel with our company.

Differentiate our product from other operators and add true value to the quality experiences we offer by virtue of continually improving our responsible travel performance.

Ensure the above will not be to the detriment, but to the benefit of our core mission – to provide immersive, personal, unique and thoughtfully-crafted travel experiences to our guests.

We will undertake the following:

Brief our guests on the cultural norms for each place they will travel through. It takes very little to ensure that we aren’t offending people by being insensitive to their culture, and knowing the basics will help our guests get the most out of their experience.

Provide accurate pre-trip information concerning the social and political situation in the destination country.

Inform our guests about how and why purchasing locally produced goods and services (such as souvenirs, crafts etc) benefits local communities.

Suggest measures that can reduce water consumption in the destination(s) and why it is important.

Provide travellers with relevant suggestions to minimise damage to the environment, wildlife and marine ecosystems.

Suggest destination visits to appropriate local social projects with direct or indirect benefits to the host community

We separate and recycle all office waste, are largely paper-free and use 100 per cent recycled paper for the printing we are obliged to do.

We choose not to print annual brochures and where printed literature is required by a guest for one reason or another, this is done on a print-on-demand basis only.

Our office procures energy from 100 per cent renewable sources.

Our in-country packs, delivered within a month of departure, provide suggestions on how guests can reduce their impact on and damage to the environment, wildlife and marine ecosystems.

Most – if not all – of our trips include the opportunity to visit local environmental projects, and some trips are based around local wildlife and conservation projects. The environmental benefits of such visits are provided in the in-country pack.

Wherever possible we will choose operators, guesthouses and suppliers who use renewable energy.

We will never encourage the use of firewood or other wild collection of unsustainable timber/brush for fires where this can have a negative impact on the local ecosystem.

We will not litter, nor permit our guests to litter, and we will encourage resource reduction, re-use and recycling at every possible stage.

We will discourage and report any instances of animal cruelty we encounter along our routes and will, wherever possible, avoid the use of animals in any instance that is considered exploitative.

We encourage frugal use of fresh water and discourage the spoiling of water sources by any means. We encourage the use of water filtration bottles rather than single-use plastic.

Where filtered water is necessary, we will purchase only in bulk containers and request that wherever it is available, our local partners supply filtered water in the same way.

We always employ local guides to accompany groups visiting local communities. Wherever possible, we work with people from a local community to ensure that maximum economic benefits, skills and knowledge are retained in that community, and that our guests derive the maximum understanding of each community visited.

We will contribute to the training of local guides and suppliers in good practice, with particular reference to our Responsible Tourism policy.

All of our trips and tours are immersive – they are designed to be of net benefit to each community that we visit. In this way we not only always employ local guides, drivers and suppliers but often work with local providers to ensure that services provided are utilising local resources as far as is possible.

We stay as often as possible with local people to encourage cultural exchange, to give our guests the best possible cultural experience and to ensure that economic benefits are retained locally within a circular economy.

All guests are provided with accurate pre-trip information on the social and political situation in each destination. This is part of our in-country information pack, delivered within 1 month of departure date.

The in-country information pack also includes details on cultural sensitivity, local practices and folklore where appropriate and the basics of the local languages that can be expected along their route.

We exert direct control over our itineraries, all of which use the services of local guides, drivers and interpreters. This ensures not only that our guests are being culturally and socially sympathetic, but that both the host community and our guests have the greatest chance to learn from one another.

All trips include suggestions as to which local social projects may be visited on the route. It may be that we are staying within such a social project, or perhaps it might be available in a destination as an additional activity.

We travel in many places that few tourists reach and where foreigners are still a welcome novelty, and the money we spend there goes to families and rural communities who really need it. We also run expeditions in some places where the positive stories we bring back help, in a small way, change people’s opinions for the better.

We ascribe to the UNWTO (United Nations Word Tourism Organisation) Guidelines for Sustainable Development of Tourism. These are:

Make optimal use of environmental resources that constitute a key element in tourism development, maintaining essential ecological processes and helping to conserve natural heritage and biodiversity.

Respect the socio-cultural authenticity of host communities, conserve their built and living cultural heritage and traditional values, and contribute to inter-cultural understanding and tolerance.

Ensure viable, long-term economic operations, providing socio-economic benefits to all stakeholders that are fairly distributed, including stable employment and income-earning opportunities and social services to host communities, and contributing to poverty alleviation.

We also support the principles of the UNWTO Global Code of Ethics for Tourism.

The United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) has published a specific action plan on the development of tourism along the Silk Road and we take an active interest in this document and how it is being applied.