G Adventures is introducing an evaluation score for its trips to indicate what percentage of a tour’s local expenditure remains in the local economy.
The new ‘Ripple Score’ has been developed with the help of Sustainable Travel International and the adventure operator’s non-profit partner Planeterra Foundation as well as a supply chain analysis survey.
The average Ripple Score across G Adventures’ 640 scored trips is 93, meaning that 93% of the money spent in-destination across these tours is spent with locally-owned businesses, benefitting local people.
As a result of the survey, 640 of around 700 trips have been given a Ripple Score. These scores feature alongside each trip on the G Adventures website in time for World Tourism Day today (Thursday).
They will also be published in G Adventures’ 2019 brochures which are available from mid-November
The company’s social enterprise and responsible travel director, Jamie Sweeting, described the Ripple Score as a way to provide transparency for its travellers, and to drive the travel industry forward in terms of accountability.
“As leaders in responsible travel, it’s our duty to be transparent about how often we use local services on each of our tours,” he said.
“As well as educating our travellers about the positive impact they can have through travel, we want to push the industry forward so our suppliers and other operators become more accountable for their local economic and social impact.
“Over the past few years, we have undertaken a thorough analysis of our supply chain to find out how many of our suppliers are majority locally-owned, and thus how much money stays in the destination.
“When travellers use local businesses it has a positive economic and social impact on communities, and we seek to encourage more of this.”