G Adventures has introduced a ‘Vaccinated Tours’ programme, on which the tour guide and all travellers will be fully vaccinated against Covid-19.
The operator has also launched ‘Travel-Ready’ tours, recognising that vaccination programmes for many destinations are slower than in other countries.
The ‘Travel Ready’ tours will have guides and clients who must have either received a full Covid-19 vaccination or have a negative PCR test within 96 hours before the first day of their tour’s departure.
The operator is also assisting guides to access vaccines in their home countries.
The new ranges come after a survey by G Adventures which found 56% of travellers said having a vaccinated guide [‘chief experience officer’] was more important to them than their fellow travellers being fully vaccinated.
Of the tours departing in October, 304 departures will be Vaccinated Tours and 64 will be Travel-Ready.
An icon will be featured next to each trip on the operator’s website to indicate the category of tour.
Jeff Russill, chief operating officer at G Adventures, said: “By October we will have successfully, and safely, run close to 1,000 tours since September 2020…supporting employment and boosting the local economies of countries that are dependent on tourism, such as Costa Rica, Ecuador, Egypt, Morocco, Peru and Kenya.
“As a global operator, we also want to ensure travel equity for those travellers who haven’t been able to be vaccinated as yet due to their age and/or home country, as we have travellers from more than 160 countries join our trips.
“We expect vaccination rates to increase in most destinations later this year, and, as they do, we will be operating even more Vaccinated Tours.”