Newmarket Holidays has created a ‘Travel for Good’ hub to highlight the steps the operator is taking to improve its global impact.
Information on initiatives the escorted touring company is taking to reduce its carbon footprint is featured.
The new hub will also explore how the company’s holidays contribute to global wealth redistribution and the wellbeing and mental health of its customers.
It will highlight carbon reduction and offsetting efforts, including details on how brochures are carbon balanced in paper and production with emissions offset with the World Land Trust (WLT) through the protection of threatened habitats and regeneration of degraded habitats.
Ten responsible travel tips for customers are included together with a breakdown of the company’s community, environmental and social impacts.
The hub covers tours that have positive impacts on customers and the people and places they visit – from wildlife conservation projects in South Africa to community projects in the villages of Cambodia.
‘Travel for Good’ also includes a question and answer with chief executive Niel Alobaidi on responsibility and wellbeing in the travel industry.
He said: “We all know that there are areas where the travel industry has work to do to become truly sustainable, but I think it sometimes gets a bit lost that the industry does do a lot of good, whether that be through the hundreds of millions of people it employs all around the world, either directly or indirectly, to the redistribution of global wealth from richer places to poorer places.
“It also provides a lot of social benefits to those lucky enough to experience travelling to new places.
“As such this project is all about acknowledging that we have a lot to do and creating a plan to deliver positive change, but also sharing the importance of global travel.”
He added: “We are still quite early into this process and it is important to recognise that it is now a specific area of strategic focus for the business.
“We have selected a team of people from across the business who are assigned with identifying, prioritising, and delivering a range of initiatives focused on responsibility and sustainability.
“We are also working with an external specialist to measure our carbon footprint and help us identify where we can make the biggest differences most quickly and enable us to set some more specific goals.”
Head of long-haul Kathy Vigolo said: “My personal favourite positive impacts tour is Costa Rica – Wildlife, Rainforest and Caribbean Beach.
“Costa Rica is a country that has consistently shown great care and devotion in preserving its land, flora, fauna and culture and is one of the world leaders for sustainable tourism, prioritising eco-tourism and nature preservation.”