ODYSSEY WORLD RESPONSIBLE TOURISM POLICY

Odyssey World is a small family run company specialising in tailor-made and escorted tours to Africa, Arabia and Asia. Experts in our field, we have all lived and worked in the areas we feature – so we know these countries intimately. As such we are dedicated to ensuring that our holidays minimise environmental and social impact upon the destinations we love and maximise the economic benefits wherever possible. We work hard to ensure that the guidelines we set in place with our local operators are being adhered to at all times.

The Travel Industry Climate Programme

Reduce my Footprint has been created by the travel industry to mitigate the effects of travel on climate change. Every day the normal activities of our lives have a direct impact on the volumes of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) and other “greenhouse gases” released into the atmosphere. Our personal contribution to these emissions is often referred to as our “carbon footprint”.

The Reduce My Footprint website provides you with a way to understand the impacts we all have, and also to calculate the CO2 emissions created by your travel plans. This provides the basis for you to contribute toward offsetting these CO2 emissions through various projects throughout the world.

Click here to reduce your footprint.

Economic Responsibility:

By following the guidelines below, we help to ensure that a large percentage of the revenue from our holidays goes straight into the local community of the destinations we feature:

- We only employ local tour agencies on the ground. As the majority of our tours are tailor-made, we only work with local suppliers who in turn only use local guides and drivers.

- Wherever possible we work with small, locally owned and/or family-run hotels and lodges.

- Clients are actively encouraged to use local restaurants and establishments. Our tours include regular stops at locally owned cafés and restaurants to improve local revenue. We also offer the chance for our clients to stay with locals in villages or desert camps etc.

- We inform clients about local markets where they can buy souvenirs from so they can purchase locally made products direct from the local people. We also point out that they should always bargain with humour and bear in mind that a small cash saving to them could be a significant amount of money to the seller.

- We offer clients the option to donate to the Ras al-Jinz Scientific & Visitors Centre in Oman. Ras al–Jinz houses one of the largest nesting areas for Green Turtles in the Indian Ocean. The Ras al-Jinz Sea Turtle and Nature Reserve and the Ras al-Hadd National Scenic Reserve were combined to better protect Oman’s turtles and their natural environment. The total area now protected is 120kms, with 45kms of coastline, extending for 1km into the sea.

Environmental Responsibility:

- We send our clients a ‘Code of Conduct’ information sheet prior to travel, advising them of the cultural and environmental impacts of their activities. As part of the code we advise them on how to respect the local environment to help preserve it for future generations.

- We work with our suppliers to ensure that tour group sizes are determined by what is appropriate for the area e.g. we make sure wildlife tours do not impact negatively on the surrounding environment.

- We ask our clients to always consider ways in which they can help to conserve water locally in the destinations we feature – especially in Africa.

- Where ever possible, we encourage our clients to stay in small, character hotels instead of large-scale developments.

- We actively encourage our clients to offset their emissions through the Reduce my Footprint scheme which donates money to The Travel Foundation who has a range of Responsible Projects in countries around the world.

Example: The Travel Foundation funds a project in Kenya to develop and market a sustainable Maasai Village tourism experience. The project works with local villagers from 5 cultural manyattas who financially benefit from cultural visits to their villages etc.

Social Responsibility:

We engage the following guidelines to ensure we fulfill our social responsibilities as a tour operator:

- We send our clients a checklist of ‘do’s and don’ts when visiting the countries we feature such as respecting local cultures in both dress and behaviour. Also we advise clients to ask permission to take photos of local people and also not to buy any animal products or take any coral/shells away with them.

- We encourage clients to think of ways to conserve water and use fuel and electricity sparingly wherever possible whilst overseas.

- If a hotel is part of a chain we have thoroughly checked that they are working in the best possible practices and treat and pay a fair wage to their local staff.

- We actively encourage our clients to remove all packaging from new items before they leave the UK and encourage the purchase of environmentally friendly sun protection where possible.

- We encourage clients to learn a few words of the local language.

- We plan tours in a way which maximizes the opportunity for clients to meet local people and learn about the local culture.

- We ensure that all of the local people we work with have good working conditions with reasonable working hours, a contract and a fair wage.

In-house Procedures:

- We are a home based office so none of our staff have to travel to work
- We recycle all our paper/cardboard/print cartridges and where possible we reuse paper for rough work
- We only print when necessary and we have our printer set up so it is double sided
- We no longer produce brochures and any printed material is recycled or sustainable-farmed paper
- Our staff investigate environmental issues on any overseas trips
- Our homes/offices run on low energy light bulbs and we turn all electrical office equipment off when not in regular use such as printers/computers/fans etc.
- We have a member of staff who is responsible for ensuring this policy is being adhered to as part of their role.