Fair Trade Travel and Sustainable Travel
At Wanderland we are dedicated to tourism with a purpose. All of our treks seek to promote regionally sustainable tourism.
Our commitment is to design adventures that have a low impact on the environment and positive impact on local cultures. The aim of sustainable tourism is to ensure that development is a beneficial experience for local people, for local tourism companies and for the visitors themselves.
Your vacation with Wanderland will always be helping to generate income and employment for local people in the places where you travel. This is the essence of Fair Trade Travel.
Fair Trade Tourism is an organization that promotes fair trade tourism and certifies travel providers based on a rigorous set of criteria. We thank them for sharing this excellent explanation of the Fair Trade Travel principles:
The Six Principles of Fair Trade in Tourism
Fair share
- All participants involved in a tourism activity should get their fair share of the income, in direct proportion to their contribution to the activity.
Fair say
- All participants involved in a tourism activity should have the right and opportunity to participate in decisions that concern them.
Respect
Both host and visitor should have respect for human rights, culture and environment. This includes:
- Safe working conditions and practices
- Protection of young workers
- Promoting gender equality
- Understanding and tolerance of socio-cultural norms
- Reducing consumption of water and energy, reducing, reusing and recycling waste
- Conservation of biodiversity and natural resources
- HIV/AIDS awareness
Reliability
- The services delivered to tourists should be reliable and consistent.
- Basic safety and security for both host and visitor should be ensured.
Transparency
Tourism businesses should establish mechanisms of accountability. These include that:
- Ownership of tourism businesses must be clearly defined
- Employees and other participants can access information that concerns them
- Sharing of profits, benefits and losses must be transparent
Sustainability
The tourism businesses should strive to be sustainable. This includes:
- Increased knowledge through capacity-building
- Improved use of available resources through networking and partnerships
- Economic viability through responsible use of resources
- Reduction of leakage through local purchasing and employment
- Support to historically disadvantaged entrepreneurs
Thank you to Fair Trade Tourism for this concise description of the Fairly Traded Travel principles!