Wildlife Friendly Tourism Pledge

Wildlife Friendly Tourism Pledge

As a company committed to Responsible Tourism, we strongly believe that tourism can be a force for good, and can help wildlife efforts. Yet, the right practice has to be adopted so the understanding of the human-animal conflict and our relations with animals that are fostered by tourism is balanced with best practices that do not exploit or endanger animals for the pleasure of humans.

We have committed ourselves to the Wildlife Friendly Tourism Pledge promoted by The Coalition for Ethical Wildlife Tourism. While we are not formally part of the Coalition, we aim to work on these standards. While we actively pursue to make very conscious decisions in the design of our trips and while we choose partners, we are constantly working towards making this impact better and better

This is the ethos thats encompassed in the Pledge, promoted via the website www.worldanimalprotection.org

• Believes tourism can be a force for good and can help keep wildlife wild. As a responsible travel company, we recognise the links between wildlife protection, human health, and a responsible and resilient travel industry.
• Understands the link between pandemics, like COVID-19, and wild animal exploitation, and that the relationship between tourism and wildlife needs to change for the good of people, world economies and animals. 
• Recognises that building back the travel industry more resilient and more responsibly is vital. As we face unprecedented challenges and routes to recovery due to COVID-19, we want to be part of the solution for our business, our communities and for travellers. 
• Understands that tourists love animals and want to experience them on holidays but are not aware that across the world hundreds of thousands of wild animals are held in captivity and subjected to mental and physical suffering and exploitation for experiences such as elephant rides, tiger selfies, walking with lions or swimming with dolphins.

As a Wildlife-Friendly Company, we pledge to:

• Review our product offers to determine if we are supplying anything where wild animals are being used anywhere primarily for entertainment.
• Create a time-bound plan to help protect wild animals by influencing significant changes in supplier practices and / or phasing-out wildlife entertainment from our promotions and offers. 
• Adopt an animal welfare policy for our business and share this policy with customers and staff.
• Provide our customers, if possible, with responsible wildlife offers where animals in the wild, at genuine sanctuaries or wildlife-friendly settings have the freedom and ability to exhibit a wide range of natural behaviours and tourists can observe them from a safe and respectful distance. 
• Promote responsible tourism amongst our customers to enable them to be wildlife-friendly travellers and advocates.