Why do we need a responsible travel policy?
Responsible travel is at the heart of Adventure Tours UK. We have a strong desire to ensure the impact of our business and our guests is a positive one. We’re passionate about our UK roots and we want to share the raw beauty of the UK’s wild spaces with adventurers from all around the world, for generations to come.
More focus than ever before is needed on our fragile planet, from changing our everyday behaviours to be more mindful of their global impact, through to conservation efforts to protect and rehabilitate local wildlife.
And whilst we recognise the UK is a relatively wealthy country, there are still many areas where communities need support.
Businesses are in a unique position to engender change at a rate far faster than any government. We’re proud to play our part in this as a responsible travel company.
B Corp™ certified
Adventure Tours UK is a certified B Corp™, a globally recognised mark of our efforts to meet exceptional standards of social and environmental markers. For more information about B Labs please visit bcorporation.net.
Economic Responsibility
Keeping it local
You’ll find no big corporate chains here! We work exclusively with local, independently-owned businesses. This ensures your money goes straight into the communities that you’re visiting, making a difference to the people you meet while on your adventures with us. In fact, we’ve made a commitment to ensuring at least 80% of the cost of your trip remains within the destination you visit.
Fair pay for quality service
Whilst we want to ensure you enjoy value for money, we also want to treat our partners fairly. It’s in everyone’s interests that they can continue to pay their employees a fair wage for the high standards of service they deliver in taking care of you. And that they can continue to grow and prosper, creating new jobs in rural areas where opportunities can often be few and far between.
Supporting local producers
As a responsible travel company, our tours are designed to give you the opportunity to visit independent shops selling locally made crafts and produce. It enables you to directly support businesses as well as enjoying some unique products. Craft breweries, small batch gin distilleries and handcrafted arts are all very popular across Wales and make for wonderful gifts to take back home.
Our accommodation partners are also chosen for their closeness to good independent bars and eateries, again so that you have the opportunity to get out into the community, sample the local drinks and food, and support local business while you’re at it.
Environmental Responsibility
Low carbon travel
We believe we’re responsible for ensuring the carbon footprint of your travel with us is offset. By working with the Clwydian Range and Dee Valley AONB, we not only offset the unavoidable carbon emissions created by travel, we’re creating new, biodiverse woodland areas within the UK that will benefit both the planet and our community. Planting native broadleaf trees, including oak, ash and birch, is helping to increase the available natural habitat for the UK’s native wildlife. Species such as bullfinches, beavers, the brimstone butterfly and many more are all benefitting from this.
Avoiding single-use plastic
We all know how damaging single-use plastics are for our environment, so as a responsible travel provider, avoiding them is high on our agenda. We have never knowingly used single-use plastics on our trips. In fact, you will be provided with an aluminium bottle on arrival so you can refill this each day at your accommodation in place of buying throwaway water bottles.
Our packed lunches also avoid using single-use plastic wraps, instead favouring more sustainable methods such as paper bags and wax paper wrap.
Many of our main accommodation partners are also committed to eliminating single-use plastics within bedrooms, instead using refillable containers for toiletries. The soap products themselves are often handmade within the local area, using only natural ingredients.
Locally-sourced food
Our accommodation and catering partners have also been carefully selected based on their commitment to sourcing local produce, organically produced wherever possible. This means that not only will you enjoy fresh, seasonal and locally produced food, but its impact on the environment is as minimal as possible.
Blue flag award
We’re also proud to work with one of the first boat tour operators in the UK to be awarded the prestigious Blue Flag Sustainable Boat Tour Operator status, demonstrating their commitment to running a responsible travel business.
Social Responsibility
Small group tours
Our primary concern with tourism in the UK’s wild spaces is to ensure it only has a positive impact on the local communities and culture, and that you enjoy a truly authentic experience. To manage this we only run small group tours and have never exceeded 15 guests on any of our scheduled small group trips. Our guided walking and mountain bike trips often operate in even smaller groups. As well as remaining well within the recommended guide ratios to ensure your safety and enjoyment, it avoids large crowds of people descending on small rural communities and putting the local infrastructure and amenities under unnecessary pressure.
The benefit for you is enjoying an authentic experience of these places going about their natural way of life.
Live like a local
Our guides aim to educate you about the local area during your trip. We believe that learning the history and culture of a region plays a big role in your travelling experience – it’s what brings a place to life. By sharing local knowledge you’ll become more immersed in the local way of living, plus it’s a vital way of preserving the local customs for future generations.
Read the landscape
Highlighting architectural and environmental landmarks forms part of this education and is another role our local guides play. As an adventure travel company we’re more likely to lead you up mountains and have you leaping off cliffs, than take you to a museum or castle. But history is everywhere. Iron age hill forts lie scattered across the hillsides of North Wales. And you can’t hike Snowdon without finding traces of the slate mining industry that once dominated North Wales. If you don’t know what to look for it can be hard to find meaning in these lumps, bumps and tumbledown ruins. But with our guides’ knowledge the landscape around you will come alive with historical significance.
Learn the language
Keeping the Welsh language alive is especially sacred, so you’re encouraged to learn simple words and phrases during your time here. Even learning how to pronounce place names can be a challenge, but it’s a fun way to get to grips with the local culture!
Understand the farming culture
With more than 80% of Wales’ land area dedicated to farming, respecting the countryside code and understanding farming practices is important for anyone visiting the country. Our guides are committed to sharing this knowledge and ensuring you recognise the importance of farming to the local economy, its culture and its wildlife conservation. This includes adhering to recognised walking trails and bridleways, closing gates, taking litter home and leaving wild plants and animals in their rightful place.
Want to Do Even More?
Share your ideas with us
We are currently working on plans to create specific eco-tours, designed to help you play an active role in the conservation of the national parks and sites of special scientific interest (SSSIs). Activities could include all aspects of wildlife conservation, removal of invasive plant species, planting of native plant species and restoration of footpaths and boundaries.
We’d love to hear your thoughts on this. So if you have an idea or there’s something you’d really like to get involved in, please drop us a line. Your ideas will help to shape the tours we create.
Now you know how our tours are doing good for our world, find out how they can do good for you too. Our multi activity holidays are designed to give you a taste of everything that’s great about Wales. Or if you’re a keen mountain biker or a sturdy hiker, we’ve got guided adventures that are just perfect for you.
Diolch!
(that’s Welsh for ‘thank you’ – see you’re already learning!)
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