With our commitment to sustainability, Footprint has been working hard in order to operate our business in an environmentally and socially manner. Our achievement of Travelife Certified on January 2016 has shown our commitment to sustainable travel. Travelife is an international and independent certification process that works to create a more sustainable environment in the tourism industry by setting sustainable benchmarks for its members. After becoming the first Vietnamese-owned tour operator achieving a sustainability certificate, we continue communicate our sustainability actions though quarterly report. Last time, we presented our internal sustainability management procedures through April report. As a tour operator, we can contribute greater impact by working closely with our suppliers to increase the level of sustainability through the supply chain. Our suppliers include accommodation, transport and excursion providers.

The second quarter 2016 report presents our partners’ performances regarding sustainability.

Accommodation

To start off with our primarily supplier – the accommodation, we planned to promote sustainability within the partners that we work with. In order to do that, we first designed code of conduct for accommodation covering community support, environmental protection, guest communication and conservation of cultural heritage. We then sent to all of our accommodation and encouraged them to strive for best practice and coordinate with us using our code of conduct.

A total of 72 accommodation suppliers were sent our sustainability questionnaire created based on our code of conduct. This helped us assess our partners’ commitment towards sustainability and encourage them to address problems while conducting business in a sustainable way. The number of questionnaire completed was accounted for 15%.

Secondly, we conducted inspection and assessed our accommodation suppliers to identify the responsible ones. All the businesses are expected not only to deliver outstanding services and experiences but also to conduct business in a sustainable manner. All of accommodation and cruise that are qualified as responsible with go to the top priorities to use.

Efficient use of natural lights to save energy

In a country that still needs improvement in sustainability like Vietnam, approximately 20% of our suppliers are qualified as responsible which a positive transformation toward sustainability.

Local ingredients are used for meals

With the ones that hasn’t been qualified yet, we will ensure that basic requirement are met and influence the way they conduct business by encouraging them to participate in Responsible Travel Club Vietnam. It is an informal association of different travel agencies, NGOs and individuals dedicated to building, practicing & developing responsible travel for a sustainable growth in tourism to all regions in Vietnam. Hence we can create a network of business that is actively responding to the challenge of sustainability in Vietnam.

RTC’s April Social Drink Networking Event

Additionally, in order to provide incentive for our partners, we promote our responsible partners through various communication channels. Also, we’re planning to deliver rewards for top 3 sustainable accommodation suppliers.

Transport

All of our offered tours start in Vietnam, thus, we are not responsible for the international transport of our clients and do not have any information on their international flights. Due to that reason, we did not count the amount of Carbon set to the atmosphere of our clients’ international flights. However, it’s in our code of conduct for our staff when communicating with travelers that they should advise our travelers with different transporting options and advise the most environmental friendly options such as bicycle, cyclo and so on. Not to mention, a great variety of cycling, trekking, kayaking and water rafting tours that we offer.

We also created integrate sustainability checklist into code of conduct for transport and sent it to our car driver so that they can be our representative to communicate with customers in complying with our sustainability policies. In terms of environmental aspect, most of them switch to biofuel for cars or ddjust air conditioning to reduce the carbon emissions and costs.

Excursions

We do not work with suppliers that harm humans, animals, plants, natural resources (e.g. water/energy), or which are socially/culturally unacceptable. Footprint Travel will stop contracting with suppliers that violate those policies. Besides, we will use our power to spread their negative actions around for the sake of service users.

We do not offer excursions that are considered unethical to wildlife. For example, we don’t use elephant ride in Tay Nguyen or in Angkor Wat because their welfare are not well taken care of ethically.

As the first Vietnamese-owned tour operator achieving a sustainability certificate, we hope to bring the solution to create a sustainable world by promoting responsible tourism and influencing on other suppliers within the industry.