I. Achievement & Success
1. Travelife Partnership
Renew of Travelife Certified and Audit
In 2018, Footprint Travel has been awarded the Travelife Certification for the second time. It confirms again the continuous commitment to maintaining industry-wide standards for sustainable management and ethical and environmental principles in operations.
2. Internal Management: Social Policy and Human Rights
Social Policy and Human Rights
Yearly trainings, regular meeting have been carried out for related departments including travel consulting, customer care and introduction of new products.
Moreover, yearly famtrips have been organized to help staff from all related departments aware about the products and inspire them.
3. Internal Management: Environment and Community Relations
Sustainable Training and Awareness Raising
Throughout the year, we have involved staff through several training on Travelife certification and internal environmental management.
The first training is Travelife 3 day training program participated by marketing department to help tour operator in implementing sustainability and learning insights and worldwide best practices.
Later, Green the business workshop by Live and Learn organization has been successfully completed with the participation of product development department.
Finally, sustainable development training workshop has been conducted with the participants of all the Footprint members, aiming to empower staff and brainstorm innovative ideas.
Volunteering Training
Product and marketing department have participated in training on voluntourism especially about orphanage tourism carried out by our partner – Ayana Journeys.
Environmental Initiatives: Refill Station
Later this year, Footprint Travel has joined the effort of reducing single-used plastic with Bookgreener and RefillMyBottle. We have registered as a refill station where anyone can refill their water bottle for free. We have initially promoted this movement towards members of RTC Vietnam.
4. Partners
We have always put a focus on the revenue generated for local economy, social enterprises and responsible suppliers. We have created the list of sustainable accommodation including local homestay which can help us make strategic decisions about promotions for the benefit of travelers as well as local and ethical suppliers.
5. Developing Responsible Products
Activity
We have worked with local suppliers to offer hiking tour, involving the local people and preserving the cultural heritage and natural environment. We have initially inspected the readiness of the CBT communities and local homestay in welcoming and accommodating travelers. After few inspections in Cao Bang, Hue and Cat Tien, we have finally launched new hiking tours in these destinations with extensive use of local products including tour guide, homestay, meals, handicrafts, etc.
Destination
For the past few years, some of the destinations in Vietnam have been changing dramatically as a result of tourism development. We have strived to search for off the beaten path destinations for our customers. We have selected Lan Hay Bay over Ha Long Bay and encouraged our travelers to travel to the destination, aiming to livelihood development.
Customer Communication
We have developed more ethical travelers’ guides regarding sexual exploitation and illegal souvenirs and tried to encourage our clients not to get involved in such activities.
II. Difficulties and Solutions
In order to reduce plastic consumption, we have planned to switch from wet wipes to more eco friendly options. The choices are limited and we have tested Kiyomi compressed tissue which is made from 100% natural viscose rayon without any added chemicals and any other ingredients like perfumes, preservatives and alcohol. However, it stills comes with plastic wrap to keep the products clean and germ free. Moreover, we have received negative responses from the tour guides and travelers as it is quite inconvenient to use.
Solutions: find more alternatives for wet wipes
We have tried to promote Refill My Bottle project within RTC and encouraged tour operators to join the movement. However, it’s quite difficult to persuade them because of cost generation and lack of specialized staff.
Solutions: recruit one full time project coordinator to support the implementation and management of refill stations.
Explore our previous Sustainability Report here:
