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Policy Statement

Dragoman Overland are committed to ensuring that we have a positive impact on local communities and that we implement policies to minimise any negative impact on the local environment.

Dragoman Overland are dedicated to making sure that we adopt a responsible attitude to the areas through which we travel. We believe that our trips should benefit the local people and their environments. We consider that the local culture and communities must be an integral part of our trips. Dragoman Overland recognises that we are guests of local communities and we strive to make these communities into our partners, so that they benefit from our business.

AITO Responsible Tourism Award

We are really proud to say that we have recently been awarded the highly prestigious AITO (Association of Independent Tour Operators) Responsible Tourism Award for 2005.The award was given because of our company wide commitment to RT, but especially for the hands on community projects that we have been funding, such as the Inca Trail & Quechua Community Project and the Kariandusi School Trust.

AITO Responsible Tourism Committee also very kindly voted to give a donation of £1000 through Dragoman Overland to the Kariandusi School Trust for its work in building Kenyan Schools. Drago works hand in hand with KST to raise funds for their building programme and many of our trips visit and lend a helping hand at the schools. On behalf of the KST and Dragoman Overland we would like to say a huge thank you to AITO for this money.

Click here for AITO press release on Award

Waste Minimisation: reduce, reuse, recycle

We are committed to trying to reduce, re-use and recycle as much as is possible, wherever we are in the world.

Office & Workshop:

• Encouraging use of double sided printing
• Using internal emails rather than printing
• Use of emails and extranet reduces the amount of paper use and postage
• Recycling of paper, plastics, glass, cardboard, oils, metal
• Office paper from printer paper to compliment slips are recycled paper
• Brochure printing is calculated on a yearly basis to avoid excess printing
• Out of date brochures are recycled at a specific paper plant
• Other recycling schemes for workshop by-products eg. oil, batteries, metal
• Use of recycling facilities whenever they are available when at road shows & events

On the Road:

• Information is sent by email and extranet - reducing postage and printing
• Recycling is practiced wherever possible, in many places this is informal projects with local people collecting materials for recycling i.e.. aluminium can collections in Brazil
• Biodegradables are either buried or given to local people feed livestock
• Purchase of drinks in returnable bottles where possible
• The use of re-useable shopping bags is encouraged instead of throw away plastic bags
• Vehicles are generally serviced in established workshops, where the local people have a responsible attitude to the disposal of waste products
• Products such as oils and tyres are often reused several times after we have finished with them, used for local trucks as they are happier to run on lower qualities
• Wherever recycling is available we endeavour to use it

Energy Efficiency, Conservation & Management

Office & Workshop:

• Computers, printers are where possible turned off at night
• Our electricity consumption is minimised where possible, i.e. using slimline energy efficient light bulbs & turning off lights where not needed

On the Road:

• For cooking we generally use gas instead of wood, a cleaner fuel and leaves natural resources for local people
• Local fuel sources are used but they must be from plentiful resources and not where it would encourage local people to squander resources or compete with local peoples need for precious supplies
• All our trucks conform to UK emission controls when they leave the UK
• All our trucks are regularly serviced and maintained ensuring that trucks run as efficiently as possible
• Passengers and crew are encouraged to use rechargeable batteries for items such as cameras, personal music systems etc. These can be charged from mains supplies or on our trucks as we travel

Management of Fresh Water Resources

Office & Workshop:

• Toilets use reduced water cisterns for flushing

On the Road:

• Waste water is disposed of away from fresh water sources
• Toilet areas are always away from sources of fresh water
• Each truck carries sufficient drinking water (approx 450l) this makes the purchase of individual plastic bottles of drinking water unnecessary

Supporting Local Businesses

Wherever we are in the world we prefer to use smaller locally owned businesses, ensuring that locally communities benefit economically from our business.

Office & Workshop:

• Use of local businesses for our purchasing, from the village greengrocer to local printers

On the Road:

• We use small locally owned hotels and campsites wherever possible
• Shopping is done locally often in markets, where much local produce is purchased
• The services of local guides and in Africa camp masters, mean that we as well as supporting the local economy our passengers also benefit from the considerable knowledge of local people
• Use of local mechanics, workshops and parts suppliers mean that our economic returns are far reaching and not just directly tourism based

Involving Communities in Tourism

As early as 1994, Dragoman Overland had decided it wanted to give something back to the countries and people we met on our journeys. This has, amongst other things, lead to a commitment to local community projects and has also started some really great friendships.

Tourism in the form of Dragoman Overland trucks and passengers bring economic support and are educational for the passengers as well as promoting a sense of well being

Small Scale Community Projects & Visits:

These provide an opportunity for our passengers to gain knowledge about alternative lifestyles, the problems that minority communities often have and the benefit of adding to the local economy as well as keeping traditional crafts alive.

• We continue to include smaller scale community projects, in many of our itineraries eg. Samburu Cultural project near Samburu National Park in Kenya
• Village stays and home stays are included in many itineraries, the money from this goes directly to communities and passengers also gain an authentic insight into the country
• Educational visits to charitable foundations, such as the Usthi Foundation in Calcutta, Marangu Village Educational Project on Kilimanjaro

Long Term Community Projects:

We are committed to several longer term community projects, which are included on a 1/3 of our trips.

• Kariandusi School Trust - school building projects.  In the last five years KST have set up five schools in the Rift Valley area, with three more now under construction along with a football ground. This has had a major impact on the local people with many more children being educated. This is a prime example of Dragoman working alongside a grass-roots charity and through Dragoman and passenger donations around £100,000 has been raised so far. We are now also working closely with our partner organisation Madventurers, who volunteer groups have helped significantly in building a number of these schools


• Inca Trail Community Trek - Dragoman have been involved in bringing direct benefits to local Quechua Indians in a remote part of the mountains near Machu Picchu. Together with Andina Travel in Cusco we have developed and funded a community hall, tree-planting projects, farming equipment school improvements and campsites to bring in income from tourism.


• Malealea - currently several community development activities in Malealea, with two main (but not separate) areas of focus: development and education. We are hoping to expand our project here into a more hands on working project.

All of our community projects incorporate the following ideals:

• Local communities are involved right through the projects, from the initial ideas, building and how the project is run
• These projects are not tourist initiatives but use tourism for funding, support & community interaction
• Priority is given to projects in areas of particular need
• Local/ regional /international initiatives are supported where ever possible eg. Porters Rights, Animal welfare..

Responsible Tourism and Political Considerations

We pledge to continue to run our programmes wherever possible in countries where political instability means that mainstream tourism pulls out. Local suppliers, businesses & communities rarely sanction political ideals and should not be penalised for a government's behaviour. Eg. Zimbabwe

Involving Staff & Customers in Responsible Tourism Issues

• We are committed to working within our responsible tourism policy and seek to improve on our goals at all times
• Each passenger is sent our environmental guidelines
• Environmental code of conduct posted in every truck, followed by passengers and crew. These are everyday guidelines. In Africa we also publish guides on
• As part of pre departure meeting crew will discuss particular environmental concerns for the region they are travelling in with passengers at the beginning of a trip or as the need arises on the road
• Responsible tourism and environmental impact training for all UK staff and on road crew
• We show our commitment to responsible tourism in our brochure message
• Passengers are asked to answer 3 questions related to our attitude to responsible tourism and environmental issues on the post trip questionnaire
• Feedback from passengers and on road crew is crucial to the monitoring of standards and development of practice, policy and projects

Future Aims:

• Continuation of support to present projects
• Increasing the number and quality of long term community projects in the hub countries that we visit
• Maintaining the present standards and striving to improve on what we already achieve
• Working with suppliers to promote good practice
• Increasing the quality of our UK based training for on road crew and UK staff