+44 (0)1728 861133

Policy Statement

At Dragoman we are committed to ensuring we adopt a responsible attitude to the areas we travel through. We believe our trips should benefit local people and environments and we endeavour to make local culture and communities an integral part of our trips. We are dedicated to working towards sustainable operations by including environmental, social, economic and ethical considerations in all our business practices and decision-making processes. Perhaps most importantly, we recognise that we are guests of local communities we travel through - and we strive to make these communities into our partners, so they can benefit directly from our business.

Our responsible tourism policy and guidelines aim to maximise the positive benefits we bring to the communities our groups travel through, whilst minimising any negative impact on the local environment by:

Educating our staff, crew, local guides, agents, suppliers and passengers in the importance of sensitivity to these issues

Providing practical guidelines on how we can achieve these objectives

Setting goals for us to all work towards together

We know we're not perfect and we're always looking for ways to improve - but we are really proud that our efforts have been recognised by the Association of Independent Tour Operators, who have awarded us their 5 Star Sustainable Tourism rating.

AITO Responsible Tourism Award

We are really proud to say that we have recently been awarded a highly prestigious AITO (Association of Independent Tour Operators) Sustainable Tourism Achievement Award. The 2009 award was granted to us because of our company wide commitment to RT, and specifically the hands-on work that's been involved with our community-based tourism project in Peru, 'Tarpuy Yachay'. This project is an integral part of our unique and pioneering alternative to the classic 'Inca Trail' – the Dragoman Community Inca Trek. Centred on two remote communities situated high in the Peruvian Andes near Urabamba, the project initially kicked off in 2005 and continues to go from strength to strength.

The key idea behind our Peru project was to develop a responsible, sustainable and ethical trekking programme - i.e. one that genuinely benefits the host communities via education, income generation, and environmental initiatives, whilst protecting the communities from exploitation and giving them ownership over how their environment is used.

70% of people travelling with us in Peru now choose to participate in the Community Inca Trek rather than the hugely popular classic 'Inca Trail' - which means that company and passenger donations now amount to approximately US$10,000 every year.

To lean more about the Tarpuy Yachay Community Inca Trek, click here

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

Communities

Wherever we are in the world we prefer to use smaller locally owned businesses, ensuring that locally communities gain direct economic benefits from our business. 

We are committed to promoting human rights within our sphere of influence and ensuring that all our people including our staff, travellers, suppliers and local communities as well as other stakeholders who are impacted by our business, are treated with fairness and respect.

• UK Office & Workshop
• Use of local businesses for our purchasing, from the village greengrocer to local printers
• Overseas
• We use small locally owned hotels, campsites and activity providers wherever possible
• We aim to do as much food shopping as possible in markets, where much local produce is purchased
• By using the services of local guides and employing local African camp masters, we are supporting the local economy as well as providing our passengers with the benefit of direct interaction with 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.

Long term community projects

We are committed to supporting a number of long-term community projects in which we have a considerable level of involvement, allowing us and our passengers to participate directly in delivering real practical benefits to the communities we travel through on the ground. These projects are not tourist initiatives but employ tourism to raise funding and support & facilitate community interaction. Priority is given to projects in areas of particular need:

Kariandusi School Trust: School Building Projects

Kariandusi School Trust is a charity working towards improving education amongst children in rural Kenya, via the construction of school buildings and the ongoing provision of school facilities and educational materials

Dragoman have been closely involved with Kariandusi from the very beginning, and one of our Directors is on the board of trustees

This is a great example of Dragoman working alongside a grass-roots charity: For every trip that visits a KST school, a 10USD donation is made by each passenger, matched by Dragoman. Total Dragoman and passenger donations have raised more than £100,000 for the project so far.

Tarpuy Yachay: Community Inca Trek Project

Tarpuy Yachay is a community project set up by Dragoman in conjunction with local Peruvian Tour Operator Andina Travel. The project was set up to be an integral part of our 'Inca Community Trek' - Dragoman's unique alternative to the Classic Inca Trail

Initiated in 2005, the project aims to provide direct benefits to the local Quechua Indian Communities in a remote part of the Andes close to the Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu that our groups trek through

For each Dragoman group that participates in the Inca Community Trek, a donation of 15 USD per pax is made to the project from kitty – and this is matched by a further 15 USD from Dragoman

We aim for each group to have hands-on involvement with the project, which can range from helping with repairs to school and community buildings, assisting with planting/harvesting/reforestation etc

Smaller scale community projects & visits

In addition to the long-term projects we support we also visit a number of smaller scale community projects in many of our itineraries, for e.g:

Samburu Cultural project near Samburu National Park in Kenya

Amani Childrens Homes in Tanzania

The Kilimanjaro Village Education Project in Tanzania

Karmi Farm Clinic in Darjeeling, India

Sabre Trust School Education project in Ghana

Usthi Foundation project for rural children in Calcutta, Kolar and Hyderabad

Including these visits in our itineraries provides an opportunity for our passengers to interact with local people and to learn about the problems that these communities face, whilst directly benefiting the projects via passenger donations which are generally factored in to the price of the trip.

Village stays and home stays are also included in many of our itineraries, the money from which goes directly to host communities whilst enabling passengers to gain an authentic insight into the country they are visiting.

We also support local, regional and international initiatives whereever possible for e.g. Porters Rights, Animal Welfare, etc.

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. E.g. Zimbabwe

Additional information

Involving staff & clients in responsible tourism issues

We are committed to working within our responsible tourism policy and promoting sustainable and ethical business practices with our suppliers

All of our passengers are sent a copy of our responsible travel guidelines in advance of their trip

Copies of our environmental code of conduct and wildlife viewing code are posted in every truck and followed by passengers and crew

· Dedicated responsible tourism and environmental impact training is provided for all UK staff and overseas crew

We also highlight our commitment to responsible tourism via our brochure, website and pre-departure information

We ask for passengers feedback relating to our attitude to responsible tourism and environmental issues via 3 questions which are included on our post trip questionnaire

We constantly monitor the feedback we receive from our clients and crew in order to maintain and find ways of improving our standards and developing our responsible tourism practice, policy and projects

Future aims

We are proud of what we have achieved so far but we know we're not perfect - and we are committed to continually seeking out ways to improve on our current operations. To this end we review our performance in terms of our environmental, social and economic responsibility on an annual basis.

We are dedicated to continuing our support of all the projects we are currently involved with - and aim to increase the level of financial donations wherever possible

We want to increase the number of community projects we are involved in, especially within the key countries that we visit. In particular, because we are conscious of the impact our trips can have in terms of carbon emissions, we hope to establish a project which can help to reduce carbon emissions whilst delivering direct tangible benefits to a local community

In the longer term, our goal is to introduce an audit system for all our key suppliers and trips, allowing us to examine the environmental, social and economic impacts of our operations in more detail. This will help us to continue to improve on our performance, keeping our responsible tourism ethos at the heart of everything we do