Responsible Travel Policy
| Policy aims |
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Whether it’s helping clients to work out an itinerary or answering queries fully and promptly, or providing clients with the best photo opportunities out of safari, we are constantly reviewing our performance to ensure we are meeting the high standards we demand ourselves. And of course, the higher standards that our guests demand of us. At Classic Journeys Africa Africa, excellent service is a way of life, not a choice. Proving it to every traveller, every time is our goal. To provide high quality products that combine performance with value and pricing while establishing a successful relationship with customers. Our Mission is to continually provide a personalized service and the finest products to the international and domestic tourist community hence fostering a relationship that will result to satisfied customers and consistency in service delivery.
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| Economic responsibility |
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Through travelling, Classic Journeys Africa has the potential to improve the economic welfare of the world’s poorest populations by providing new sources of income through buying of local souvenirs from the cultural communities and also employing locals to be our driver guides since they are the most knowledgeable about the destinations’ culture and other company staff. This ensures easy understanding between the clients and the local communities visited during the tour. We also include local village visits in our itineraries so as to promote the communities visited both economically and socially. Our suppliers source their products from the locals around and also help to improve the living standards of the locals by engaging them in agricultural activities such as organic farming, by use manure from the Masai cattle, employing local labour for supply of water and tour guiding clients as they already have knowledge of the environment. We encourage and book for our clients Koyaki Wilderness Camp, which is an example of a property that helps in giving back to the society through education healthcare and sustainable income. Koyaki Wilderness camp helps in funding Koyaki guiding school for the purpose of training local Masai guides in Wildlife Management. We also use the Governors Camp, who in conjunction with Mara Rianda Charitable trust have built a health Centre just outside the Masai Mara National Reserve for the Maasai community. Classic Journeys Africa contribute to the government revenue through paying of taxes. This helps in government expenditure e.g. building of roads, building hospitals, schools etc.
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| Environmental responsibility |
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Classic Journeys Africa believes in Fair Trade Tourism whereby your visit benefits local communities and supports conservation of the local flora and fauna. All of the lodges/camps you will be visiting adhere to these principles. In addition, we adhere to travel that:
1) Minimizes the impact of hotels, trails, and other infrastructure. From our office, we recycle paper and our suppliers use solar energy to run their day to day activities. We inform our clients the importance of preserving wildlife such as visiting the orphanages and adopting animals such as elephants at the Daphne Sheldrick and raising funds for assisting/taking care of the ill animals. Classic Journeys Africa encourages the use of digital programs and pagers. This is to avoid printed out documents and reduce the use of paper, for example; we store all our data files in an external disk. This reduces the use of printing machines which consumes plenty of energy thus reducing printed materials. Our tour guides also use magnetic writing pads when paging clients as opposed to printed out papers. These are efficient and effective ways of protecting the environment. We mainly use e-marketing when promoting our products and services. This is through our website, emails, social media, online marketing sites etc. as opposed to printed out brochures. Our clients are briefed before proceeding with their safari on what to expect, dos and don’ts while at the safari. Which include; ensuring they do not litter the parks or their way to and from the parks as we have provided them with trash bins, they should also not feed the animals at the parks or make noise while at safari. All our tour vehicles have trash cans for proper disposal of waste to avoid disposal of non-degradable that may harm the wildlife. We discourage smoking and loud noise that may cause disturbances to the wildlife. We encourage our travellers to travel in smaller groups during their trips to various destinations. Handling bigger groups is not easy and they cause stress to the environment All our driver guides are required to keep by the trails so as to avoid distraction and interferences with the wildlife. Our guides are also discouraged from taking bribes to go off the road for good photos and better views, we encourage clients to let the animals come to them without destroying their habitats. Everyone should keep in mind that the wild animals are not like those found in the theme parks, they are not tamed, hence should take extra precautions not to offend them. We ask our clients never buy products made from endangered species. Travelers provided with suggestions on how to reduce water use in their destination;
We try as much as we can to limit the use of plastic bottles for example we provide our clients with refillable water bottles to use during the safari. As a company we provide suggestions for destination visits to appropriate local projects with direct or indirect environmental benefits this is by taking our clients to visit local projects in slums at Nairobi one of which is Kibera where we have locals who use their talent in making of artifacts, stationaries, accessories and bags using recycled paper. We work towards eradicating single use plastics as an office through the use reusable 20 litre water bottles instead of having the 500ml single bottles. This helps in reducing the number of water bottles used. Classic Journeys Africa as a company supports carbon reduction schemes with staff. Most of our employees walk to work and we have about 30% of our staff who ride bicycles to and from work. Thus benefit the environment by reducing carbon emissions from vehicles.
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| Social responsibility |
| Through our tours, we bring people from all different cultures and backgrounds together. This unites and improves people’s understanding of others, why people live in the way they do, do things the way they do reducing stereotypes. Tourism in general may have inflict negative impact to the world by creating ecological damage, uprooting communities and perpetuating cultural stereotypes from insensitive travellers, Classic Journeys Africa seeks to maximize positive impacts from our trips on the local communities. We also create itineraries that allow clients to experience the local culture through food, festivals, activities and cultural sites.
In activities such as village visits, our driver guides always accompany the clients and act as their voices with the locals. The local cultures and way of life are very beautiful but without a local guide, one may not get the chance to witness the beauty. Some cultures may be strict especially when it comes to their privacy, such as taking offence when taken photos by strangers, however, our guides will always inform the clients who should respect it. Before each tour, we make sure to provide all information about the social, historical, environmental including the weather and climate and the political stability in each destination. We inform our clients on how to travel responsibly by guiding them on what to pack to avoid excess packing of unnecessary items that will end up being waste. We offer a brochure of just a few basic words of local languages in each destination.
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