Environmentally responsible travel has never been so important and is at the very heart of our philosophy. VentureCo are pleased to be associated with Responsible Travel.com, a leading resource for travellers looking for holidays with a conscience. From our inception, we have ensured that our responsible travel (RT) philosophy permeates everything we do, both at home and abroad.
We have been nominated at the Responsible Travel awards for the past 5 years for Best Volunteering Organisation.
More than having a neutral impact on host environments and indigenous human communities, we strive to have a positive one.
The money cascade & creating local jobs
VentureCo deal direct with local people: The food and accommodation that you will use throughout your itinerary is locally owned and purchased locally, in local currency. The language schools we use are owned by local residents, and they are paid directly. Where an itinerary requires mountain bikes, or white-water rafts, or mules or camels for a trek, we contract a local person and we pay them directly.
On all our treks we employ a local guide. This is not because our leaders don’t know the way! It’s because we want a local person to lead a trek through their own back-yard and to tell you about the folklore and local stories of the area. Local guides are of course paid, so once again, money is passing directly to grassroots level.
A large proportion of the money you pay us is spent in-country. There are no middlemen, no European holding companies and no expatriate shareholders involved. This means that the flow of funds goes to host communities, where it’s desperately needed, rather than western bank accounts. Compare and contrast this to the standard package holiday!
Sustainable Development Projects
An awful lot of aid projects fall short of the mark. Perhaps their objectives are unrealistic, some are improperly planned and others may be under-funded or the victims of corruption. I am also disheartened when I see project staff driving about in brand new 4X4’s. That’s the negative side of projects and it can make you feel a little cynical.
Our projects are not particularly glamorous, they are hard work and often involve a lot of “non-cerebral” manual work! However, we take great care to make sure they are wanted by the host community, achievable within our timeframe and that they have legs. That’s to say, we are only on site for a few weeks, yet the project needs to be able to continue having an effect for years after we have moved on. That’s the hard bit! A combination of in-country project managers who have the necessary integrity, our annual evaluation and the opinions of returning Venturers mean that we achieve sustainability.
Group Size
We limit our group size to 16 in order to minimise our impact on the environment.