Thailand floating market & beach tour

Planet

As with all our vacations, the accommodation you will stay at has been chosen to meet at least our basic environmental criteria, which include putting in place measures to conserve energy and reduce water usage and providing advice on how you can reduce your own footprint while you’re there. All the places you stay at buy their food locally, cutting down transport emissions and helping local farmers. Some of them have also been awarded the Green Leaf certification which additionally covers air quality, waste management and co-operation with communities, amongst other areas.

On this itinerary, we’ve tried to keep the environmental impact as low as possible by traveling on trains and boats where possible, as well as using a traditional sampan paddling boat to explore the floating markets up close. We’ve also included visits to a mangrove study center and several villages which are practising and developing organic and low-impact farming techniques - by going there you are helping to support their exciting work.

We see protecting the environment as crucially important, so we have chosen Thai partners that active promote higher environmental standards in Thai tourism as part of the Green Leaf Foundation. They are also developing new kinds of vacations that combine ecotourism and community tourism, for example working with the Doi Tung royal project which helps hill tribe people to protect their lands and traditions, or creating vacations at organic farms and the Petchaburi wildlife center.

People

Creating sustainable social and economic benefits for local people is the central goal of our company and as such we try to incorporate meaningful encounters with local people throughout our trips, never ‘human zoos’. For example, on the Flavours of Thailand tour you have the chance to stop at Amphawa village to learn about the process of making coconut sugar - part of the rich culinary heritage of the area - directly from the people who make it their livelihood.

We have chosen hotels that employ all or nearly all Thai staff, provide them with training to further their careers and which give something back to the community through donations or selling local handicrafts. We also buy in services from small businesses wherever possible, helping spread the money from tourism to more people.

Some of the stops in this programme contribute even more directly to supporting communities. For example, at Bang Phlap earnings from tourism are shared among the community as well as supporting their organic farming projects. At Ban Thamrong, the community runs vocational courses in handicraft skills which help to preserve their cultural traditions and by linking them to tourist visitors, brings income to the village.

Our Thai partners are as involved in community development as they are in environmental issues and they do a lot of work in the rest of the country to develop more responsible tourism. On a national level, they have pioneered synergy training, bringing together hotels, tour operators and communities to better understand each others’ needs and so create more sustainable and enjoyable vacations. We are proud to be taking part in the push for stronger responsibility in the huge, and sometimes destructive, Thai tourism market.