Our Community, Environmental and Social Impacts

Travel For Good: Our Promise

Our Travel for Good initiatives ensure that we only work with hotels and on-the-ground suppliers that adhere to our standards and comply with applicable, international and local laws and regulations. The excursions on each tour are carefully planned with local curators and we make it a strong focus to engage in activities that support conservation projects and social programmes, as well as abide by animal welfare standards.

As a company, the following points are part of our Travel for Good initiatives:

We don’t encourage or engage in any animal-related activities on any of our tours or any other unfair activity, which exploits animals.
All our tours are planned around approved wages for the tour managers, drivers, helpers, and other involved members.
All our policies and processes are followed to ensure no exploitation of any person involved and engaged in ground handling.
We're reducing printed paper wherever possible.
We encourage engagement with local communities, and most experiences or excursions are planned with local curators or around visiting and supporting local communities.
All of Newmarket Holidays’ hotels and partners are chosen carefully, ensuring that no one is involved with exploitation, child labour activities or modern slavery.
Our lodge selection in wildlife destinations like Africa, India and Costa Rica is closely involved in supporting local wildlife conservation activities.
We support activities, which help create a sustainable future for villagers, and empower women, helping them to become entrepreneurs.

Our Partners and Projects

Africa

South Africa

Elephant Lodge

The Welgevonden Reserve, where this lodge is located within, operates several conservation and sustainability projects, as well as elephant and lion management programmes. Newmarket Holidays provide the donation towards all the lodge's conservation projects.

Mabula Lodge

Mabula Game Lodge is set amongst an expansive private game reserve. This lodge partners with several sustainability projects and Newmarket Holidays donates on behalf of our customers.

Bethel Camp

In support of the famed Kruger National Park, the conservation fee is provided by Newmarket Holidays during the stay at Bethel Camp.

Mabula Lodge's Ground Hornbill Project

A visit to Mabula Lodge’s Ground Hornbill Project, which was founded in 1999, aims to promote and protect the lives of these endangered species through different evidence-based conservation techniques.

Hoedspruit Endangered Species Centre (HESC)

An educational excursion involves travelling to Hoedspruit Endangered Species Centre (HESC), a local wildlife rehabilitation centre, that takes care of vulnerable, rare, and endangered animals, specifically cheetahs and rhinos.

Nyani Cultural Village

A positive social impact project, which encompasses spending time in Nyani Cultural Village, providing an opportunity to watch a performance in a traditional Boma theatre, featuring music and dance from local tribes, including the San (Bushmen), Tsonga, Shona, Venda, Swati, and Zulu.

Great Brak River Youth Café

Great Brak River Youth Café is a project initiated by Ilita Lodge, one of the lodges used on several South African tours. This café provides internet and computer access to young locals in the area. The fee for staying at the lodge goes to supporting this institution.

Born in Africa

The community project, Born in Africa, provides academic, social and life skill programmes to children who live in the townships of the Plettenberg Bay area. An excursion to this project site involves a tour of the property and Newmarket Holidays provides the donation on behalf of the customer.

Latin America

Argentina

South American Tours

Our on-the-ground partners, South American Tours, runs a full sustainability programme, working with local guides to offer an authentic insight into the culture of the destination, collaborating with regional community and social projects and operating experiences that provide a stronger awareness of the environment. The programme only visits national parks and protected areas with the guidance of local, licensed experts. Only small, locally managed accommodation and hotels are featured on the tours and handpicked regional providers. In addition, for every customer that travels to Argentina, Newmarket Holidays donates two dollars, which are used to support APROPDIS, an association for the promotion of people with a disability.

Costa Rica

Sustainability in Travel Excellence

Newmarket Holidays works with the programme, Sustainability in Travel Excellence, which has been granted a certificate for sustainable tourism and takes part/supports a variety of projects, including Friends of the National Parks Foundation, an Indonesian conservation not-for-profit organisation working to protect wildlife and its habitat.

Ecuador

Our on-the-ground partners, Adventure Journeys, sponsors a women-powered project, Sacha Warmikuna, that aims to create opportunities for women while preserving the local customs and traditions of this particular group of women. By visiting the project on our tours, the customers will also support it.

Asia

South East Asia

Vivu Journeys

Our on-the-ground partners, Vivu Journeys, is actively involved in several sustainable projects and initiatives, including two community projects in central Vietnam and Cambodia, which seek to bring tourism into their villages in a positive and responsible way.

Thailand & Cambodia

On our Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam tours, Newmarket Holidays customers will receive a re-usable branded water bottle, which can be refilled along the way. There will be fresh drinkable water available on the coach as well as at various points during the tour. Vivu Journeys don’t use any single-use plastic.

Siem Reap Kok Sangkai

All Cambodian programmes include and support one of Vivu Journeys’ community projects, Siem Reap Kok Sangkai, a local Khmer community. A visit to this village financially supports several projects planned to help create a sustainable future for the villagers. Customers will meet local families and learn about their farming techniques, as well as experience the Phare Cambodian Circus, an NGO supporting disadvantaged Khmer youth with art and performance training. This show doesn’t feature any animals, but instead showcases a talented cast accomplished in acrobatics, contortion, aerial ballet, tightrope walking, juggling, mime, drama, and comedy.

India

One Tree Planted

Through the partnership with the non-profit environmental charity, One Tree Planted, we’ve planted 650 trees in India from April 2022 to March 2023. This charity has planted one tree for every Newmarket Holidays’ customer that has travelled on a tour with digital documents. As a result, the project has contributed to the reforestation, conservation and protection of forests in the country.

I Village Family

By operating our tours in India, we indirectly support the organisation, I Village Family, which focuses on women empowerment. This social enterprise trains, upskills and employs rural youth and homemakers in various aspects of creating quality products and services and taking them from the village to the world. Anything printed for Newmarket Holidays in India, such as signages, maps for guests etc is procured through I Village Family to give meaning to every penny spent on physical collateral.

Distinctive Destinations

Distinct Destinations serves as our on-the-ground operator in India and is certified every year by the German association TourCert (Travel for Tomorrow) as a transparent, sustainable and responsible DMC in the subcontinent.

Additionally, the operator is a member of the Responsible Society of India, working closely with it on all its initiatives, has signed the Glasgow Declaration to pledge its commitment to sustainability, and fair trade practices, gender equality, and eco travel initiatives are all at the core of its brand values.

This is a paperless organisation, which avoids making use of paper, ensuring that the majority of the tour operation is carried out digitally. All guides and customers are given digital documents via mobile, and the only paper used during Newmarket Holidays’ tours is recycled and procured from I Village Family.

The entire Newmarket Holidays operations team in India also commute by local transport, and to simplify staff need, they have moved their office right opposite the Metro station to decrease their daily carbon footprint.

A small percentage of the profit from working with Newmarket Holidays has indirectly supported an initiative that has covered the complete education of 12 girls from the start of school until they turn 18 years old. This initiative operates in the rural villages of Rajasthan, and covers tuition expenses, study materials and uniforms.

Across our collection of India tours, selected excursions are designed around supporting local communities and families and generating employment. Regional local guides are used to oversee the tours and ensure employment is given to the local families.

Meals and cooking demonstrations are hosted at the homes of local families, tours visit local villages, tickets to enter monuments like the Taj Mahal and Agra Fort are procured digitally online instead of printed, and there’s no engagement with animal activities, like elephant rides, on any of the tours.

On certain tours, the itineraries revolve around heritage properties, with the revenue going towards restoring and preserving the local rich heritage. In India, all the heritage hotels, especially in Rajasthan and Kerala, employ local village community staff. Many of the heritage properties follow eco-friendly measures, including rainwater harvesting, wastewater harvesting, use of recycled wastewater for gardening, use of non-toxic fertilisers and manure for gardening, solar water heating, use of organic toiletries and the cultivation of native plants. Oberoi and ITC hotels are also used on the tours, and these local regional chains adhere to several sustainability initiatives.

Shahpura House in Jaipur features on Newmarket Holidays’ India itineraries, and all the staff working at the hotel are from the local village. Newmarket Holidays supports the property’s cause, and part of the profits goes to its foundation, which supports the preservation of heritage and rural women empowerment.

Train travel is often used to minimise carbon footprint, and Newmarket Holidays supports the usage of the heritage ‘Toy Train’ in Shimla. A traditional houseboat features on the Shimla tours, which is a sustainable way to travel and supports the local community. The houseboat also doesn’t cruise at night to support the fisherman community.

Another project, Alphonso Stories: Experience a slice of local life, was launched to work with local communities and protect the environment through a wide range of immersive and interactive holiday experiences, which feature on our India tours.

TOFT Tigers

Through the Distinctive Destinations partnership, Newmarket Holidays additionally supports the collective campaign and global alliance, TOGT Tigers to help preserve the subcontinent’s tigers, wildlands and wildlife, particularly in Ranthambore National Park.

Vietnam

Vietnam Tam Ky village

All our Vietnam programmes include and support one of Vivu Journeys' community projects, Vietnam Tam Ky village. This programme includes an immersive cookery experience and a tour of the village. During the excursion to this village, customers join a local family in their house to partake in a cooking class before sitting down to enjoy the dishes prepared. The tour will then go to Tam Thanh village, where a large mural project has transformed this remote fishing village into a fascinating artwork gallery. Customers then continue onto Ky Anh Tunnel and follow in the footsteps of a man who was a witness during the Vietnam war. He'll lead customers underground through the network of tunnels.

USA & Canada

Marriot Hotels & Resorts group

Newmarket Holidays contracts several hotels across the USA and Canada under the Marriot Hotels & Resorts group, including Marriott, Sheraton, and Delta. The Marriot Hotels & Resorts group integrates sustainability across their value chain, works to reduce environmental impact, and build and operate sustainable hotels and source responsibly.

The Next Steps

We know there's still a lot more to do across the globe, but every positive step we're taking means more of our customers, and our holidays are having a positive impact in the destinations we visit. Together with our destination partners, hotel and transport suppliers we're taking steps, which mean all our customers can Travel for Good, no matter where they choose to travel.

Call us now on
0330 341 1927

Call us now on

0330 341 1927

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