HOW THE MINIMUM CRITERIA OF THE RESPONSIBLE TRAVEL STANDARD WAS MET...
Many people living in the developed world feel drawn to visit the world’s great wildernesses and cultures. They look for unspoilt lands to view the wildlife, experience traditional cultures or simply savour the peace and beauty of wide-open spaces. They seek new experiences and a wider understanding of the world we share, and are prepared to travel the world to find them. Unfortunately, the growth of tourism threatens the fragile beauty of these areas. All things remaining more or less equal, it’s estimated that more than a billion tourists will be travelling the planet in search of paradise by the year 2010. Such explosive growth will have a profound impact upon on environments and cultures. Unless we can protect delicate eco-systems and civilisations that are already struggling for survival, paradise will be lost forever.
Economic responsibility
We use local guides at all destinations in Vietnam so as to provide jobs to local young people, especially like Sapa, Ha Giang, Nghe An, Hue, Mekong. We try to use local products like homestays in Sapa, Mekong and other locally owned hotels and guesthouses. We take tourists to local restaurants where local food is being served by the local people and buy local food of the places we travel to. We encourage our travellers to spend their money locally, e.g. buying local food and souvenirs and visit places of interests where they use fees to maintain conservation
Social responsibility
We fully understand our culture and society and provide our travellers with full information on our culture, customers, languages, code of conducts well in advance of the tours. Ethnic Voyage Co., LTD is doing our own CBT projects in Nghe An, Ha Giang, Sapa, Hoa Binh. We have worked with different communities and been bringing lots of support there. We help our travellers when they wish to volunteer there in the villages to help them. We use hotels and guesthouses where they employ the local people like in Sapa, Halong, Catba, Mai Chau. We also work with a boat company in Halong Bay to help the local communities.
Aims
A small thing we do on our tours can make a big difference, so everyone at Ethnic Voyage Co., LTD, we strive our best to minimize the impacts while gaining maximum enjoyment from your traveling experience.
Economic responsibility
· We use local guides at all destinations in Vietnam so as to provide jobs to local young people, especially like Sapa, Ha Giang, Hue, Mekong
· Ethnic Voyage Co., LTD try our most to use local products like home stay in Sapa, Mekong and other locally owned hotels and guesthouses.
· We buy local food of the place as we travel to
· We take tourists to local restaurants where local food is being served by the local people.
· We visit places of interests where they use fees to conservation.
· At Ethnic Voyage Co., LTD, we encourage our travellers to spend their money locally, e.g. buying local food and souvenirs.
Environmental responsibility
· We try not to use paper for marketing promotion, we spend most of our money to attract people using internet, and encourage our clients not to print their emails.
· We, on Ethnic Voyage Co., LTD tours, try our best to a green travel, we reuse the bottle of waters on tours, we reuse the bags provided.
· Ethnic Voyage Co., LTD boats in Halong Bay, we try to use sails when possible and turn off the engines when boats are not running, we also use recharge batteries for our usage of lights on the boats so that we do not have to fuel a generator.
· Ethnic Voyage Co., LTD is now supporting several projects towards environmental sustainability e.g.: For a Green Halong Bay, Conservation of Cat ba Endangered Langurs, Cuc Phuong primate Center.
· Our travellers are well informed before the trips on how to travel, keep on designed trails, leave no trash, taking only memories home, we must stay away from the wildlife.
· We often turn off the AC when on buses, and try to share buses/cars on our tours.
· We use eco-friendly hotels and guesthouses where they have commitment to usage of water, soap, electricity.
· Ethnic Voyage Co., LTD is now supporting several projects towards environmental sustainability e.g.: For a Green Halong Bay, Conservation of Cat ba Endangered Langurs, Cuc Phuong primate Center.
· For a Green Halong Bay is a small project that aims to clean one part of the Bay which is actually the home of many fisherman, we train the locals here on environment and have them clean this part of the Bay daily. Ethnic Voyage Co., LTD offers jobs to the locals here such as have them take care of the kayaks, have them row the clients on their fishing boat to visit their village.
· The “Cat Ba Langur Conservation Project” was started in November 2000. By then the number of surviving langurs had further dropped - to a mere 53 individuals. The stopping of langur poaching therefore became the main objective of the conservation project.
· Ethnic Voyage Co., LTD supports to build the website of Catba langur and part of our profit is to donate to their conservation activities. We visit places of interests where they use fees to conservation - for example Cuc Phuong National Park, Hue Imperial Citadel, Hoi An old town, My Son hollyland, Halong Bay.
· The EPRC was established in 1993, with a Memorandum of Agreement by the Ministry of Forestry and concerned international conservation organizations, following the confiscation of “Critically Endangered” and “Endangered” primates with the beginning of the “Vietnam Primate Conservation Programme” of the Frankfurt Zoological Society. Since then, the center has been managed under the supervision of Frankfurt Zoological Society and continues to be a part of the Programme. The final goal of the EPRC is the establishment of stable populations of highly endangered primate species in captivity as a source for further reintroduction programs. Ethnic Voyage's education to travellers before they come to this center and part of our revenue from this tour goes into donation of the work they are doing here.
· Ethnic Voyage Co., LTD is doing our own CBT projects in Ha Giang, Sapa, Hoa Binh. We have worked with different communities and have been bringing lots of support there. The CBT projects that we are supporting now is that they are trying to help the locals to work together to make tourism in their communities in the responsible way which can generate the income but also preserve their cultures and customs. They set up homestay, crafts clubs, medicine herb bath and other activities, all in the very traditional ways to show customers while they are visiting the villages. We support them by working closely with them in making good eco or responsible products not to exploit their resources & cultures for tourism and we support them by bringing educated travellers to visit & stay with them.
Social responsibility
· We fully understand our culture and society and provide our travellers with full information on our culture, customers, languages, code of conducts well in advance of the tours.
· Ethnic Voyage Co., LTD is doing our own CBT projects in Ha Giang, Sapa, Hoa Binh, Nghe An. We have worked with different communities and been bringing lots of supports there.
· We help our travellers when they wish to volunteer there in the villages to help them.
· We use hotels and guesthouses where they employ the local people like in Sapa, Halong, Catba, Nghe An, Mai Chau…
· We work with a boat company in Halong Bay to help the local communities.
Vietnam tourism.
At present, the direct impact of Vietnam tourism has been limited to a few areas, but indirectly, the presence of large numbers of visitors is causing damage. In a poor country, the obvious wealth of people from developed countries is a powerful lure. Unsustainable use of natural areas and exploitation of natural resources is a growing concern. In common with most undeveloped countries, Vietnam’s problem is not obtaining income from tourism activities: it’s keeping the money in the country and directing it towards the impoverished communities who live in the areas that attract tourists.
Our responsibilities
As a responsible Vietnam tour operator, we do our best to minimise the amount of money that leaves the country via international hotel chains and similar routes by using Vietnam hotels and service providers wherever practical. Unlike many Vietnam tour companies, we take our responsibility towards protecting the culture and environment of the countries in which we work very seriously. We work with our Tourism Association, NGOs and local communities to support initiatives to use Vietnam tourism as a means of improving the income of local people. Apart from building in visits to worthy undertakings of one kind and another into a Vietnam travel package, we also collaborate with specific social and environmental projects.
Our philosophy
Experience an Authentic Vietnamese way of life!!!
Our philosophy is to discover the country and the culture from the local populations. For that, we use our local experts and local tour guides from the country and local population with whom we have developed strong relationship of trust with us over the years. Here you will find some examples of destinations in which to stimulate inspiration so that you may start to piece together your own customized tour with us. We put together our package tours ourselves and can accommodate according to your budget and needs. Do not hesitate to contact us!
GO GREEN, GO PAPERLESS WITH ETHNIC VOYAGE
Going green and paperless is the new mantra for today's businesses that want to attain efficiency and speed in their processes, while playing their part in protecting our precious earth. Ethnic Voyage certainly endorses this and wants to play our part! So as we usher in 2012, we will reduce the massive printing of our briefing kit. Instead, only essential pre-trip information will be sent to you via e-mail. By going paperless, Ethnic Voyage do save money. And we would like to pass these savings to the environment by contributing $5 to a conservation organisation for every pre-trip information kit sent via email instead of getting it printed. By our humble estimation, this project would generate at least $10,000 for charity every year.
We sincerely look forward to your endorsement of green technology, clean environment and conservation, while assuring you of our usual high level of service. Conservation is important to our planet and we can all play a part by using environmentally friendly tools available to deliver vital information, while at the same time help to reduce carbon output, save our forests and reduce the amount of environmentally hazardous materials used in printing. We look forward to having you explore more of this beautiful earth in the years ahead!
Finding Getaways for Disabled Travelers in Vietnam
From the Mekong of the south to Halong Bay in the north, there are plenty of wheelchair accessible options for the Vietnam traveler.
The world looks different from a wheelchair, and the infrastructure of Southeast Asia is not always amenable. The easily passable quickly becomes impossible. But, in Vietnam and elsewhere, some companies are making the exotic accessible.
“Travelers with disabilities in Vietnam have a lot of options,” says Kevin of Ethnic Voyage. “In December the north is cool. The center is tropical but not a lot of rain, usually an hour in the early evening. The south is dry and hot.”
North, South, and Central in Vietnam
“Cities in Vietnam are good for different reasons. Some are flat and others are good because of the facilities,” Kevin says, pointing to central Vietnam city of Hoi An as one of the best. “It’s totally wheelchair friendly.”
A city with more than 2,000 years of history, Hoi An is in the flat delta of the Thu Bon River and features charming vistas throughout. Not far, too, is the tropical paradise of Danang and the historic Hue, the highlights of which are Dong Ba market and the imperial citadel – though the pavilions therein are not accessible by wheelchair.
Down south, Kevin recommends Saigon, in Vietnam’s south. “There’s the day trips to the Mekong and a great city tour by wheelchair,” he says, adding that there are delta accessible hotels. “And there’s a ferry they can take to an island.”
Other highlights are the war museum and a café where Vietnamese men take their birds for travelers to visit with and pet. Kevin says
Far north, the terrain is a little more rugged, but with the right guide, travelers with disabilities will be able to see Ho Chi Minh laying in state and B52 Lake. Just a few kilometers out of Hanoi, the landscape turns pastoral, with flat, bucolic agriculture between the natural karsts. The famed Halong Bay, is where travelers can cruise to Ninh Binh among the stark karsts in a boat with direct access to the outside deck.
Kevin came to the world of travel for disabled patrons when she first came across a potential travel client. “I looked online and all of these hotels said they were accessible, and then I went there and they weren’t. They really weren’t.”
“You would go there to check and there would be a big flight of stairs and they would say, ‘It’s okay, we can get someone to carry you up.’” Kevin says. “But people don’t want that. They want to be independent – to be on their own, to have their own shower, and their own room.”
Aside from the research – and assistants to help disabled travelers get around – an understanding of different disabilities is important. Ethnic Voyage also does trips to Western Nghe An, Vietnam
New Takes on Old Problems
Some are classed as “slow walkers,” often elderly clients that require the attention of professional carers, but without need of a chair. “The professional guides are trained to cope with the physical and mental problems of traveling. But, no, they are not nurses.”
For travelers to Vietnam, Kevin recommends using a manual wheelchair if possible. “It’s not necessary, but it can be helpful with the shape of the roads and other things.”
“The only problem for Vietnam is that sometimes Vietnamese people can be too helpful,” Kevin says. “You might not want their help but they always smile and give it anyway.”
To organise holidays for your beloved disable travellers in Vietnam, please contact us at [email protected] or via Whatsapp: + 84 912 555 208 (24/7)
Please send us a request about your travel in Vietnam, our sales manager will contact you shorthly with us 48h or Contact us via our WhatsApp here: + 84 912 555 208
