Malaysia holiday, 14 days

Planet

Making a difference to planet and people underpins our itineraries and travel philosophy, across destinations. Malaysia is a particularly good example of this. As a hot spot for eco conscious travellers who are keen to immerse in local culture in a meaningful and informed way, we have gone above and beyond to ensure that we maximise the positive impact of international travel in the locations that we offer.

One of our central USPs is that we work with locally owned, boutique style special stays as opposed to international chain hotels. This works twofold, by providing the traveller with a once in a lifetime experience full of authentic, local flair and also supporting the local community through investment in locally owned ventures and the employment of local staff. Many of these hotels and independent guesthouses also have policies to reduce their environmental impact. For instance our hotel in Penang encourages travellers to ‘do something green today’ by actively encouraging guests to skip housekeeping for three days in exchange for points and is listed as a sustainable property. They have made considerable changes to hotel life to dramatically reduce water consumption from the property.

Carbon reduction policies extend beyond accommodation. As part of your tour package, you will also enjoy a range of excursions and activities that have been checked and vetted by our team. These involve a range of human powered transport for instance our customers are able to enjoy biking and hiking as part of their trip. We also use low carbon modes of transport where possible to do so, including local buses and trains. All our trips can be made vegan and or vegetarian friendly on request and our helpful assistance travel with zoe can give specific food recommendations to accommodate more environmentally friendly choices including in foody stops like Penang and Kuala Lumpur.

As a business, we are keen to practice what we preach. As a UK team, we recycle 80% of our waste in a closed- loop system, work in a b-corp office space, and are working towards b-corp status ourselves. We also partner with Earthly, a company that chooses nature based solutions to invest in the future of the natural world. This aims to protect, better manage and restore ecosystems while addressing global challenges. All of Earthly’s projects remove carbon, restore biodiversity and improve livelihoods. A £5 donation is added to each parties itinerary as standard.

We are a proudly nature positive tour operator. This is realised through our itineraries in multiple ways.

Due to the unique location in an immersive natural environment, our places to stay naturally bring the traveller into closer proximity with the environment, ensuring their reconnection to nature. This is an investment in their future interest in sustainability. For instance, as part of this trip you will have the unique opportunity to visit the oldest rainforests in the world!
Experiences like this encourages continued conservation and rehabilitation of endangered species, animals, flora and fauna alike.

Our travelers will pay entrance fees to all national parks and similar spaces, helping to support the upkeep of these protected areas.

Even before take off, we offer tools to our customers to encourage sustainability, carbon reduction and caring for the environment both at home and away. These include 'zero waste while travelling: our top tips', as well as our 'make it meaningful policy' that promotes animal welfare (underpinned by our relationship Animondial, an animal welfare group), 0 waste (exemplified in our almost entirely paper free office), and a slower pace of travel. We’re serious about this animal welfare stuff and want to do everything we can to improve the welfare of animals in tourism. We’ve therefore teamed up with animal welfare experts, Animondial. Their vision is to minimise tourism’s impact on animals, natural environments and the people that depend upon them. They’ve helped us to improve the welfare standards of our trips even further and create long-term plans to support animals in tourism. Best of all though, we’ve worked together to create an Animal welfare in tourism starter kit for small businesses, to help other travel companies improve their animal welfare standards too. This is particularly important when traveling to destinations like Malaysia, where nature is one of the key draws.

As a team, we believe that protecting the environment goes hand in hand with building stronger communities, which is why we have both lead and joined in with beach cleaning initiatives with surfers against sewage, and local community gardening initiatives.

People

Our trips aim to put positively impacting local communities at front and centre of our itineraries, as local interactions are what make our trips so fantastic.

We work with small, boutique style special stays full of authentic flare work twofold by offering you a unique experience and also supporting local business ventures and local employment, thus supporting the local economy like the Clan Jetties in Penang. During your trip, there is a wealth of local shops, cafe’s, bars and restaurants to visit and enjoy, for instance quintessential Malaysian Hawker Cafes. This helps bolster the local economy further.

One of the key aspects of our itineraries is that we work with local partners who are based in country in order to provide the most authentic insight into everyday life in the destination, and divert from the usual tourist trail (which is important when considering the mitigation of environmental degradation in tourist hotspots) but also supports the country's economy even before our customer has touched down as the local partner helps to develop their itinerary.

These partners share the same values as us when it comes to wildlife and have won a number of sustainability tourism awards. As part of this, they take part many conservation initiatives across Malaysia.

As a global team, we also take great care to measure the human impact of our trips and tours. Our local partners also support local community projects in Sarawak and have a 27 year sustainable tourism and community partnership with 4 Iban communities.

We maximise local economic opportunities further by using only locally owned excursion companies where you will meet and learn from expert local guides throughout the trip on excursions, For instance, the certified guides who tea you how to pick tea like a local in the Cameron Highlands.

Furthermore, by doing this itinerary you are supporting many local families and businesses that need it the most by meeting and forming connections with local people. For instance, in Penang you get the chance to help out small, local businesses. For instance, you will have the opportunity to visit the Clan Jetties in Penang, which are small local houses/shops where you can buy souvenirs. You then have breakfast at a small local cafe, and lunch is at a local Hawker cafe.

We believe that the traveler has a huge role in ensuring that they have a fully sustainable trip too. This is why we do our upmost to furnish every traveler with information about how to have a more sustainable holiday from the get go. We send customers a know before you go document which includes many sustainability tips and we also advise all our customers on local customs and cultures in their travel documentation. This includes information about how to dress appropriately, respecting the local culture and also the local religion in Malaysia so that our customers can travel in a responsible way.

We believe in top rate employment standards and employee satisfaction in our local office too, and provide lots of benefits to our staff members in the UK to enhance their work and personal life, such as participating in the ride to work scheme, and providing discounts for local fitness centres and holistic therapies.

You can rest assured you will get top rate service from our wonderful staff. We have specific Malaysia and Borneo specialists, so you can be absolutely sure that you are getting the best information and insider knowledge out there.