Responsible Travel

Tips for responsible travel  

When we visit beautiful places it’s natural to want our holidays to have a positive impact on local people and their environments.  

Responsible travel is about more authentic holiday experiences that enable you to get a little bit more out of your travels, and give a little bit more back to destinations and local people.  

All holidays have positive and negative impacts locally.  

Responsible travel maximises the benefits, and minimises the negative effects of tourism. 

Before you book your holiday

 

Plan your route to minimise carbon emissions – travel by train and public  transport where possible, and minimise internal flights. Try our ‘I don’t want to fly’ holidays, or there are some great ideas for train travel almost anywhere in the world on this web site: http://www.seat61.com/ .Minimise flying time and stopovers – the worst carbon emissions are emitted during take off and landing. For the flights that you cannot avoid, offset the carbon emissions of your flight using our carbon calculator . That way the money is invested in carbon reducing initiatives around the world, offsetting the emissions caused by your flight. Read our view on flying here. Ask to see the tour operator’s policy for responsible tourism. All responsibletravel.com members have to have one.  Make sure it explains how they minimise environmental impacts and support the local economy.  Ask your hotel/accommodation our 10 simple questions to see if they really are eco!  

Before you travel  

Read up on local cultures and learn a few words of the local language – travelling with respect earns you respect Remove all excess packaging  - waste disposal is difficult in remote places and developing countries  Ask your tour operator for specific tips for responsible travel in your destination  Ask your tour operator/hotel if there are useful gifts that you could pack for your hosts, local people or schools. Ask your tour operator whether there are local conservation or social projects that you could visit on your trip, and if/how you could help support them   

While on holiday  

Buy local produce in preference to imported goods. Hire a local guide – you’ll discover more about local culture and lives, and they will earn an income Do not buy products made from endangered species, hard woods or ancient artefacts Respect local cultures, traditions and holy places – if in doubt ask advice or don’t visit Use public transport, hire a bike or walk when convenient – its a great way to meet local people on their terms and reduce pollution and carbon emissions. Use water sparingly – its very precious in many countries and tourists tend to use far more than local people Remember that local people have different ways of thinking and concepts of time, this just makes them different not wrong – cultivate the habit of asking questions (rather than the Western habit of knowing the answers).  For more ideas on deeper and more responsible travel see here.  

 

When you get back 

Write to your tour operator or hotel with any comments or feedback about your holiday, and especially include any suggestions on reducing environmental impacts and increasing benefits to local communities.  You will find independent holiday reviews from travellers on many responsibletravel.com holidays. If you’ve promised to send pictures or gifts to local people remember to do so, many are promised and not all arrive! Enjoy the memories, reflect on your experience and start planning your next trip! 

Philanthropy

Travelers’ Philanthropy   Travelers’ Philanthropy is a growing movement of travel businesses that are helping to support community projects in host countries.  Increasingly, hotels, tour companies, and other travel related businesses are providing financial and material assistance to projects such as locals schools, health clinics, and orphanages.  Many are also giving tourists the opportunity to help these projects by visiting, contributing and/or volunteering. Like others, you’ll find you enrich your travel experience when you help contribute to the well-being of the places you are visiting.

What is Eco Tourism?

EcoTourism

According to the Quebec Declaration on Ecotourism, ecotourism
“embraces the principles of sustainable tourism… and the following principles which distinguish it from the wider concept of sustainable tourism:

• Contributes actively to the conservation of natural and cultural heritage,
  
• Includes local and indigenous communities in its planning, development and operation, contributing to their well-being,
• Interprets the natural and cultural heritage of the destination to visitor,
• Lends itself better to independent travellers, as well as to organized tours
  for small size groups”.

In May 2000, as part of the side events on the 8th session of the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD 8), a group of Indigenous Peoples Organizations, NGOs and other members of Civil Society provided a proposal on guidelines for ecotourism. Although the final result could not be incorporated into the official papers due to procedural aspects, UNEP recognizes its value as a statement of genuine concerns from primary stakeholders.

Ecotourism is sustainable tourism, which follows clear processes that:

Ensures prior informed participation of all stakeholders,

Ensures equal, effective and active participation of all stakeholders,

Acknowledges Indigenous Peoples communities’ rights to say “no” to tourism development – and to be fully informed, effective and active participants in the development of tourism activities within the communities, lands, and territories, and

Promotes processes for Indigenous Peoples and local communities to control and maintain their resources.

Why Consider India For Treatment?

Offering some of the best medical treatment in the world and with an excellent reputation in its private hospitals India’s health care sector has undergone an enormous boom in recent years and it has become a global health destination, with its medical tourism area growing by 30 per cent each year.  Despite any prejudices about healthcare in developing countries, rest assured that the private hospitals and clinics in
India are at the forefront of medical technology and equipped with modern state-of-the-art technology and highly skilled medical personnel.  In fact, Indian doctors are considered to be among the best in the world and their high level of surgical expertise evolves from many years of training – after studying in India many doctors train and work in the
UK, and become members of the BMC. Hygiene in the private hospitals is excellent, surgical patients are screened for HIV and Hbs Ag antibodies to prevent transmission of communicable diseases and the incidence of MRSA is minimal.  It is normal for the operation theatres to have laminar air flow installed and gaining ISO9001 standardization (a voluntary standardization run by a non governmental body where hospitals must pass rigorous tests to be certified) is becoming increasingly popular in clinics and hospitals. 

Low cost treatment:  What’s more, healthcare facilities in India are the most cost-effective in the world with private hospitals offering treatment at a fraction of the price of those in the UK.  A single knee replacement costs £9,000 in the UK but in India it is a quarter of the price at £2,150 (*quote from the Knee Surgery, Chennai).  And as for dentistry, having a full set of teeth capped costs just £400, compared to the UK where one tooth cap costs a shocking £45.* (*Quote from Manipal Hospital, Bangalore). Patients – or medical tourists – as they are becoming known can book package deals which include flights, transfers, hotels, treatment and often a post-operative vacation where they can take advantage of the ancient Ayurvedic stream of medicines and alternative rejuvenating retreats where they can practice yoga, meditation or have some naturopathy.  
 Main centers: The medical hot spots are Bangalore, New Delhi, Kolkata (Calcutta), Ludhiana, Chennai and Hyderabad and getting to India is also affordable with airlines offering deals from as little as £300 return.  Flying time, for example, from London to
Delhi is around nine hours so it makes sense to take in some of the many intriguing sights and sounds of this remarkable country while you’re there. 
India has a tropical climate with high temperatures and dry winters and the best time to visit is between October and March as the monsoon is apparent throughout the country between May to September.  So, with private facilities equal to European counterparts, efficient, multilingual doctors and dentists, coupled with massive savings on surgery, India is a sensible choice for treatment abroad.  The healthcare system in
India India has always had a very large private health sector including providers of modern medicine as well as traditional practitioners and has one of the largest pharmaceutical industries in the world, producing and exporting drugs to more than 180 countries. 
India’s hospitals have earned their reputation as world-class institutions with state-of–the art technology.  The prices are attractively low in comparison with the West and as a result there has been a rapid growth in international patients visiting India for medical treatment for cardiac and other major surgery, and the Government is marketing India as a medical tourism destination, having already introduced Medical Visas. India’s private hospitals offer highly sophisticated and specialised medical services at very affordable prices and a growing trend has emerged for patients from the UK to consider India for their private healthcare – the country is now being dubbed the healthcare hub of Asia, with its healthcare industry set to grow by 15 per cent a year for the next six years. 
 

Hospital and doctor standards: As one of the key players in medical tourism there is a growing need for accredited hospitals, to ensure best practices in a safe environment.  The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare is the body which ensures this quality in the hospitals and clinics and many hospitals are also applying for ISO 9001 accreditation, which is a non-governmental body, to raise their profile.  The Medical Council of India is the equivalent of the UK’s General Medical Council and all doctors must be registered with this in order to practice while The Indian Medical Association looks after the interests of doctors as well as the community in which they practice. The Indian Health Care Federation (IHCF) is an independent non-statutory body which liaises between government, health providers, medical equipment manufacturers and other medical institutions. IHCF has a membership of around 300 members from across India and is affiliated to the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).  The Indian government is working on establishing minimum quality standards to reassure patients seeking treatment abroad and the Joint Commission International USA is the Gold Standard accreditation for US and European hospitals which represents provision of the highest levels of patient care and patient safety. 

What is Medical Tourism?

What’s called medical tourism? Patients going to a different country for either urgent or elective medical procedures? Is fast becoming a worldwide, multibillion-dollar industry. The reasons patients travel for treatment vary. Many medical tourists from the
United States are seeking treatment at a quarter or sometimes even a 10th of the cost at home. From
Canada, it is often people who are frustrated by long waiting times. From
Great Britain, the patient can’t wait for treatment by the National Health Service but also can’t afford to see a physician in private practice. For others, becoming a medical tourist is a chance to combine a tropical vacation with elective or plastic surgery. And more patients are coming from poorer countries such as
Bangladesh where treatment may not be available. Medical tourism is actually thousands of years old. In ancient Greece, pilgrims and patients came from all over the Mediterranean to the sanctuary of the healing god, Asklepios, at
Epidaurus. In Roman Britain, patients took the waters at a shrine at
Bath, a practice that continued for 2,000 years. From the 18th century wealthy Europeans traveled to spas from Germany to the
Nile. In the 21st century, relatively low-cost jet travel has taken the industry beyond the wealthy and desperate. Countries that actively promote medical tourism include Cuba, Costa Rica, Hungary, India, Israel, Jordan, Lithuania, Malaysia and
Thailand. Belgium, Poland and
Singapore are now entering the field.
South Africa specializes in medical safaris-visit the country for a safari, with a stopover for plastic surgery, a nose job and a chance to see lions and elephants.

India

India is considered the leading country promoting medical tourism-and now it is moving into a new area of “medical outsourcing,” where subcontractors provide services to the overburdened medical care systems in western countries.
India’s National Health Policy declares that treatment of foreign patients is legally an “export” and deemed “eligible for all fiscal incentives extended to export earnings.” Government and private sector studies in
India estimate that medical tourism could bring between $1 billion and $2 billion US into the country by 2012. The reports estimate that medical tourism to
India is growing by 30 per cent a year.
India’s top-rated education system is not only churning out computer programmers and engineers, but an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 doctors and nurses each year. The largest of the estimated half-dozen medical corporations in
India serving medical tourists is Apollo Hospital Enterprises, which treated an estimated 60,000 patients between 2001 and spring 2004. It is Apollo that is aggressively moving into medical outsourcing. Apollo already provides overnight computer services for
U.S. insurance companies and hospitals as well as working with big pharmaceutical corporations with drug trials. Dr. Prathap C. Reddy, the chairman of the company, began negotiations in the spring of 2004 with Britain’s National Health Service to work as a subcontractor, to do operations and medical tests for patients at a fraction of the cost in
Britain for either government or private care. Apollo’s business began to grow in the 1990s, with the deregulation of the Indian economy, which drastically cut the bureaucratic barriers to expansion and made it easier to import the most modern medical equipment. The first patients were Indian expatriates who returned home for treatment; major investment houses followed with money and then patients from Europe, the Middle East and
Canada began to arrive. Apollo now has 37 hospitals, with about 7,000 beds. The company is in partnership in hospitals in Kuwait, Sri Lanka and
Nigeria. Western patients usually get a package deal that includes flights, transfers, hotels, treatment and often a post-operative vacation. Apollo has also reacted to criticism by Indian politicians by expanding its services to
India’s millions of poor. It has set aside free beds for those who can’t afford care, has set up a trust fund and is pioneering remote, satellite-linked telemedicine across
India.