About Us Flamingo Travels

ABOUTS US

Flamingo Travel has come a long way since its humble beginnings in 2009. We are an online travel portal with outstanding 100,000 Customer happy customers. A company that began with two bearded backpackers & Travel information section now leads 100,000 travellers across the globe each year.

And although we're a bit larger these days - with 25 - 40 staff based around the INDIA and over 800 different trips across every continent (not to mention multiple Travel tables) - our mission remains the same. We still get a kick out of responsible travel, small groups and very (very) big adventures.

Our story

The year was 2009... While most of the world wasted their time dreaming of hover Travel across the world, joining loyalty programe DL Flamingo Travel schemes and traveled, two mates from INDIA spurned these distractions and instead turned their youthful, entrepreneurial beards toward the thing they loved the most - travel.

Six reasons to travel with Flamingo Travel

We get it - when it comes to travel, all that choice can be a little overwhelming. How can you know we're the guys for the job? What makes us so special?

You can read below about our expert local leaders, added inclusions and decades of experience, but we reckon when it comes to adventure, attitude is everything. Why Intrepid? Because we believe...

MOMENTS ARE BETTER SHARED

The beauty of small group travel isn't just new places, it's new perspectives. It's the stories you hear and the friendships you forge, the ones that stick around long after the tan has faded. Our travellers come from all walks of life; what unites them is where they're going.

Time is your most precious resource, especially on a holiday. That's why our trips are built with balance in mind. A little group time, a little you time - the way it should be. And because our tours have an average of just 10 people, there's more of the world to go round.

TRAVEL WORKS BEST WHEN IT'S BALANCE

Time is your most precious resource, especially on a holiday. That's why our trips are built with balance in mind. A little group time, a little you time - the way it should be. And because our tours have an average of just 10 people, there’s more of the world to go round.

CURIOSITY IS A VIRTUE

What is travel but a search for something that can't be Googled? We love the highlights, but the real magic for us happens well away from a beaten path. It's the little noodle bars, hidden galleries and backstreet bodegas you won't find in a search engine.

WITH GREAT TRAVEL COMES GREAT RESPONSIBILITY

The world's a pretty amazing place, and we want to do our bit to keep it that way. And all it takes is a little dash of self-awareness, a slightly softer tread. Sustainable travel doesn’t mean no fun. It means that fun can be used to benefit others. Respect.

ADVENTURE SHOULD BE FOR EVERYONE

Age, pillow preference, budget, relationship status - it doesn't matter where you're from, what matters is where you'd like to go. Our mission is to deliver the best travel experiences to anyone who's up for them. So no matter if you favour a soft landing or a wild take-off, Intrepid stands for you.

OUR LEADERS ARE THE GREATEST

We realised early on that the best folks to show you the heart of a destination are, funnily enough, the ones that live there. These are our leaders: travel experts and friendly locals who know their countries back to front, from every backstreet bar to every hidden gallery. They're the big, smiling face of Intrepid (and we couldn't be prouder).

Ways to travel with DL Flamingo Travel

DL Flamingo Travel is for every traveller. And if group tours aren't your thing, don't worry, you won't hurt our feelings. We’ve developed a range of adventures to suit every style and budget. So no matter how you want to see the world, we’ll make sure you see it in style.

How travelling with us makes a difference - Responsible travel

Intrepid is committed to maintaining our integrity, living our values and ensuring that we're fulfilling the core purpose of our business. This being, to operate in a responsible manner, incorporating the principles of sustainable development in the way we provide our travelers with real life experiences. However, these values are more than just words on a page; they are ingrained in the culture and daily operations of every Intrepid office and tour. In addition, we expect our staff and travelers to demonstrate the principles of responsible travel - respecting people, cultures and local environments; in the distribution of wealth; in good will and cross-cultural sharing; and in contributing to sustainable development.

Do you have something to, or would you like to give feedback on our approach? If so, we would love to hear from you at online@flamingotravel.com

Our environmental Commitment

• To ensure we're consistently working towards protecting the environment and using resources in an efficient, fair and responsible way.
• To ensure that our trips are designed in a way that limits the physical impact on the destinations we visit, so that they may be enjoyed by many generations to come.

How are we doing this?

In late 2010 we reached our goal to become a carbon neutral company. A goal that we set ourselves in December 2009 and achieved through our Carbon Management Plan.

Flamingo Travel recognises that climate change is one of the most urgent problems facing our world today. The tourism industry is both impacted by climate change and it's also a sector that's a growing contributor to the problem. As a travel company which creates and promotes holidays within the tourism sector, we see it's our responsibility to ensure that the negative impact we have on global warming is minimised and we work toward sustaining our environment. Therefore, as a business we made a commitment to tackle climate change through the development of our Carbon Management Plan.

The current portfolio of offset projects includes the Akbuk Wind Farm Project in Turkey, this is a Gold Standard (GS) project that involves the installation of 15 turbines reducing 67,570 tonnes of CO2 entering the atmosphere each year. In addition to the wind farm we are purchasing the GS carbon credits of the production and dissemination of ceramic water purifiers in Cambodia. This project provides access to clean drinking water for an estimated 400,000 people and saves 43,087 tonnes of CO2 entering the atmosphere. Rounding out our portfolio for 2015 is the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) Kasigau Corridor REDD+ project in Kenya. This program avoids unplanned deforestation and degradation of forest that are home to vulnerable species such as the African Elephant, cheetah, lion, African hunting dog and Grevy’s zebra. It is estimated that deforestation accounts for 18% of global carbon emissions, this is greater than transport and aviation combined.

Our Carbon Management Plan helps us to operate our business in a sustainable manner and address our environmental commitments under the United Nations Global Compact which in turn work toward the 7th Millennium Development Goal : Ensuring Environmental Sustainability.

As part of our Carbon Management Plan, we offset our global business carbon emissions (from our offices and retail stores), our trips, and offer carbon offset flights to passengers booking their flights through Intrepid. Through these offsets, significant monetary contributions are being made on behalf of our business, suppliers, staff and travellers to internationally certified carbon abatement projects, equating to over $1 million since 2007.

On Our Trips

The majority of Intrepid trips are Carbon Offset - that's over 800 trips! We measure and offset the main sources of emissions created on our trips by our passengers:

• Transport
• Accommodation
• Sightseeing
• Air ticket
• Group Tour
• Educational Tour
• Solo Tour
• Small Tour
• Religious Tour
• Honeymoon Tour
• Private Tours

Our trips are also low impact by design. How? We try to use public transport where possible, stay in locally owned and simpler styles of accommodation and eat at locally owned eateries where the food has been locally sourced, therefore reducing food mile emissions.

To minimise carbon emissions on Intrepid trips, we make the following considerations:

• Local services - We engage locally-owned and operated services thereby supporting local people and not using long and carbon-intensive supply chains.
• Local transport - We use local public transport wherever we can to reduce fuel usage per passenger. Water Conservation - We support initiatives that encourage conservative use of water and hot water such as low-flow shower roses.
• Local food and goods - We endeavour to include and strongly encourage our travellers to eat locally produced food and goods. This reduces the 'embodied energy' (energy consumed through production and transport) of the food and goods purchased by our passengers.
• Water bottles - We encourage our passengers to refill a water bottle from water 'bubblers' where available to avoid unnecessary purchasing of bottled water and the subsequent waste disposal issues. In addition to the water in bottles, the production of a 1 litre plastic bottle takes 2 litres of water and 200ml of oil. Therefore for every 1 litre of water sold, 3 litres of water is used.
• Economic empowerment - Economic empowerment of local communities through tourism can help improve education and health services, water supplies and sanitation and reduce dependence on non-sustainable livelihoods such as deforestation.
• Local employment - We use local leaders and guides so that we learn about the culture and way of life directly from those who live it and put money into local hands and economies. We can particularly learn from indigenous rural communities about their relationship to the land and how they've practiced sustainable agriculture for centuries.
• Recycling - Intrepid leaders also provide travellers with awareness on how they can practice principles of reduce, reuse, recycle and appropriate waste disposal at their destination.

On our Flights

Since 2010, we've been offering all customers the opportunity to offset the most carbon intensive portion of their trip - their flight - when they book their air travel with us. The emissions produced from flights are calculated (from departure region to destination region) and the cost of offsetting that flight is then included in the price quoted. Carbon offsets are optional on the airfares we sell, however we do encourage our customers to help us tackle climate change by choosing this option.

So if you book a Carbon Offset Flight through Intrepid, you'll fly with the knowledge that your environmental impact has been reduced.

An impressive number of DL Flamingo Travel have chosen to book our special fare Flights. We thank our thoughtful passengers for their consideration of the hospitality services.

In our Offices and Stores

DL Flamingo Travel adopts the following principles to manage our environmental footprint in all offices and stores around the world:

• Measure - We currently measure emissions from Aircraft, Hotel, Buses, Cars & Monumnets. We have a comprehensive services Worksheet that's completed annually by our offices.
• Avoid - We adopt a number of agency in Indian & outside India, but not limited to, automatic computer shut down at 8pm in our head office and Skype conferencing rather than travelling for face-to-face meetings.
• Reduce - We have significantly reduced paper waste and waste to landfill; many offices adopt a comprehensive recycling plan and we have reduced the number of business trips taken by management and staff on an annual basis.

Our Credentials Include:

• Purely approved from Ministery of External Affairs
• Certified Travel Consultants (CTC) awarded
• 4* rating on Trip Advisor
• Certified Aussie Specialist awarded by Tourism Australia; includes specialty certifications for New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and Tasmania
• Certified Kiwi Specialist awarded by Tourism New Zealand
• Certified Aussie (Specialist) awarded by Australia Tourism
• Alaska Certified Expert by the Alaska Travel Industry Association (ATIA)
• Certified Sandals and Beaches Specialist awarded by same
• Hawaii Destination Specialist awarded by the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau
• Small Ships Specialists
• Master Cruise Specialist and Accredited Cruise Counselor (CLIA)
• Agents hold certifications from the governments of Australia, New Zealand, and Tahiti as well as the Hawaii Visitors & Convention Bureau
• A State Licensed Corporation

Economic Responsibility

Our economic commitment

To ensure our wealth is distributed in a way that's beneficial to our staff, host communities, suppliers and key stakeholders, while achieving responsible and sustainable growth of Intrepid Travel and our associated companies.

How are we doing this?

Our trips are designed to ensure that we support local communities by:

• Hiring local leaders and staff where Intrepid operate, therefore contributing directly to local employment and ensuring competitive local remuneration.
• Using locally owned ground transportation and accommodation.
• Recommending local eateries and stores to our passengers.
• Incorporating local public transport into our trips where possible.
• Investing in renewable energy projects which support the local economy through temporary and permanent employment, as well as contributing to the communities' infrastructure.
• Creating procurement policies.

Our Progress

Taking a global view

In order for sustainability to remain embedded in our operations, we take a holistic view of our business and its various points of impact. This means looking beyond our balance sheet and to the areas to which our business is intrinsically linked: the environment, society, economy and governance/ethics. We want to ensure that we're taking responsibility for our impact in these areas and contributing to, rather than diminishing, their health and value.

Intrepid is also a signatory to the United Nations Global Compact - a framework used to align a company’s operations and strategies with universally accepted principles in the areas of human rights, labour, the environment and anti-corruption.

How are we doing this?

We've integrated respect for people and the environment into our company culture in a variety of ways, most notably through the company's core values - all Intrepid staff are rated on their contribution to environmental and social sustainability in their annual performance reviews.

To ensure that we're working on managing our impact and reducing our carbon footprint across the business, Intrepid has integrated a number of sustainability goals into key performance measures across the company:

• Company KPIs - Intrepid has a company goal around sustainability.
• Our subsidiary offshore companies have a local sustainability KPI that they need to achieve.
• Our staff are also rated on their individual contributions to sustainability at Intrepid through their annual performance reviews.

Sustainable development

Since signing the United Nations Global Compact, Intrepid has gone on to create a Sustainability Policy which guides the way the company manages its impacts and how it goes about making decisions.

Progress reports

As a signatory to the United Nations Global Compact, each year we submit a 'Communications on Progress' report, outlining our progress in each of the sustainability areas we have committed to tackling, these include:

Human rights

Labour standards

The environment

Anti-corruption

Social Responsibility

Our Social Commitment

• To protect human rights within our sphere of influence and to ensure that all parties impacted by our business including staff, travellers, suppliers, local communities and other stakeholders, are treated with fairness and respect.
• To work with our stakeholders on issues around responsible practices in order to promote justice and equity across our global community and protect our most vulnerable societies.

How are we doing this?

Some initiatives include:

• Providing training to all our leaders on safety and social issues in the areas they operate to help them educate our passengers on matters such as local customs, cultural etiquette, religion, prostitution and child safety.
• Providing HIV/AIDS training to our staff and leaders in high-risk regions.
• Working in partnership with child protection organisations such as ECPAT, ChildWise and ChildSafe Asia, to help protect children in our destinations. Read our ChildSafe Traveller Tips.
• Employment and supplier policies which support and encourage fair practices. Read our Porter Policies.
• Providing support for many grassroot not-for-profit organisations globally to help advance local communities through The Intrepid Foundation.
• All Intrepid companies have specific annual goals to increase annual donations to The Intrepid Foundation.
• Visits to community projects on trips to raise awareness and engage passenger support for the projects.
• Organising guest speakers to regularly speak at our stores and offices to help raise awareness on various social sustainability topics.

Human Rights

Intrepid have adopted a global Human Rights Policy which formalises our commitment to supporting and respecting internationally proclaimed human rights and ensuring we aren't complicit in human rights abuses.

The aim of the Human Rights Policy is to:

• Protect human rights within our sphere of influence and ensure that all our people including our staff, passengers, suppliers and local communities, as well as other stakeholders who are impacted by our business, are treated with fairness and respect.
• Work with our stakeholders to address issues that act as barriers to responsible practices in order to promote equity across our global community and protect our most vulnerable societies.
• Give guidance to our staff on DL Flamingo Travel stance in relation to human rights issues.
• Commit our support to the principles contained within the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
• Protect, respect and remedy human rights issues within our sphere of operations and supply chain as outlined in the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: The “Protect, Respect & Remedy” Framework.

Research

Intrepid, in association with Victoria University and the government body Aus Industry, completed a two year research project to assess the impacts of our trips to sensitive rural communities titled "Small Tour Group Impacts on Developing Communities". The comparative report on five village communities (in Thailand, Vietnam and Borneo) demonstrates that Intrepid trips are providing mixed outcomes for local people in these communities.

Some of these outcomes include:

Renewal or support for traditional practices, such as arts and crafts, through local initiatives like craft markets.

Empowerment of women due to employment and leadership opportunities created by Flamingo Travel visits.

Increased knowledge and awareness of other cultures amongst local people due to direct and meaningful interactions between local people and Intrepid groups.

Support of household livelihood strategies through financial benefits gained by activities associated with DL Flamingo Travel visits.

Direct employment opportunities for some members of the community through activities such as traditional massage, guiding, portering and cooking.

As part of its commitment to providing leadership on sustainable tourism practices, Intrepid has decided to make this report available to the general public. This report was completed in 2010, but we believe the issues and the recommendations remain current and relevant to remote community-based tourism.