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MISSION OVERVIEW
Although we are ultimately a for-profit business, Access Trips is about so much more than just turning profits. We operate Access Trips because we are passionate about travel, sports and the outdoors and because we love to share this passion with our clients, our employees and the local people we encounter during our travels. It is deeply important to us that our company contributes to the world in a favorable way and that we use our resources to affect as much positive change in the world as we can. We believe that we have three major responsibilities: to our clients, to our employees and to the world at large (which includes the environment) and we are doing everything we can to serve these three groups to the best of our ability. To guide us in this endeavor, we have a company mission that consists of three interrelated parts:
» Client Mission
» Employee Mission
» Social Mission
» Environmental Mission
We welcome you to access the above links to find out more about our company mission and what we are doing to affect positive change. Being a reasonably small company, we are not yet in a position to implement major change in the world, but rest assured that as our company grows so too will our philanthropic activities. If you have any comments or suggestions regarding our company mission, we welcome your feedback at: mission@accesstrips.com
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| CLIENT MISSION
Like many travel companies, we are dedicated to offering the highest quality, safest and best value trips that we can. But our client mission is much more than this: on top of offering an excellent product, we are committed to making a positive change in the lives of our clients. We at Access Trips have all benefited in meaningful ways from the remarkable power of having a passion in life – of having a pastime that brings you pleasure, friendships, a sense of achievement and a total escape from the pressures of everyday life. Some of us have found self-confidence, others friendships, and others motivation and drive as a result of our involvement in sports. We want our clients to also experience the pleasure of finding and pursuing a passion. It is our goal that clients return from our trips having found a new passion or solidified an existing one, having made lasting friendships, having experienced a deep sense of achievement as a result of reaching new heights in their favorite sport, and having acquired a new perspective on life as a result of the unique experiences that our trips provide. We have had more than a few clients who have returned from our trips and decided to make major life changes such as changing careers to pursue more meaningful work, moving countries to be closer to the outdoors, and changing universities to be around more like-minded people. We do not expect our trips to have such a dramatic impact on all our clients, but we do hope that all our clients can be inspired in some small way from the experience of sharing their passion with us. |
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| EMPLOYEES MISSION
Traditionally, members of the travel and outdoor industries – guides, leaders and instructors, are paid very low wages despite the difficult and skilled work they carry out. We at Access Trips understand that our company would be nothing without the hard work, enthusiasm and skill of our talented trip leaders, trip developers, guides, instructors and other employees and it is our desire to reward our team members for their effort. For this reason, not only do we pay generous wages that exceed industry averages, but we also provide significant profit share and bonus schemes to ensure our employees directly benefit from their excellent work. We also give our employees significant freedom to create, run and manage our trips so that they feel a sense of ownership over the trips they lead and we involve them as much as possible in the strategic development of our company so that they feel a part of a common vision. It is our goal to become the employer of choice in the outdoor and travel industries and to be recognized by our team members as a generous, inspiring, and great place to work. We hope to contribute to our employees’ lives by allowing them to pursue their passion for travel and the outdoors while still being able to make a comfortable living. |
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| SOCIAL MISSION
By the very fact that it brings together people from all different cultures and backgrounds, travel has an enormous power to unite and improve people’s understanding of each other. It also has great potential to improve the economic welfare of the world’s poorest populations by providing new sources of income. Without careful monitoring, however, tourism also has great power to inflict negative change upon the world by creating ecological damage, uprooting communities, and perpetuating cultural stereotypes as a result of close-minded and culturally insensitive travelers. We seek to maximize the positive impact of our trips on the local communities we visit and eliminate potential negative effects in two ways. Firstly, we try to involve local businesses and people in our trips to the greatest possible extent. This includes using small, locally-run accommodations rather than international hotel chains, using local activity, food and transportation providers and hiring local guides and coaches. This not only contributes to the local economy, but also allows our clients to interact as much as possible with local people. This relates to our second goal, which is to contribute to cultural understanding by allowing our clients to experience local cultures in an authentic, meaningful and culturally sensitive way and to allow local people to learn about different cultures by interacting with our clients. In addition to involving local people in our trips, we try to meet this goal by creating itineraries that allow clients to experience the local culture through food, festivals, activities and cultural sites. |
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| ENVIRONMENTAL MISSION
To minimize our impact on the environments we visit, we follow the principles of Leave No Trace, a non-profit organization that is dedicated to promoting and inspiring responsible outdoor recreation. These principles include:
1. Plan ahead and prepare
2. Travel and camp on durable surfaces
3. Dispose of waste properly
4. Leave what you find
5. Minimize camp fire impacts
6. Respect wildlife
7. Be considerate of other visitors (for more detailed descriptions of these principles please click here)
In addition to following the principles of Leave No Trace, we minimize the impact of our trips by keeping our group sizes small (8-15 people), only venturing into pristine areas if accompanied by experienced locals, and educating and informing our clients about the regions we visit to increase their interest in and appreciation for the environment.
To ensure that we not only eliminate our negative impact upon the environment but also contribute to positive environmental change, we also donate 5% of our total annual profits to the Leave No Trace foundation so that they can further their valuable efforts to build awareness, appreciation and respect for the world’s wildlands. |
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