Travel Matters Press and Media
February
Promotion for Responsible Tourism week event in London
Highlighting Responsible Tourism week, Travel Matters in association with West Africa Discovery are hosting an event with guest speakers Ben Keene from Tribewanted and Chris Hill from Hands Up Holidays.
Voluntourism – good, bad or ugly?
Wednesday 15 February 2012 at 7pm – 9pm
Make Travel Matter Talk @
Harrisons 15 – 19 Bedford Road, London SW12 9EX
For interest to attend, contact Travel Matters by email info@travelmatters.co.uk or tel 0208 675 7878
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Travel Matters make it their business to not only organise bespoke holidays which minimise on negative impact whilst maximising on quality, but to educate clients as to how they can continue to make a difference in their future adventures. Karen Simmonds, owner of Travel Matters set up the awareness campaign Make Travel Matter www.maketravelmatter.co.uk
Responsible Tourism Week is a free, five-day unconference exploring down-to-earth applications of noble concepts including responsible tourism, conscious travel, the local travel movement and ecotourism with effective and inexpensive social media and local events.
Tribewanted Their mission is to build sustainable communities in amazing places that benefit locals and visiting members; inspiring positive change within and far beyond the village. http://www.tribewanted.com/
Hands Up Holidays is a luxury travel company with one big difference. They want people to have more than an amazing vacation; they want them to have a remarkable experience that you will treasure forever by combining expertly-led sightseeing with meaningful community development through volunteering or philanthropy. http://www.handsupholidays.com/
West Africa Discovery is a web portal raising awareness towards West Africa as a destination for responsible travel by actively promoting accommodation, tours and volunteer projects that implement responsible tourism principles within their activities. www.westafricadiscovery.co.uk
Fair Trade Volunteering has been set-up to kick-start a movement towards a more transparent volunteering practice > http://fairtradevolunteering.com/
Our thanks to Meet the People Tours for supporting this event.
January
Article in January issue of Families South West Magazine
Article from the Lady Adventurer website
In late 2011, I was approached by Fran from Lady Adventurer to come up with some responsible travel ideas for her readers. Click here to read their article from The Lady Adventurer website.
December Press Release
Responsible Tourism is about “making better places for people to live in and better places for people to visit.” Responsible Tourism requires that operators, hoteliers, governments, local people and tourists take responsibility, take action to make tourism more sustainable.
Cape Town Declaration @ World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002
Travel matters believe just this. Established 14 years ago, the owner, Karen Simmonds works tirelessly trying to bring these principles into her business model. Three years ago, on returning from India, she set up the awareness campaign MAKE TRAVEL MATTER www.maketravelmatter.co.uk, which endeavours to explain how clients holiday choices and behaviour can have a certain impact on the people and places they visit.
“We recognize that clients question the amount of travel they undertake for business and leisure purposes and our Make Travel Matter campaign is all about encouraging people to think more about the environmental and social effects of their travel arrangements.” says Karen.
The clientele of Travel Matters tend to be young families travelling all over the world. For this reason, Karen visits primary schools in the locality to give responsible travel talks to the children travelling with their parents. We have 12 different schools in and around South West London who hear the talks and who have signed up for our fundraising scheme. We donate £10 per person back to the school PTA, for any holiday booked by the parents.
To show their commitment to making the world a better place to live in, Travel Matters supports the charity, Trees for Cities and persuade their clients to donate to the planting of a tree, which Travel Matters matches. “Carbon offsetting is such a complex matter. It is far simpler for people to donate to the tree planting scheme we have in place with Trees for Cities.” says Catherine Murphy Birchall, manager of the agency.
Travel Matters is taking part in South London’s first Green and Ethical Fayre on Saturday 10 December. Look out for them in the big green bus. They will be talking more about the Make Travel Matter campaign. “We want to educate the children further about the issues of responsible travel, so there will be worksheets, story telling and games themed on travel for them.” says Karen Simmonds. “We are delighted to have ITC Giving, Hands Up Holidays, Africa Collection and Meet the People Tours as our trade partners. Our charity partners Trees for Cities, Tourism Concern and The Travel Foundation are supporting us too. It is going to be a great day.”
The Ethical Fayre will be opened by Kate Hoey MP and will have stalls selling fairly traded, green and ethical gifts and organic food. There will be a pedal powered music centre a Father Christmas’ workshop and beeswax candle making. The Green Café will be open for light lunch.
A recent article in the Travel Trade Gazette – March 2010
Recent article in the Inside Balham – March 2010
Over the summer we set a travel writing competition for some local schools. Over 120 pupils participated. The task was to write a story (fiction or non fiction) about their travel experiences over the summer holidays. The children were inspired by the countries they visited, wrote about the different cultures, people and traditions. The outcome was some outstanding work and a tricky task for the judges to decide a winner. The winner was Kate Sparrow, a Year 5 pupil at Macaulay Church of England Primary School, closely followed by a year 3 student, Olivia Snook. The girls accepted two beautiful travel reference books on behalf of the school for the library. All other students shortlisted received certificates for the outstanding work. Well done to everyone who participated!
Here are some pupils from Hornsby House with their work for our travel writing competition.
Here are a few images of our first “Make travel matter” talk. Here are some year 2 students from Macaulay Primary School completing their worksheets after having listened so attentively.
“Thank you so much for the visit the children really enjoyed it and got a lot from it. They really enjoyed the opportunity to ask you questions and loved the worksheet. I hope we can do it again”.
Jane Richmond, Macaulay Primary School
Headteacher of Macaulay Primary School – Liz Divall with Karen and Maggie Hayes who had just returned from Crete. The school continues to support the fundraising scheme Travel Matters offers.
We are pleased to be working alongside some local schools, to promote education throught travel. This is a photo of Karen and the head of Finton House. Travel Matters is offering £10 per person to the school PTA with every holiday booked through the travel agency. The funds help the school with their fundraising, whether it helps with bursaries or fund an overseas development in a school.
Do click on the links below to read more about us and what we have been up to.
Selling Long Haul (December issue)
Child of London camping article
Selling Long Haul editorial for Travel Matters
Travel article – Child of London
