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My company, gloCaltravel, offers alternatives to mass tourism holidays, co-operating with local guides and communities in Mexico & Central America to improve their economy and protect their environment.
Our website provides detailed information about the featured countries and destinations, an overview about their history, culture and traditions, and tips and suggestions helping travelers to make the most of their trip, enjoying the local life, in a way that contributes directly to the local communities. The lodging section lists independent hotels, B&Bs, camps, haciendas and ecolodges, avoiding hotel chains and mass tourist resorts. Accommodation can be searched by area and type, and travellers will find a detailed description for each of the featured properties - with emphasis on their eco-policies - and a rich photo-gallery, with some extra information about the surrounding areas.
Ecotours range from daily activities and excursions to longer trips exploring different regions, and are all focused on nature watching and on the discovery of the amazing archaeology and culture of Latin America, with interaction activities with local communities. Adventure activities often included in the tours are trekking, mountain-biking, rafting, kayaking, climbing, flying, diving and snorkelling. Other cultural activities are food and drink tasting, cooking and handcraft courses.
Through our blog, activities and campaigns we are also dedicated to raising awareness amongst tourists of the importance of environmental conservation, and to cooperate with local operators for a more sustainable development of the tourist industry.
Our eco-policies:
gloCaltravel operates a first selection on the same destinations, trying to avoid mass tourism resorts and all inclusive holidays which prevent travellers for spending their money outside their artificial paradise, whereas the local communities suffer with the exploitation of their natural environment and their labour force, with a very little benefit for their internal economy.
We mainly promotes destinations off the beaten tracks, focusing on areas offering peculiar eco-systems and bio-diversities, and historical and archaeological parks.
Accommodation and tour providers are carefully selected among those who show an approach to the tourist development based on sustainability and respect for the environment, applying natural design principles, practising ecology policies (i.e. recycling, waste control, and energy and water savings), and creating an atmosphere where visitors can have an authentic travel experience. Participants to cultural and nature tours are accompanied in small groups by anthropologists, biologists and local guides, cooperating with the native communities.
Although we are based in London, unlike other operators we spend at least a couple of months per year in Mexico, going on tours, trying accommodation options and meeting the local guides in order to have first hand knowledge of the holidays we sell through our website. We prefer checking their eco-behaviour on the spot instead of simply relying on their published policies about sustainability and environmental conservation.
We provide also information about NGO's operating on the Mexican territory and shopping tips which follow principles of social equity and fair trade.
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