2023
Impact ReportIntroduction

PeoplePlanetLooking Forward

45

3

Climate action

17

Our team

30

Tackling overtourism46

Our impact at a glance

4

Planet action in numbers

18

Our team in numbers

31

Community-based tourism

472023 in numbers

5

Tourism Declares a Climate
Emergency

19

Our growing global presence

32

48

Our impact journey

6

Employee engagement

33

Joge: a case study of community
tourism

Our journey continues

49

A closing word

50

Bold reduction ambitions

20

Purpose7

The uncomfortable truth about
reducing emissions

21

Our purpose

8

How we plan to reduce ouremissions22

Our bold vision as a business

9

Creating happy customers
Having a positive impact

Our purpose goals

34

Our people initiatives

35

Team FAM trips

36

Volunteering

37

Measuring emission reductions

23

Finding measures we believe in

24

Communities

38

Every Trip Offset

25

Our communities in numbers

39

Our Giving Back pledge

40

Our Giving Back charity partners

41

Beyond the Giving Back pledge

42

Our innovative scheme in Japan43

Our people goals

44

11
13

16

Measuring staff satisfaction

Nature Positive
Escaping the carbon tunnel

Our Nature Positive projects

Our planet goals

26
27

28

29

Contents

A message from our founders

3

Introduction A message from our founders

A message from our founders
While travel is back post-pandemic, we all need to play
our part in ensuring travel builds back better. Overtourism,
carbon emissions, nature depletion and plastic pollution
are all of critical concern.
At Inside Travel Group, we want to ensure that we
combine everything great about travel - meeting people
from different cultures, developing new perspectives,
experiencing different ways of life, seeing the world
in all its beauty and mind-blowing diversity, creating
shared memories that last a lifetime - while delivering
positive environmental and economic impact within thedestinations we visit.
We have seen that, done right, travel can create
meaningful local employment and add economic value,
while also protecting valuable cultural and natural
heritage. And, by rooting travel in cultural experienceand community, visitors can have a genuinely immersive,
meaningful and hugely enjoyable trip. This is the virtuous
circle we are striving to help deliver.
Responsible Travel is complex. It involves carbon
monitoring and reduction; it’s about education; it’s aboutbuilding products that are valuable to local communities;
it’s about giving money to crucial conservation projects;
and it’s about continually holding ourselves to the mostrigorous standards.
This report outlines what we did in 2023 and the action
we are committing to in the coming years. But for a travelcompany, positive impact is a journey that never ends.
We learn from our successes, we learn from our mistakes,
we learn from our competitors in travel and the leading
thinkers in government and academia. And if you haveany suggestions for us, we’d love to learn from you too.

We believe passionatelythat travel can be a force
for good in the world.

Simon King

Alastair Donnelly

Co-Founder and Global Integrator

Co-Founder and Visionary

Introduction 2023: Our impact at a glance2023: Our impact at a glance4

5© Elephant Hills

Introduction 2023 in numbers

2023 in numbers

10,736£50.1 Mil 28
revenueeNPS

49%(465% increase vs 2022)(bounce back to pre-pandemic level)

Employee Net Promoter Score (vs averageof 14 across organisations globally)(vs 2022)

50,695310

4.8

passengers

tonnes CO2e offset

Nature Positive projects

destinations

growth in teamaverage Trustpilot score

6

Introduction Our impact journey2021
We launched our Every
Trip Offset programme

Our impact journey

We became a founding
signatory of the Glasgow
Declaration

2012
2000
We founded
InsideJapan with themission to take ourcustomers ‘beneaththe surface’We started measuring
our office energy,
waste and water

All our branches
achieved Travelife
Partner recognition

2019
2016
We started measuring
and offsetting ourbusiness travel flights

We renamed ourselves
Inside Travel Group,
housing InsideJapanand InsideAsia

We introduced
volunteering leave forall employees

2011

2018

2020

We raised over
£30,000 for disaster
relief for the Great
Tohoku Earthquake
and Tsunami

We started ourcustomer transport
card donation projectwith Japan’s first foodbank

We achieved Travelife
Partner certification(UK branch)

2013
InsideAsia is born,a specialist travel
brand for SE Asia
We appeared in
The Times Top 200
UK businesses withthe fastest growinginternational sales

2023
We became B Corp
Certified
We raised £128,000
through our Giving BackpledgeWe established our
Nature Positive
programme2022

We established Giving
Back, our commitment
to donate 5% of
operating profits toour charity partners

We worked with carbon
consultants, ecollective,
to measure our entire
carbon footprint,
including every trip

We joined Tourism
Declares A Climate
Emergency

We sent out our firstsupplier sustainability
survey in JapanPurpose7

Our purpose

8

Our bold vision as a business

9

Creating happy customers

11

Having a positive impact

13

Our purpose goals

16

Purpose8

Our purpose

Our founding purpose was to share what
we loved most about the places we had
lived and travelled with as many people
as possible.
Rather than days spent touring classic sites,
we wanted our customers to buy lunch fromvending machines, sample sweet potato
ice-cream, drink sake and eat yakitori
grilled skewers in traditional Japanesepubs called izakaya…Yes, there’s also sometraditional sightseeing – because you can’t
miss the Golden Pavilion in Kyoto, or theneon-lit streets of Tokyo. But experiencing
what’s normal to locals, yet wholly new
and culturally insightful to visitors, whileconnecting with passionate Insider Guides(‘Insiders’), remains at the heart of ITG’s
offering.
In 2000, this style of travel didn’t havea label. Today it is called ‘experiential
tourism’. We call it ‘cultural adventure’ –and this is the spirit that has always run
through everything ITG does.

Purpose

Our bold vision as a businessour vision

To build a global cultural adventure
tour operator which, through applying
the principles of B Corp, leads thetravel industry towards a moresustainable future and protects travelfor future generations.  

9

Purpose

Our bold vision as a businessour mission

To create happy customers,
to be a great place to workand to have a positive
impact on our destinations
and local communities.

10

Purpose

11

Creating happy customers

Creating happy
customers

Dedication to our customer powers what we do as abusiness, and staying specialist allows us to offer a deeper
and richer experience from start to finish. It guides the rate
we grow – quality always comes first, and we’re committed
to keeping it that way.
It also guides how we make decisions about our products
and services. We don’t think about what is easy, but what
helps us to guarantee a great experience for our customers- like building a 24/7 customer service team based acrossfour continents.

Despite passenger numbers
growing significantly since 2017,
we have maintained an exceptional
level of customer satisfaction
and have a world-class NPS (Net
Promoter Score) of 86.

86
ITG

NPS

Customer satisfaction rating

There is a powerful connection that comes from hearing
someone share their memories and lived experiences.
It’s what enriches our customers’ trip as they meet withlocal guides and experience providers, building cultural
understanding between visitors and the places they visit.

No. of passengers

Customer satisfaction rating vs number of travelling passengers

Purpose

12

Creating happy customers

All our guides and drivers
were amazing – very wellinformed, flexible to any
changes we wanted made andcaring. Highlights for us weremeeting locals in Battenbang
who had set up their own small
businesses and a wonderfulstay in a tented camp in the
Cardamon Mountains.

Our trip was AMAZING!
Everything we hoped for andmore! We made some amazing
memories, met really cool
people and crossed several
things off our bucket list.

Knowledgeable, well-connected staff,
who really listen to their customers’
needs. An amazing range of places
to visit, the real inside track. Highly
recommended.

Purpose

13

Having a positive impact

Having a positive
impactWe believe business should be a force forgood in the world.
In 2023, ITG became B Corp Certified. This placed
us at the heart of a global movement of businesses
using their influence to make the world a better
place.

80.3
Our B Corp Score (2023)

80

50.9

Qualifies for B Corp
Certification

Median score forordinary businesses

We built our intent into our mission and integrated
it into our legal structure. This is called ‘mission
lock’, and it provides a legal basis for our directors
to consider the interests of all stakeholders, not justshareholders, when making important decisions.
Our score of 80.3 only just passed the threshold for
certification, so there’s plenty for us to work on in
the coming years. But we’re proud to be one of thehandful of B Corp Certified tour operators leading
the charge.

The B Corp points system is both dynamic and complex, and the points available can vary frombusiness to business. As we have a large environmental footprint, our environment section has agreater weighting.

Purpose

Having a positive impact

Improving our B Corp score
To be a B Corp is to commit to continuous improvement. We
have to recertify every three years and publish an annual impact
report to be transparent about our progress.
Ahead of recertification in 2026, we’ve identified areas for
improving our business across each of the five pillars. These
improvements would see us score 90 points.

Targeted areas for improvement across the five pillars

14

Purpose

15

Having a positive impact

Stronger together
We have joined Travel by B Corp, a forum for entirely
independent businesses to come together to share bestpractice and create a louder collective voice. This growing
coalition is now 36 members strong, representing 7,000+
employees and £1billion+ revenue.

Travelife
In addition to B Corp, we have received the Travelife Partner
Award. Travelife is a dedicated system for tour operators,
recognised by the GSTC (Global Sustainable Tourism
Council).

Change is only
possible if thetravel industry
works together.

Where B Corp is all-encompassing and applies to allindustries, Travelife is specifically for tour operators andtravel agents and provides a roadmap to improve our
responsible tourism policies. Each of our branches is
independently assessed, and we hold Partner recognition
for them all.

Better Business Act
We also support the Better Business Act to promote better
decision-making outside of ITG. This strives to change the
UK law so that every company aligns its interests with thoseof wider society and the environment.

Purpose16

Our purpose goals

Our purpose goals

Integrate social andenvironmental performancemeasures into all our job
descriptions by the end of2024.

Update our Supplier Code of
Conduct with our significant
suppliers by the end of2024.

Conduct a material impact
assessment on our key
stakeholders by 2025,
and identify impacts
and opportunities forunderrepresented groups.

Recertify as a B Corp in
2026 with a 10+ point
increase, achieving a total
score of 90+.

© Adrian Frumer/Af8 images

Planet17

climate action

Planet action in numbers

18

Tourism Declares a Climate
Emergency

19

Bold reduction ambitions

20

The uncomfortable truth about
reducing emissions

21

How we plan to reduce ouremissions22

Measuring emission reductions

23

Finding measures we believe in

24

Every Trip Offset

25

PlanetClimate action

18

Planet action in numbers

Planet action in numbers

17,04162%

50,695our total carbon footprint (includes all HQ emissions, trips
and international flights booked by us for customers)

run on renewable energy (globally)(covering the flights and land arrangements of all ourcustomers)

3

-0.3%

+5.9%

supported within our destinationsof land-arrangement only bookingsof flight-inclusive bookings

tonnes CO2e*

office space

tonnes of CO2e offset* Updated calculation from 2023 statutory accounts

Nature Positive projects

reduction in carbon intensity

increase in carbon intensity

PlanetClimate action

19

Tourism Declares a Climate Emergency

Tourism Declares a
Climate Emergency
Back in 2020, we declared a Climate Emergency by joining
the Tourism Declares movement. We then became a founding
signatory of the Glasgow Declaration in November 2021.
This is a shared commitment to halve emissions by 2030 andreach net-zero as quickly as possible before 2050.
Since making this commitment, we have worked withcarbon consultants, ecollective, to measure and monitor ouremissions.

PlanetClimate action

Bold reduction ambitions

We’re striving to reduce our per customer per night CO2 footprint by:

50% by 2030
That equates to:

8% per year

20PlanetClimate action

21

The uncomfortable truth about reducing emissions

The uncomfortable truth
about reducing emissions
97% of our emissions are a product of customer trips, with 67% frominternational flights. It is a simple and unavoidable fact: significant
business growth increases our emissions, and so the more people wesend on holiday, the higher our emissions will likely be.
To illustrate, in 2023, our absolute emissions totalled 17,041 tonnes(17,041,193 kg) CO2e. That’s a 429% increase on 2022* as travel to ourdestinations returned post-Covid. In order to provide a more effective
basis for comparison moving forward, we will be conducting a review in2025 to create a new baseline based on our 2019 (pre-Covid) data.
* Updated calculation from 2023 statutory accounts

HOW EMISSIONS ARE MEASURED
In emissions measurement there are three ‘scopes’, and we started
measuring our scope 1, 2 and 3 in 2022. This is what’s included in each:

Our absolute emissions in 2023

Scope 3+ emissions for us are the emissions from flights taken bycustomers but not booked by us. These emissions are not included inour carbon footprint but we are estimating these and including themas part of our long term strategy.

PlanetClimate action

22

How we plan to reduce our emissions

How we plan to reduce our emissions
Our customers’ land arrangements and flights account for 97% of our business emissions.
We are working on bringing down those emissions by focusing on three decarbonisation
areas: international flights, in-destination flights and other transport.

DOMESTIC/IN-TRIP FLIGHTS

TRANSPORT

We are launching a flight strategy to ensure we
book/recommend the least-emitting flight options
available, such as direct routes and the most modern
aircraft.

We will work to reduce high carbon parts ofitineraries by encouraging fewer internal flights
and more train travel, as well as working with local
suppliers to start reducing their emissions.

We are replacing in-trip transport from private/high-emitting to public/lower emitting. We believethat public transport is a win-win: emitting less andgetting customers closer to the people and places ina destination.

© Lesley Fisher

INTERNATIONAL FLIGHTS

Better for planet,better for customers

PlanetClimate action

23

Measuring emission reductions

Measuring emission
reductions
This is where things get complicated.

Measuring carbon intensity – the options
For us, carbon intensity is the average carbon footprint per customer per night (pCpN). We work
this out by dividing emissions by the total number of customer nights. In travel, there are someindustry-standard ways of doing this.

As we’ve acknowledged, the more people who travel withus, the higher our total emissions will be. So, how can we
effectively target areas for reduction and measure impact?
This is where a measure called ‘carbon intensity’ comesin. For us, that means looking at emissions per person,
specifically the average carbon footprint per customer pernight, measured in kilograms of CO2e. This gives us a stablemeasure of how we’re doing, one that doesn’t fluctuate
based on how many people book trips.
Why is that so complicated? Well, there are several
ways companies calculate carbon intensity and some canhave flaws. Some may even mask the truth of whether
a company is making progress towards reducing theiremissions at all.

The industry standard metric in travel is to include only flights booked by a company. This can create
the perception of progress towards carbon targets.
But this fails to tell the whole story.
Measuring carbon emissions within the travel sector is complex
and far from perfect. We’re guided by ecollective, the carbon
measurement and reduction experts.

It doesn’t acknowledge the international flights booked by customers (which sit outside a company’s
footprint). These hidden emissions are increasingly termed Scope 3+ and are optional forcompanies to measure and report on. But they are very real. Too real for us to ignore.

PlanetClimate action

24

Finding measures we believe inFinding measures webelieve in
To get a deeper understanding of our progress, we decided on a newmeasurement methodology for working out the average carbon footprint
per customer per night (pCpN).
1. We split our bookings in 2023 into two pots: flight-inclusive trips(26%) and land arrangements only (74%).
2. We removed HQ/employee emissions (these need a measure of
their own) to allow us to specifically monitor the carbon intensity ofcustomer trips.
3. We ended up with two core metrics that represent the most accurate
picture of emissions from the full lifecycle of a customer trip.

Rethinking carbon metrics in this way demonstrates
how susceptible they can be to selectivity andmanipulation.
We will continually monitor our choice of metrics
to make sure they are accurate and reliable. As we
increasingly analyse our customers’ flight data, we’ll
develop a stronger understanding of our carbon
impact.
And we will keep challenging ourselves by asking:Is this greenwashing?

PlanetClimate action

25

Every Trip Offset© Climate Impact Partners

Every Trip Offset
Even as we attempt to reduce our absoluteemissions (by focusing on decarbonisation)and reduce the carbon intensity of our trips,
there will be unavoidable emissions.
This is where our offset strategy fits in.
Through Every Trip Offset, a scheme westarted in 2021, we offset 100% of ourcompany carbon footprint. This includes
all our customers’ international flights,
regardless of whether we booked the flights
or not.
In 2023, we offset the equivalent of 50,695
tonnes of CO2 through our offset partner
Climate Impact Partners. We chose tosupport wind turbines in India, accelerating
the transition from fossil fuels to renewableenergy.

Is carbon offsetting a silver bullet?
No. Reduction of our direct emissions is always the first port of call.
We deploy offsets to immediately address those emissions that are
unavoidable or beyond our sphere of control. Beyond offsets, we are
increasingly focusing on nature regeneration to champion positive
impact so that we do ‘more good’, not just ‘less bad’.

© Cardamom Tented Camp

Planet26

nature positive

Escaping the carbon tunnel

27

Our Nature Positive projects

28

Our planet goals

29PlanetNature Positive

27

Escaping the carbon tunnel

Escaping the carbon
tunnelHistorically, the industry has largely viewed climate action
through a carbon lens. But we also know that as a business(and a global community) we must protect biodiversity
and regenerate nature, particularly in and around ourdestinations. Climate change and biodiversity loss
represent twin crises that we must address together.

Walking the walk for nature recovery
We’re working with specialists, ANIMONDIAL, to understandhow our operations and activities impact animal welfare,biodiversity, natural resources, and local communities.
This work will lay the foundations for our Nature Positive
vision: to invest in nature restoration in our destinations.

Nature Positive28

Our Nature Positive projects© Sustainable Daisen

PlanetOur Nature Positive
projects
We are waiting for the roadmap from our Nature Positive
audit, but we don’t need this to get started. Our first (andquite instinctive) step was to create a Nature Positive Fund tosupport regenerative projects in our destinations. In 2023, we
supported three Nature Positive projects with small grants of£2,000 each.
It’s a drop in the ocean, but we aim to start small and grow.
We have already doubled our donation to these projects in
2024 and hope to build long-term partnerships with them.

Reforesting wildlife corridors in Borneo

Protecting the Japanese
Giant Salamander in ruralJapan

In 2023, we supported APE Malaysia’s ROAR
reforestation project to reconnect fragmented forests of
the Lower Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary. Our initialsupport planted 332 native trees and funded four yearsof tree maintenance. We are set to increase this going
forward.

After 23 million years, the Japanese Giant
Salamander now risks extinction. They canlive to over 80, survive weeks without foodand regrow bones. But they can’t bypass
concrete in their habitats which prevents
them from moving and breeding.

Reducing human-bear conflict in central Japan

That’s why we’ve supported Sustainable
Daisen’s direct conservation efforts byfunding essential equipment and building
temporary weir ramps in the Nawa Riverbasin.

We also provided funding to Picchio, supporting theconservation of Asiatic black bears in Japan. Picchio
promotes the co-existence between humans and bears
through non-lethal methods such as radio collaring andelectric fencing, saving the lives of many black bears.

Planet29

Our planet goals

Our planet goals

Develop a Nature Positive
roadmap to 2030 by theend of 2024, in line withour carbon action plan,
integrating findings from
our ANIMONDIAL nature
audit.

Develop a flight strategy
by the end of 2024 toreduce the emissions ofinternational flights booked
by ITG, prioritising directroutes and modern aircraft
while removing in-trip
flights from itineraries.

Achieve a 10% reductionin per customer per nightCO2e emissions (includinginternational flights) by theend of 2025.

Carbon label 100% of Small
Group Tours by the end of2025.

People30

our team

Our team in numbers

31

Our growing global presence

32

Employee engagement

33

Measuring staff satisfaction

34

Our people initiatives

35

Team FAM trips

36

Volunteering37

PeopleOur team31

Our team in numbers

Our team in numbers

185

49%

(at the end of 2023)(vs 2022)82%

28

team members

clearly understand ITG’ssustainability goals

headcount increase

eNPS

as reported in our annual staff survey(vs average of 14 across organisations
globally)

4.42/5

380

60%

71%

proud to work at ITG

report sustainability as
a motivating factor inapplication

volunteer hours

successfully completed
our in-house sustainability
training modules

PeopleOur team

32

Our growing global presence

Bristol
UK (79 employees)

Broomfield
Colorado, USA (37 employees)

NAGOYA
Japan (44 employees)

Our growing
global presence
We grew 49% in 2023, from 124 to 185
employees across four offices in four continents.

Brisbane
Australia (25 employees)

PeopleOur team

33

Employee engagement

Employeeengagement“For ITG, 2023 was in many ways
like running a high growth start-up
business, after 3 years heavily impacted
by Covid and the closure of our key
travel destinations. Against the backdropof rapid growth and significant levels of
recruitment, onboarding and training,sustaining a high eNPS and strong
satisfaction scores across most of thecategories in our annual survey was avery positive result.”
Tom Weston
ITG’s Chief People Officer

We introduced eNPS (Employee Net
Promoter Score) as a universal measureof employee engagement in 2021. It’s
provided a valuable addition to ourexisting team engagement data, allowing
us to track trends by branch and function.
During these three years, we navigatedthe challenges of coronavirus and then the
rapid rebuild when travel fully resumed
to our destinations in late 2022. To growheadcount by 60% and grow eNPS is atestament to the strength of our culture andour commitment to sustainable growth.

PeopleOur team

34

Measuring staff satisfaction

Measuring staff satisfaction
Every year, we send a staff satisfaction survey. While the eNPS provides thesnapshot, the annual survey helps to provide the full story. With 42 questions
across six categories, it helps us pinpoint how our staff feel, and why.

Average scores by category out of 5

Personal development
Personal development is a big focus for 2024. Our teams
have told us in different forums that progression andprofessional development is a high priority. This year,
we’ll launch a new performance management system andinvest in our Learning and Development systems and teamto support this work. We are also pleased to have beenable to relaunch our global Education Assistance Scheme,
providing financial and logistical support to team members
undertaking role-related studies and qualifications.    
* Increase or decrease vs 2022

PeopleOur team35

Our people initiatives

Our people initiatives
We’ve captured our intent to be a great place to work in our company
mission statement. In the UK, we are a Living Wage employer andglobally, we benchmark salaries every year. Beyond pay, we foster
a positive and inclusive environment with a host of initiatives.

Employee Voice Programme uses insights gauged fromstaff surveys and consultation to steer changes at ITG.

Emotional and mental health support assistanceprogrammes and dedicated wellbeing programmes andevents.

Employee rewards celebrate the hard work anddedication of our team.

Learning and Development investment was stepped up
through our Education Assistance Scheme.

Social and environmental performance is being
incorporated into role descriptions for managers.

PeopleOur team

Team FAM trips

Team FAM trips
We are dedicated to destination specialism andbringing the places we love to life for our customers,
creating brilliant travel experiences and working withan ever-expanding network of suppliers in destination.
This is all enhanced by familiarisation (FAM) trips toour destinations. FAMs are an opportunity for our team
to expand their knowledge, meet other colleagues
from around the world and have fun!

36

PeopleOur team

37

Volunteering

Volunteering
Every team member was entitled to one paid day ofvolunteering leave in 2023. In total, they used 380 hours,
up from 278 hours in 2022. We organised opportunities
within each branch – sorting food for food banks, planting
trees and serving food for a charity Christmas lunch. But weknow we can do more. And do better.
We’ll focus on creating a culture of volunteering: taking amore proactive approach to organising group opportunities,
doubling the amount of volunteer time employees are
eligible to take, and making it easier for employees tovolunteer with projects important to them.
From 2024 onwards, we’re organising a half day ofvolunteering for all staff, twice a year, for everyone to havea few hours doing something completely different fromtheir role.

TOTAL HOURS VOLUNTEERED“A great opportunity
to give back to local
communities, support
cross-functional teambuilding, and just stepout beyond the desk anddo something physical!”Josie Lau
Commercial Finance Manager, ITG

People38

communities

Our communities in numbers

39

Our Giving Back pledge

40

Our Giving Back charity partners

41

Beyond the Giving Back pledge

42

Our innovative scheme in Japan43

Our people goals

44

Communities

39

Our communities in numbers© Camp Quality

PeopleOur communities in numbers£128,000
our Giving Back total

45

hours of free office space used by
local charities

4.3/5“ITG makes a positive contribution to
the communities in which it works”(2023 Annual Staff Survey)£23,763

additional fundraising by ITG, staff
and customers

10

charities supported

2,768

transport cards donated by customers
post-tripPeopleCommunities

Our Giving Back pledge

Our Giving Back pledge
Giving Back is our pledge to donate 5% of our annual operating
profits to select charities.
Our Giving Back charities help families struggling with terminal illnesses,
financial hardship or other issues. These are often the families who needa break the most – and are the least likely to have the opportunity to
do so.
We made this pledge during the pandemic when we had no operating
profit, and so in 2023 it was an amazing milestone to raise £128,000.
We donate 75% of funds to our Giving Back charity partners and keep
25% in a reserve fund for emergency relief and one-off or annual grants
to other charitable organisations that can be nominated by staff.
As a result of our efforts in 2023, we donated the following amounts(including staff donations) to our charity partners in early 2024:

40

Communities

41

Our Giving Back charity partners

Our Giving Backcharity partners© Camp Quality

PeopleMake-A-Wish
Make-A-Wish is a non-profit organisation helping to fulfill
the wishes of children with a critical illness. We are working
directly with our local chapter in Colorado, where our US
office is based.

A Dream A Day in Tokyo
A Dream A Day in Tokyo arranges 1–7-day trips to theTokyo area for children (aged 3–18 years old) who are at
risk of moving to the terminal stage in fighting incurable
illness, together with their families.

The Family Holiday Charity
The Family Holiday Charity provides breaks for UK families
struggling with issues such as disability, severe andsudden illness, bereavement, mental health issues anddomestic violence.

Camp Quality
Camp Quality brings positivity, fun and laughter back into thelives of children facing cancer. Their supportive programs andservices help children (0–15) dealing with their own cancer
diagnosis, or the diagnosis of a sibling, parent, or carer.

Communities

42

Beyond the Giving Back pledge© Child’s Dream

PeopleBeyond the Giving BackpledgeIn addition to the money raised by our Giving Back pledge, staff
fundraising, company donation-matching, and customer donation oftransport card credits raised a further £23,763 for our other charity
partners.

Spotlight on Child’s DreamWe also support charities that directly address some of the
key challenges to communities within our destinations.
Child’s Dream Foundation exists to ensure children in
Southeast Asia grow up to become healthy and have accessto quality education and employment opportunities.
We have been supporting Child’s Dream with staff andcustomer donations since 2017. Our work in 2023 enabled
us to donate £10,240 in early 2024, supporting healthand education projects in Thailand, Myanmar, Laos andCambodia.

Communities

43

Our innovative scheme in Japan© Second Harvest Japan

PeopleOur innovative
scheme in JapanWe make it possible for customers in Japanto donate the remaining credit on theirsubway transport cards (IC Cards) to ourcharity partner Second Harvest, Japan’s
only nationwide foodbank.
In 2023, the IC donation scheme provided
over 23,175 meals.

“The IC Card donation from Inside TravelGroup is used for our foodbank activities
including food pantry and delivery forthe people in need. We received over 1.8
million yen from this initiative in the past
12 months. This is a unique, creative andsustainable way of helping food insecurevulnerable people.”
Hitomi Yakote
CEO, Second Harvest Japan, Tokyo

We received an Encouragement Award
from JATA (Japan Association of Travel
Agents) as part of their inaugural SDGs
(Sustainable Development Goals) Awards
for this project in 2023.
In an enhancement to our relationship, weare now collecting the IC cards from Second
Harvest for other customers to use, creating
an excellent closed-loop scheme whichraises money and reduces waste.

People44

Our people goals

Our people goals

Get 60% of staff
volunteering one-day per
year by 2025.

Develop and embed a
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion(DEI) Strategy.

Develop and deliver
an empowering global
performance management
system.

Achieve 4.5+ in the My
Company section of theAnnual Engagement Survey.

Looking
Forward45

2024 and beyond

If we are truly to walk the talk andprotect the destinations we love andthe communities we work in for future
generations, we have to do more. In thisfinal section, we detail where and how
we will lead the travel industry towards
a better way for people and planet.

Tackling overtourism

46

Community-based tourism

47

Joge: a case study of community
tourism48

Our journey continues

49

A closing word

50

Looking forward

46

Tackling overtourism

Tackling overtourism
The issue is complex and multifaceted.
In Japan, visitors are particularly attracted to Kyoto, Tokyo
and Osaka – and for good reason. In Southeast Asia, social
media has driven certain temples, beaches and festivals
higher and higher up the ‘to-visit’ lists. Ultimately, this all
results in large numbers of people seeking out the sameplaces at the same time.

and promoting lesser-known destinations. This requires
careful planning that respects the limits of capacity and thespecificities of each destination.

Suggesting quieter alternatives is not, alone, a robust
solution as it risks recreating the problems associated withunmanaged visitor numbers in new places.

That’s why we’re focused on developing a clear overtourism
strategy. We’re in consultation with internal teams, local
people and our customers. Once complete, we will sharewidely and use our position to contribute to a future-proof
travel industry, using tourism to make better places to live
in and better places to visit.

Instead, responsible tourism approaches need to be
developed and managed considering both visitors
and local communities. This can be achieved throughcommunity engagement, spreading travel across seasons

Our founding mantra was to enable our customers to‘get beneath the surface’ of our destinations. So, avoiding
overtourism is really part of our DNA. Now, our founding
mantra is more important than ever.

INDUSTRY LEADERSHIP GOAL
Develop a company-wide overtourism strategy
We’re putting together a strategy on overtourism with key terms
defined and targets set.
This will highlight hotspot and non-hotspot areas, with a view tospread positive impact across lesser-known destinations and promote
off-peak experiences.

Looking forward

47

Community-based tourism

Community-based
tourism
Truly responsible travel is about protecting theenvironment, reducing our carbon footprint, anddirecting tourists’ money to do good in the places
we visit.

Tourism by the
local people, forthe local people

While connecting travellers to local communities has
always been part of our DNA, the future lies in deeplyaligning with community-based tourism (CBT). CBT
refers to tourism experiences that are owned, hosted andmanaged by local communities. At its best, CBT goesbeyond promoting local employment, to protecting theculture and environment on which it depends.
In short, it’s ‘tourism by the local people, for the local
people’.
That means authentic and hands-on experiences forcustomers, while making sure the community enjoys direct
financial benefits and is empowered to strengthen its
self-governance and long-term economic development.

Looking forward

Joge: a case study of community tourism

Joge: a case study ofcommunity tourism
In 2023, we took 105 Small Group Tour customers to Joge
town as part of our Hidden Japan tour. Taking a walk down
Joge’s main street really does feel like you’ve stepped backin time, with its wooden-fronted buildings and a lack ofcars, yet it barely receives foreign visitors.
Our project supports and engages the local community,
who provide a series of experiences (lunch, Kendo, awalking tour, a temple visit) and our customers receive
gifts made by local craftspeople. The money this provides
goes directly into the community and our customers havea richer experience – many describing it as the highlight of
their trip.
We are focusing on developing community-based tourism
experiences across all our Asia destinations.

INDUSTRY LEADERSHIP GOAL
All ITG Small Group Tours will include a
community-based tourism experience by 2026.
While community engagement is a central aspectof our trips, we’re developing a strategy to qualify
community experiences and include them on every
Small Group Tour.

48

Looking forward

49

Our journey continues

Our journey continues

2027
We’ll set up an ITG
foundation to house ourcharity contributions

Timeline to 2030 (projected impact milestones)

2025
2024
We’ll develop a flightstrategy to help reduce
our absolute emissions

We’ll publish an
overtourism strategy topromote lesser-known
destinations, spread
travel across seasons, andpromote better travel atpeak times

2026
All Small Group Tours
will include communitybased experiences

2024
2024
We’ll work withANIMONDIAL to passtheir Nature Positive
accreditation, andexpand our investment inregeneration projects inour destinations

2026

We’ll double paid
volunteering leave forall employees, from one
to two days

We’ll re-certify as a
B Corp with a target
points total of 90+

2025
All Small Group Tours
and website itineraries
will be carbon labelled2030
We’ll halve the carbon
intensity of our trips
in line with the Glasgow
Declaration

Looking forward

50

A closing word

A closing word
We have big goals for 2024 and 2025, all of themworking towards more equitable, responsible travel. The
challenges we’re facing are clear and numerous. We can’tchange the fact that air travel is the only feasible way forour customers to travel to our destinations, but we can
influence the choices they make. With some routes using
half the emissions than others, we’re working with ourpartners, ecollective, to measure these differences andpromote the lowest carbon routes to our customers.
We know the loss of biodiversity is already having
catastrophic impacts around the world. We’ve partneredwith ANIMONDIAL and are completing the NaTour Impact
Assessment to understand how our company operations
and activities, as well as supply and value chains, impact
on animal welfare, biodiversity, natural resources, andindigenous and local communities. Then, we can build aroadmap to minimise operational impact on nature andhelp build back biodiversity.
In 2023, we supported three Nature Positive projects andin 2024 we will double our donations to them. We havealso diversified our carbon offsets, so 30% of them fundthe Rimba Raya Biodiversity Reserve in Indonesia, to help
local people protect the forest from deforestation andconserve the biodiversity within it.

With tourism rebounding in staggering numbers to ourdestinations, the issues surrounding overtourism are also
central on our radar. We are working to understand how
it’s affecting our customers and the local communities in
the hotspots across our destinations. The solutions are in
front of us - we already have the specialist knowledge toencourage customers to visit lesser-known destinations,to take part in community-based tourism, to visit outsideof the peak seasons and travel better at peak times. It’s amatter of collaboration with our teams to put in place anoverarching strategy to ensure our customers are having
the best trip they can, while benefitting local communities
as much as possible.
So, as we look towards the next couple of years, we know
we have big challenges to face, but we are optimistic
we can make a positive difference. Working together
as a global team at ITG, with our business and charity
partners and the wider travel industry, we can continue totake steps in the right direction that create considerable
change.

Sophie Walker
Global Head of Sustainability

A cultural adventure tour operator with twoaward-winning brands, InsideJapan and InsideAsia
insidetravelgroup.com