With Wild Travel, You Can Choose To Travel With Attitude
Wild Travel works toward sustainable development and being a responsible business by incorporating environmental, social and economic considerations in our business practices and in our decision-making processes. Wild Travel recognizes that tourism in Morocco impacts local communities and the environment, and we believe that Tourism can do better than harm to ensure the welfare of people and conservation of the environment: respecting the people, cultures and local environments, good will and cross-cultural sharing and balanced development.
Our objectives are:
- To engage and educate our travelers to be force of positive change and empower them to positively impact communities in Morocco. We provide a pre-trip information about responsible travel practices to encourage them to make sustainable choices while traveling and also to be educated on cross cultural considerations and cultural sensitivities they can find in Morocco.
- To offer unique travel experiences that have positive and low impact on local communities. We are a travel agency that promote and encourage active travel and outdoor activities which can connect travelers with off beaten communities or less touristy communities in a positive and rich way.With Active travel we can Minimizing environmental impact.
- To supporting local businesses and cultural experiences and advocating for responsible tourism policies when choosing and working with suppliers and partners.
- To working with suppliers who are advocating for responsible travel and implement sustainable and responsible practices.
- To increase awareness about Animal welfare. We don’t operate Horse carriage and horse-riding activities in Morocco. We do operate camel ride activity but if we can avoid it, we would because our travelers still want to experience this highlight activity but we operate it under strict animal welfare process and assessment that we follow with our suppliers.Also, for hiking we need to use mules for food and goods transportation in mountains, we also have a process that our suppliers and guides need to follow to ensure that the mules are healthy.
Wild Travel is owned by Moroccan woman called Fatimazohra Benhenia. We hire local staff, use local guides and local transport services with local drives, eat at locally owned restaurants and stay in locally owned and staffed accommodations. Our goal is to keep tourism dollars in our community and to ensure sustainability of our economic environment and support the livelihoods of the communities we visit in Morocco. And as the company is owned by Moroccan people, the money generated by the company also stays in the country. We also try to support local women who stay home to have money to support herself and her family by preparing home cooked meal for groups eat her house which it is a unique and local experience. We also try to work with a non-profit association which educated girls and women to learn culinary skills to find a decent job. In Morocco there are many opportunities and ways to support local people and communities within responsible and sustainable travel.
- We encourage the use of refillable water bottles and to refill a water bottle from water dispensers where available to avoid unnecessary purchasing of bottled water and the subsequent waste disposal issues. When the water dispensers aren’t available, we encourage group to buy big water bottles of 5 liter and refill from it as in Morocco it is very rare where to find water dispensers.
- We work with our suppliers throughout Morocco to encourage sustainable practices in their businesses. For ex-ample, we work with accommodation suppliers to display responsible signs in rooms to encourage guests to re-strict electricity and water use in the name of protecting the Moroccan environment.
- We actively encourage our travelers to bring cloth bag to take with them on tour to minimize the use of plastic bags, During the welcome meeting on day 1 of the tour, our Tour guides discuss the fragile Moroccan environment and encourage all travelers to use cloth bags as substitutes for plastic bags when shopping and to buy the bag from local women and artisan in a way to also support the local people and to take as souvenir to use back in their countries. we also try to encourage our brands partners to provide free cloth bag to their travelers as well on their tours, the bags can be handmade locally by women cooperatives.
- In our office we do our best to implements responsible practices like using recycled products, buying locally made products, being responsible about electricity and water usage.
Throughout each of our Moroccan tours, our Tour guides promote a wide range of responsible travel philosophies. We provide training to all of our Tour guides on safety and social issues in the areas they operate to help them educate travelers on matters such as local customs, religion, cultural etiquette, prostitution and child safety. Our travelers are in turn given guidelines on how to travel responsibly, which include:
- Education on cross cultural considerations and cultural sensitivities. For example, the appropriate attire to wear during visits to religious sites and asking permission when taking photos of local people
- Teaching our travelers some words and phrases of Moroccan Dialect Darija in order to help with local interaction
- We ask our travelers not to give cash to beggars, children and people you have just met.We encourage them to supporting the community through a local school, clinic or development project that can be more constructive.
- We actively discourage the participation of our travelers any activities that exploit wild or domestic/working animals. The use of donkeys, camels on our tours are only approved when the wellbeing of the animals has been previously established.
- We explain to our traveler the importance of taking permission of local people If they want to take pictures. Send them back copies of photos to help make it a two-way exchange.
We Also do our best in:
- Supporting local businesses instead of opting for large international chains, we prioritize local businesses when it comes to accommodation, dining, transport, guides and souvenirs.
- We hire only local people from staff, guides to tour leaders
We prefer to work with brands partners who are advocate for responsible travel.