Why it matters to us
A receptive operator lives off the places it sells. If a village in the Calchaquí valleys empties out, if a wetland dries, if a trail is loved to death, the journey disappears with it. So for Kallpa sustainability is not a page on the website but the condition for staying in business, and we have organised the company around it: a written policy, targets with dates, someone responsible for each one, and an independent assessment every two years.
Travelife Partner
Kallpa holds Travelife Partner recognition, the first level of the international Travelife programme for tour operators. It is awarded after an independent assessment of our policy, our management system and our practices against sixty mandatory criteria, and it is reviewed every two years. The next step is Travelife Certified, which requires an on-site audit against more than two hundred criteria; it is where we are heading. Details of the programme and the validity of our recognition are at travelife.info.
What we do, in practice
On the road, we design itineraries that keep groups small, stay in locally owned places where they exist, and bring travellers into contact with the people who live there rather than past them. We work with community-based tourism, such as the rural tourism network of the Calchaquí valleys in Salta, and we tell our partners which hotels and services have their own sustainability credentials so they can choose with open eyes. We compensate the carbon emissions of our operation through Argentine programmes and we favour public transport in the big cities.
In the office, we have gone largely paperless, we measure and reduce our energy use, we buy locally, we manage our waste, and we respect diversity and the wellbeing of the people who work here. Every member of the team knows the policy and their part in it; suppliers and partners get guidance and training; and once a year we report on progress, inside and outside the company.
What we ask of our partners
We share what we learn, we recognise suppliers who get certified, and we expect the companies we work with to care about the same things. If you sell Argentina through Kallpa, you can tell your travellers so.
