Inside Travel Group, which operates the InsideJapan and InsideAsia programmes, has achieved a key sustainability award.
The operator has been granted Travelife Partner status under the Travelife sustainability scheme set up in 2007 by Abta and its Dutch counterpart ANVR.
Earlier this year, Inside Travel appointed Sophie Walker as sustainable tourism coordinator.
“I am so proud that we can now call ourselves a Travelife Partner,” she said.
“We started this process in January but, of course, there have been all sorts of issues affecting the travel industry over the rest of the year.
“However, it has given us the impetus to revise our sustainability policy, animal welfare policy, child safeguarding policy and modern human slavery statement, and we have managed to do all of this to the high standards required by Travelife in a relatively short time.
“It has demonstrated the commitment of the company to this cause and the high regard in which it holds these issues.”
Partner status is accompanied by the operator’s recent signing up to the Tourism Declares Climate Emergency campaign.
They are the first stages in a five-year sustainability plan by Inside Travel Group directors Alastair Donnelly and Simon King, with carbon offsetting set to be introduced in 2021.