Palestine and Israel small group tour

Planet

Environmental concerns are fairly low down the list of priorities for many Palestinians, built up areas can be polluted with traffic fumes and rubbish and litter is prolific. In Israel recycling is more widely available. As with all our destinations we encourage our clients to use recycling facilities where available, use water bottles with filtration systems to eliminate the need to buy plastic bottles and to say no to unnecessary packaging, eg plastic bags.

Projects to protect the environment and countryside do exist in Palestine including various walking trails through the country. By offering these to tourists and increasing the numbers walking in Palestine, staying in local homes while they do this we can increase the awareness and knowledge of locals to the importance of protecting the environment.

As a company we have introduced responsible practices in our UK office including paper, cardboard, aluminium and plastic recycling. We also support local UK charities with a fund raising event each Christmas and various charities around the world. 50% of our office staff walk or cycle to work. Management encourages this with their introduction of the cycle to work scheme which offers subsidised cycle ownership.

People

Our local agent in Palestine is based in Bethlehem and is an NGO working with various different projects in the West Bank. “Established in 1995, ATG operates according to the tenets of “justice tourism”, that is, tourism that holds as its central goals the creation of economic opportunities for the local community, positive cultural exchange between host and guest through one-on-one interaction, the protection of the environment and political/historical education. ATG works to encourage all tourism operators to abandon exploitative mass tourism and to adopt practices that positively affect the host population. Through these methods, ATG seeks to promote a positive image of Palestine and its people and to contribute towards establishing rightful peace in the area. Since its establishment, ATG has provided its services to thousands of people from all over the world.”

While we have a UK tour leader on the tour our guides are locals and we use four different guides to make sure we are getting the best local knowledge and providing employment for those in each area as some guides are restricted as to where they can travel. Our drivers are also all local drivers.

The three hotels we use are all small locally owned hotels. The restaurant at our guesthouse in Bethlehem makes sure to just use locally grown produce which is in season to support local markets and farmers.

As well as visiting the main sights in this region we also strive to take our clients to a variety of other locations and to give them plenty of time in each location to explore further. This is a region where most tourists travel as part of large coach tours on pilgrimages and are bussed in and out seeing just the sight in question. By visiting other areas such as the villages and in some places deserted old cities we give our clients chance to see more and understand more and also to help increase tourism in areas which desperately need it - to handicraft shops and tea houses who rarely see many tourists.