Based in Kathmandu, Nepal, socialtours is a highly innovative,
soft adventure specialist offering a range of products from trekking and soft
adventure trips to special interest travel, village stays and volunteering.
Working with local communities, the company strives to provide the clients with
locally distinctive, value-added travel experiences that help promote and
preserve Nepal's rich cultural and ecological diversity.
Socialtours has been five times nominee for the Responsible Travel
Awards in the UK and featured in National Geographic Adventure and Lonely
Planet. It has also been listed amongst four other companies as the best
sustainable tourism companies in Nepal in a UNWTO publication in 2012. Since
its foundation in 2002 socialtours has constantly worked to develop new and
innovative products into the market.
At ITB Asia and World Travel Market 2012, socialtours is coming
with its set of innovative products and looking for industry partners wishing
to expand their product base and working with a local partner who understands
their markets and will help them constantly keep the market interest dynamic,
through active product expansion, creativity and dedication to excellence in
delivery.
Why
talk to socialtours?
For over 10 years, socialtours has been honing its skills in
delivery, understanding of markets and customers, and going deeper and deeper
into Responsible Tourism practice. Partners stand to gain from this sort of
expertise on the ground, enhancing their profiles through excellent reviews on
trips, value addition through the real practice of responsible tourism on the
ground, and dynamic changes in offers through an ever expanding product base.
Socialtours does not only work in delivery excellence, but works together as
partners.
Our OFFERS in Nepal, Tibet, Bhutan & India
The experiences promoted by the company fall under distinct
categories
GO LOCAL | Discover Hidden Secrets
GO LOCAL | Discover Hidden Secrets
In 2011 socialtours launched the Go Local activities, a new
initiative to discover hidden secrets only locals know. The objective of these
short tours is to give travellers richer, deeper and out of the ordinary
experiences into culture, while at the same
time making a positive impact on the local communities and environment. These
tours have become extremely popular.
A very popular product in this series is Cook like a local, which gives a chance to learn typical Nepali
dishes. The course has been featured in
Lonely Planet and has received spectacular reviews.
Splice of Kathmandu is the newest addition to the Go Local series and complements the cooking class. The tour leads through the local Ason markets, a wonderful place to plunge into the aromas and tastes of spices, herbs, vegetables, utensils, the traditional clothing and wholesale markets. The purpose of this tour is to discover the heart of Kathmandu.
Since 2011 socialtours has engaged in cultural preservation
experiences conducting an exotic 20 course Newar feast called Vo'ye. The driving force of this event
is to revive the unique Newar, culturally sensitive tradition and prevent
degradation of culture by organizing the feast every year during the Kumari /
Indra Jatra festival.
This category encompasses a number of
activities ranging from trekking to white water rafting through paragliding to
jungle safari. Here socialtours strives to push travellers into off beat and
community based initiatives, thereby helping spread the benefits of tourism
into areas where they usually do not reach.
Communityeco-lodge trek is an off the beaten track trek into the ever popular Annapurnas, with eco-lodge stays benefitting community based tourism.
A Responsible Peak is an educational tour on the intricacies of practice of responsible tourism, and takes people on a homestay based trek and combines it with a twist on the ever popular Jungle Safari.
Communityeco-lodge trek is an off the beaten track trek into the ever popular Annapurnas, with eco-lodge stays benefitting community based tourism.
A Responsible Peak is an educational tour on the intricacies of practice of responsible tourism, and takes people on a homestay based trek and combines it with a twist on the ever popular Jungle Safari.
Socialtours is also working on developing a range of cultural
shorter products on the slowly popularising Great Himalaya Trail, striving to reach areas that other treks do
not, thereby helping get the spread done there.
The series has been established to create enriching experiences
for the customers with special interest. Highly tailor made, each trip in this
series focuses on a particular cultural or environmental experience.
Crop to Cup is a Coffee tour developed for the coffee connoisseurs to experience
the high quality, organic coffee grown in Nepal. The tour shows all the steps
of coffee production and ends in tasting this wonderful product.
Dancing with Shamans is a monsoon trek that goes to a
high mountain lake in the August Full Moon to experience apprentice shaman turn
into full shaman in a yearly high altitude festival.
The
Red Panda Watch is a trip into high altitude
herder communities to stay with them and utilise their skill in tracking the
elusive Red Panda.
This series resolves around the concept of volunteering and
charity tours that has been one of the core strengths of the company right from
the start.
For the second time this year Socialtours has co-organized Kathmandu Kora Cycling Challenge. The
aim of this event is to bring together riders from Nepal and abroad to
participate in 50 kilometre cycling challenge around Kathmandu Valley, raising
money per kilometre biked for development. In 2012, the challenge brought
together about 300 riders and raised money for upgrading birthing centers in a
remote district. The fund rising target of NRs 500,000 was exceeded by 180%. The
event proved to be highly successful.
The Everest and Annapurna Base Camp trek Challenges
raise money per meter climbed to benefit causes which are vetted by Save the
Children and implemented via the philanthropic arm of socialtours, Karma
Foundation.
Since 2009, socialtours has started a regional initiative called
the Green Circuit, aimed at bringing together responsible operators in the
sub-continent. This has bought together award winning organisations in an
effort to join forces to learn together, market together and put up a bigger
front in the market.
The Green Triangles of India & Nepal
brings together the popular triangles in India and Nepal in a heady mix of
responsible experiences in these two countries. The cities of Delhi, Agra and
Jaipur are combined with Kathmandu, Pohkara and Chitwan shown in a new
perspective, which makes a responsible alternative to mass tourism.
The
RT AUDIT | Leading Responsible Tourism Practice
Socialtours was one of the first companies in Nepal to develop a
policy for responsible tourism, outlining a set of principles to adhere to in
order to respect local people and environment, and to contribute into the local
economy. It has committed itself to integrating tourism with social
development.
Based on the formats and systems set by Responsible Tourism
Reporting, an initiative spearheaded by Jenefer Bobbin and Prof. Harold
Goodwin, socialtours has for the second time completed the report on
sustainability performance. The report shows in detail how the company gets on
in the key areas of social, economic and environmental responsibility. It also
sets the targets for the next year.
Contact
Raj Gyawali, founder director via email at raj@socialtours.com and via phone at +43 66 47 35 33 48 3.
… or visit our website @ www.socialtours.com
… or visit our website @ www.socialtours.com
*end* | 21st Sep - Kathmandu, Nepal
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