CORPORATE
Our Responsibilities
Voyages is committed to nurturing and sharing Australia’s sensitive and complex eco and cultural destinations and also to protecting them for generations to come.
Because we feel privileged to operate in remote locations such as the Red Centre, Tasmania’s Central Highlands, the Kimberley region in Western Australia, Queensland’s Outback and the Great Barrier Reef, it is critically important to us that we address local needs and concerns. At Voyages, the social and environmental policies we have created are not an option, they are a vital way of life for us as a company and for our partners.
We have therefore made a dual commitment to operate in harmony with the local communities:
Corporate Social Responsibility is more than Corporate Philanthropy – It’s corporate behaviour … and staff behaviour …..and guest behaviour …
Voyages can develop corporate initiatives for cultural and environmental management but we rely greatly on our staff to put these into practice on a daily basis. As such our teams are educated in these issues and are provided with forums where they are encouraged to provide constant feedback which contributes to best practice techniques.
Voyages has recently produced its first Community and Environment Report documenting and analysing our work in the areas of social and environmental commitment. This Report is being rolled out across the Resorts and also made available to senior trade and industry leaders for their comments and feedback.
We operate an Interactive Visitors Centre at Ayers Rock Resort and conduct presentations for interested touring, conference and school groups who wish to learn more about the environmental practices of our Resorts.
We also recognise that once our guests have been touched by these wonderful experiences that they want to give something back as well. The Green Guardians program and the Mutitjulu Foundation are two opportunities for guest partnership.
We also feel it’s critical to share our learnings at an industry level with our colleagues. As such, representatives from the Voyages management team participate in a range of local and international industry forums such as the International Ecotourism Conference, the Australian Indigenous Tourism Conference, the Travellers Philanthropy Conference and the Tourism Futures Conference. We also sponsor industry events such as the TTF Australia (Tourism & Transport Forum) Indigenous Tourism Dinner and the National Tourism Alliance – Taxing Tourism Study. Most recently we have sponsored the TTF Study into the Tourism Potential of National Parks.
Voyages representatives also have memberships in key industry associations such as the Aboriginal Tourism Association and sit on a number of Boards to ensure our opinion is represented and our learnings shared.
And we work with the media to educate them through familiarisation tours and ongoing distribution of media materials. Voyages is an active supporter of the Visiting Journalist program run by Tourism Australia. In the last 12 months we have been working with community leaders and various interested parties to ensure that the photographic guidelines as they relate to the images of sacred aboriginal sites which can be taken and reprinted are properly upheld by our organisation and those media with whom we work.
