Promoting locally owned businesses

G Adventures offers tours that enable travellers to interact with local people in destinations in a way that changes the lives of both for the better. From the outset, G Adventure's buying policy has prioritised locally owned businesses to ensure that the economic benefits of the company’s tours are felt by local people in the destinations travellers visit. G Adventures define ‘locally owned’ as businesses that have at least 51% ownership by nationals in the country of operation. To assess the effectiveness of this policy and find out  the real-world impact of their tours on the communities visited, in 2016 G Adventures began surveying the vendors in its supply chain. The survey found that 91% of restaurants, transport providers and accommodations on G Adventures tours are owned by local people, while 83% of supplier management staff are local. Additionally, 65% of meals included on tours are based on local food and traditional cuisine and 90% of G Adventures suppliers purchase more than half of their goods from local producers, markets and farms. The survey is run every year and illustrates the ‘Ripple Effect’ of G's operations on the lives of local people in destinations.

G Adventures were keen to be transparent with customers about how much of the money paid for tours, that is spent in destinations, goes to locally owned service providers. Using the data collected in the survey exercise a ‘Ripple Score’ has been generated for almost every tour G Adventures offers. The higher the Ripple Score the greater the benefit to the local community. Lower scores show G Adventures where improvements need to be made. The Ripple Score is just one of the ways G Adventures brings its commitment to local people to life.