Environment
Maintaining the quality of the world's environments is crucial to our continued long term success in being able to offer you high quality holidays in some of the most beautiful and fascinating places on earth. To this end:
- We will endeavour to minimise our environmental impacts and support activities and projects to protect and restore the natural environment.
- We work with industry colleagues through the Federation of Tour Operators (FTO) to improve standards across the industry and develop supply chain tools such as Responsible Tourism Guidelines for hoteliers and the Travelife Sustainability Award.
- We support The Travel Foundation in its efforts to preserve natural environments in holiday destinations and spread the economic benefits from tourism across communities. (For more information see www.thetravelfoundation.org.uk)
- We inform our customers of the importance of environmental issues and provide tips to enable them to behave more responsibly on holiday.
- 99% of our UK head office energy suppliers are from renewable sources (42% biomass, 22% onshore wind, 21% hydro and 14% landfill gas).
- We adhere to the reduce-reuse-recycle mantra at our head office, by reducing our use of paper through the introduction of paper efficient printers, and initiatives such as e-ticketing. We re-use folders and other stationary under an amnesty scheme and use washable mugs rather than plastic cups.
- We recycle all paper and cardboard, plastic bottles, aluminium cans, glass and batteries at our head office.
- Printer cartridges and mobile phones are also recycled to raise money for our group charity Virgin Unite.
- We have adopted Hove Lagoon beach in association with the Marine Conservation Society and are committed to cleaning and monitoring litter levels on this beach at least four times per year.
- We are taking steps to reduce energy and water use in our head office through changing staff behaviour and implementing more efficient systems and procedures.
- We are currently measuring our carbon footprint are taking measures to reduce it.
- We are the headline sponsor of the 2007 Responsible Tourism Awards.
- We are committed to the Business in the Community May Day summit on reducing carbon emissions.
Community
Virgin Holidays aims to have a positive impact on the communities in the destinations we operate in and we like to give something back where we can. To this end:
- We encourage the empowerment of developing world nationals to run their own tourist industries by funding a Caribbean Hotels Association scholarship programme for up to 3 students per year to study for degrees in Tourism Management at US and UK Universities. Click here to find out more www.caribbeanhotelfoundation.org.
- The vast majority of our overseas staff are nationals of the destinations they work in. This boosts the local economy and provides an exceptional level of local knowledge for our customers
- Our overseas staff are encouraged to support the local community and engage with charities through steering committee involvement, fundraising activities and charitable donations. All overseas resorts are provided with funds to invest in local community projects
- 50p from every holiday sold through our Worldwide brochure is donated straight to Tourism Concern to fight exploitation in the tourism industry www.tourismconcern.org.uk
- All our staff are entitled to one day paid volunteering per year to spend in a community project of their choice. Over the past year Virgin Holidays employees have volunteered through: E-mentoring pupils at local schools, organising parties for special needs children and decorating and gardening for local charities. Our directors and senior management team also undertake an annual community volunteering challenge
- Our Customer Care department provides exceptional service for customers with special needs. The Queen Elizabeth Foundation for Disabled People have awarded Virgin Holidays an EASE award as the best tour operator for disabled holidaymakers.
- We support Virgin Unite, the Virgin Group charitable initiative set up by Richard Branson. See www.virginunite.com for info
- All tea and coffee provided for staff and visitors at our UK head office is Fair Trade certified
- We support research into sustainable tourism by participating in relevant academic studies whenever requested.
People
We think the people that work for us are our most valuable asset. We put a lot of time and effort into looking after our staff and strive to be the employer of choice in the tourism industry:
- We are an Equal Opportunities Employer and as such we endeavour to ensure that no job applicant, employee or customer receives less favourable treatment or is subject to harassment on the grounds of race, gender, colour, marital status, national origin, religion, disability, sexual orientation, age, ethnic origin or hours of work.
- We encourage our employees to focus on the development of skills, competencies, knowledge and experience and use a range of flexible approaches to achieve genuine employee development.
- We provide a large number of company and voluntary benefits for our staff, as well as generous travel, discount and workplace benefits.
- We have introduced a well being policy that incorporates issues such as flexible working, stress management and healthy living.
- Virgin Holidays promotes a culture that is fun and dynamic. These aspects of working for Virgin are reflected in our Company Values. They sum up our personality and we try to bring them into everything we do.