Our Practices | Responsible Tourism at Jem Travel
Responsible tourism has become a selling point for almost every operator in Southeast Asia. But for European travel agents evaluating a DMC partner, the meaningful question isn’t whether a company says it cares — it’s what that actually looks like on the ground, in the itineraries your clients will experience.
Jem Travel is a boutique DMC licensed and based in Hanoi, operating across Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. This page explains specifically how we integrate responsible practices into our work — not as a policy statement, but as a practical guide for agents who need to answer their own clients’ questions with confidence.
Why Local Economic Impact Is Built Into Our Itinerary Design
When we design a tailor-made itinerary, one of the first questions we ask is: where does the money actually go?
This shapes choices that might not be visible in a final program but matter significantly to how a trip lands. We prioritize family-owned restaurants over hotel buffets, locally-owned guesthouses and ecolodges over international chains where the quality is comparable, and independent local guides hired directly rather than through intermediary agencies.
In practical terms, this means your clients might have lunch at an local ancient house in Bat Trang village, watch a open water puppet show in Yen Duc village; stay at properties like Chapa Farmstay in Sapa, Jardin du Mekong in Cho Lach or Jardin de Tam Coc in Ninh Binh, or even join a cooking class run by a family in Tra Que Village rather than a commercial cooking school.
These are not random choices — they’re decisions made deliberately at the itinerary-design stage, and they’re one of the reasons our guides stay in the same region for years rather than rotating: they know the suppliers, they know the families, and they know who is worth sending clients to.
Ethnic Minority Communities: What Responsible Access Looks Like
Experiences in minority communities — Hmong villages near Sapa, ethnic groups along the Ha Giang loop, communities in the hills of Northern Laos — are among the most requested, and among the most sensitive to handle well.
Our approach is based on a few non-negotiable principles. We do not bring groups to communities unannounced or without an existing relationship. We do not design visits around performative displays that exist solely for tourism. We do not allow photography of individuals or religious spaces without clear consent — and our guides explain this proactively, not reactively.
The difference is visible to travelers and easy for agents to communicate: “this is a visit where your clients are welcomed as guests, not observed as spectators.”
Local Guides: Why We Don’t Rotate
One of the most common sustainability compromises in the tour industry is using guides who are generalists — rotated between destinations, covering the same highlights script for years, with no meaningful connection to the communities they take clients through.
Jem Travel works mainly with guides who are specialists in their own region. Our Ha Giang guides are from the north. Our Mekong Delta guide The Anh has been working with us since 2015 and knows the river villages well enough to take clients to places not in any program we’ve published.
This is a practical decision as much as an ethical one: a guide with genuine local relationships opens doors. A client who has dinner with a local family in Can Tho because their guide called ahead is having an experience your competitors’ clients are not.
What “Sustainable Accommodation” Means in Our Portfolio
We do not use the word “eco” loosely. When we recommend properties with sustainability credentials, we mean specific things: whether the property employs local staff at all levels, whether food is sourced locally, and whether the construction and operation has a visible relationship with the surrounding landscape rather than being placed on top of it.
Properties in our portfolio that genuinely meet this standard include Laxsik Ecolodge and Eco Bungalows in Sapa, Hue Ecolodge, and Mekong Silt, CBT Homestays. These are not the only options we offer — not every client wants an ecolodge — but they are options we can recommend with specificity when an agent’s client is asking.
If your clients regularly ask about sustainable accommodation, we’re happy to flag this at the proposal stage so it’s woven in from the start rather than added as an afterthought.
Small Groups and Itinerary Pacing
Responsible tourism isn’t only about where money goes or which communities are visited. It’s also about how itineraries are paced.
Overtourism at sensitive sites — Angkor Wat at sunrise, Ha Long Bay during peak season, the ancient town of Hoi An on weeknight evenings — is real, and it’s partly driven by operators who schedule clients for the same moments as everyone else. We actively design around peak hours at high-pressure sites, recommend alternative approaches (e.g., visiting Angkor by tuktuk or bike rather than van, timing Ha Long departure to miss the morning cluster), and keep group sizes small enough that clients are not contributing to the crowd problem.
This is something agents can communicate directly to clients who ask: the itinerary is designed to reduce pressure on the sites, not just visit them.
Plastic and Waste: The Practical Reality
Southeast Asia has a real plastic problem, and honest communication on this matters more than generic pledges.
We provide clients with briefing information before departure that includes a packing recommendation to bring a reusable water bottle. We work with cruise and accommodation partners who have moved away from single-use plastics in client-facing areas. We do not claim our trips are “plastic-free” — that would not be accurate — but we do make choices that reduce unnecessary waste at each supplier level.
For Agents: How to Talk About This With Your Clients
If your clients are asking about sustainability before booking, here are the most direct answers we can give you:
“Does the money go to local communities?” Yes — by design, through supplier selection, guide employment, and itinerary choices that route spending to locally-owned businesses.
“Are minority community visits ethical?” We only operate visits where we have an established relationship and where the community benefits directly. We can describe the specific visit in any itinerary so you can explain it accurately to your client.
“Is the DMC certified?” Jem Travel holds International Tour Operator Licence No. 01-2615/2024/CDLQGVN-GP LHQT. We are not currently certified by a third-party sustainability body, but we can speak in detail about our specific practices rather than pointing to a logo.
Questions about how a specific itinerary handles any of these points? Write to us directly at gemma@jemtravel.asia or via WhatsApp at +84 973 692 412.