Gesar Tours offers tailor-made programs for individuals, private groups and educational institutions to the most remote and beautiful regions of the Eastern part of Tibet. The establishment of Gesar Tour is committed to serve and empower marginalized Tibetans, by building their capacity to develop sustainable business constructively and competitively.
Tsebtrim: “Our professional team of guides and office staff know Kham and Amdo area better than anyone, since we were born and grew up in these regions.
Our company is different than other tour companies as the management has ten years of NGO work experience. This has led to an deep understanding of social responsibility. We therefore provide locals an opportunity to participate in our tours, which benefits the local community and local people.”
The Kingdom of Nangqing
Tsebtrim: “We operate trips in the Nangqing area, an area rich in history. Nangqing was the historic seat of the Nangqing King and his palace and monastery can still be visited. Since Nangqing is my home town, the company has intimate knowledge of the area. Due to this knowledge we can offer a unique home stay tour opportunity to our clients.
We also operate trips in Yushu area, since most our staff are from Yushu. Our goal is to become the source for ecotourism tours in Yushu. By operating tours in the guides hometown we directly benefit their communities. Gesartour pays guides a higher rate than it’s competitors.
Gesar Tours is currently developing handbooks to distribute to all of its guides. This resource will help guides teach visitors local folk songs, legends, history, language and the significance of local sites.
Empowering the locals
Tsebtrim: “Specifically, by establishing Gesar Tour to creates employment opportunities to local people, we set up a model for starting business beneficial to the local economy and we try to build up the confidence of the local people to utilize their potential and abilities to improving their living conditions. We also try to promote cultural preservation and to protect the environment by only offering sustainable and responsible tourism products.
In choosing Gesar tour, you can be sure that you are traveling with a travel agency that takes its commitment to sustainable tourism seriously. We do our best to operate to the highest environmental standards and are committed to supporting local economies and local education projects in the areas we operate in.
How does my work support the local people?
- By creating employment opportunities for local Tibetans (office staff and tour guides, drivers, chefs and horse guides). There are for example nine local Tibetan people working in our office right now.
- By supporting Tibetan entrepreneurs (restaurants, home stays, hotels). For example there is a home stay in Rebkong run by a Tibetan family. Every time we visit Rebkong we stay there and eat there, with the Tibetan family.
- By providing tour guide skill training for local young Tibetans. For example we have organized a guide training in December 2012 for 8 local young Tibetan and we continue to give training.
- By helping clients, who are interested in supporting Tibetan communities, find reliable people to connect with and make introductions to different reliable social projects (for example an elderly care center, an orphanage and students who need scholarships for education). We managed to collect a grant of 23.000 RMB in the form of donation to the senior residents care center in Yushu this year. In addition, it is agreed by one of our generous donors to donate 50,000 RMB annually to this facility.
- Giving free training to young Tibetans on guiding skills and English language.
- We are trying to support local NGOs who do good work, by introducing our guest to NGOs.”