See your impact with our Ripple Score
You deserve to see exactly what we mean when we say we’re changing lives through travel. That's why we developed our Ripple Score: our way of showing just how much impact your money has on the places you visit.
To see the score, look for this icon on most of our tour pages. The higher the Ripple Score, the more money that stays in the local community. Lower scores obviously need more attention. We’re committed to improving Ripple Scores wherever possible, by finding additional local services to use on our tours.*
How our Ripple Score works
Define
What is local? We had to ensure our definition was fair and easy to understand. To qualify as a local business or service, 50% or more must be owned by a legal resident or national citizen of the country where it operates.
Evaluate
Next, we look at every business and service we work with to determine which qualify as being locally owned and operated. We gather as much information as we can from every one of our partners to get a clear understanding on how their operations are run.
Calculate
Using the information we collect, we look at what we spend in each destination to operate that tour and calculate what percentage of that local cost is going to a local business or service. The more local operation costs that stay locally, the better the ripple effect in those communities and the greater the Ripple Score.
Frequently Asked Questions
We will update and revise scores annually.
The Ripple Score is a tool we’ve created to show you the percentage of money we spend locally on trip services like accommodations, restaurants, and transportation. The scoring system was created with our non-profit partner Planeterra and Sustainable Travel International.
Not at all. The Ripple Score is designed to provide transparency around the local economic impact of a tour, but it does not reflect the quality of the on-trip experience.
To date, 619 out of 649 tours have calculated scores.* Our aim is to update and revise scores annually.
*As of April 10, 2024
We have excluded Antarctic and Arctic trips onboard our G Expedition ship as it operates in remote destinations with few or no local inhabitants. In addition, building new trip itineraries and contracting suppliers is an ongoing process.
A score of 100 means that all of the services we have used to create that specific tour are locally owned.
Our average score across our tours is currently 92, meaning 92% of the money G Adventures spends in destination to operate our tours goes to local businesses and services.
Absolutely. We want to create a movement with the Ripple Score and can help provide more information and help connect other companies to Sustainable Travel International.
* Based on the unique geographic location of some our tours, trips in some regions such as the Arctic and Antarctica will not receive Ripple Scores.
** Created with our non-profit partner Planeterra and Sustainable Travel International.
*** Trips operating under a year do not have a Ripple Score. Our supply chain and costs vary in the first year and we need time to assess our results to make impactful changes.