Fair travel: our employees’ views Print page

Matthias Leisinger
Head of Corporate Responsibility

"Any globally-active corporation today – such as Kuoni – is constantly in the eye of its employees, its customers, non-government organisations and the media. Our commitment to people and the environment is a further sales argument for our products, a chance for us to stand out in our markets, a motivation for our own personnel and a means of risk management all rolled into one. After all, doing good should deliver good results!”

Sabine Schuler
Product Manager
Kuoni City Flights

“We want to be able to offer our customers the opportunity to travel to their dream destinations and meet happy people, discover a rich culture and explore unspoilt local landscapes ten years from now, too. Kuoni is setting an example here; but it’s up to every one of us to follow it.”

John Macdonald
Manager, Forwarding & Procurement

“It’s high time we took the step from ‘think globally, act locally’ to ‘think globally, act globally’. Sustainability is urgently needed if we’re to save the only world we’ve got. Kuoni has the means and the scope to make responsible travel a global reality for a large number of caring and conscious travellers.”

Marianne Häuptli
Vice President
Tour Operating

“As a large international corporation that makes its living from tourist travel, we must respect and safeguard the interests of the local population as much as we possibly can.”

Stefan Leser
Member of the Group Executive Board
Head of Strategic Business Division Smart/Spirit and CEO of Kuoni Switzerland

“As a major tour operator, we bear a responsibility. We are only guests on this planet, after all. And it’s our duty to leave future generations of travellers an intact Earth that is in harmonious balance with nature and the many different cultures who call it home.”

Remo Masala
Head of Corporate Branding & Marketing

“If we base our actions on the principles of fairness, we have a very real chance of rectifying any imbalances and achieving a natural harmony. As a tour operator that promotes fair and sustainable travel, Kuoni can help maintain the lively-but-delicate balance between different cultures, between people and nature and between the traditional and the present-day. And if we each cultivate our own openness and respect, it’s tourism as a whole that will gain – not just for its travellers, but also for the people and the natural world in the places they travel to.”

Gabriela Stauffer
Head of Inclusive Tours Overseas

“More and more people are coming to choose vacations that pay due and full regard to the local people in the places they visit and to environmental concerns. At Kuoni we put a clear focus on the sustainability of the travel experience. Because as a tour operator, we bear a major responsibility towards people and the natural world, and a duty to adopt and maintain an ethical and eco-minded approach.”

Oliver Perucco
Employee of Direct Sales

“It’s very important to us that Kuoni should advocate a ‘fair travel’ approach which involves the local people in its tourist activities. After all, these are the people most affected by the whole tourist travel phenomenon, be it in financial or in cultural terms.”

Tania Büchi
Second-year apprentice

“I think it’s very good that Kuoni is committed to fair and ecofriendly travel. The whole travel experience would make a lot less sense – and be far less enjoyable – if people arrived to find a spoilt and ‘ravaged’ local environment. I also think it’s important for any traveller to treat their new surroundings with consideration and respect. After all, flying is already contributing to global warming.”

Beat Fornaro
Project Leader of Retailing

“Anyone who has travelled in their life remembers those special and very different places and moments that really get to you: the ones that give you goosebumps, lift your heart and make you feel there’s no better way of spending your time on Earth. I’ve had those moments myself: passing through the Panama Canal, seeing the Great Wall of China in the early-morning light, attending a festival on Madeira… These are the moments that make us want to travel more. And that’s why it’s so important that we preserve and protect our world’s cultural richness, its traditions and its languages, its historic buildings and monuments and the vast diversity of the natural world. It’s not just the travel companies that stand to benefit here; anyone who loves to travel will gain from building this approach into their day-to-day lives.”