CONCLUDING REMARKS

A year like no other

We launched the Exodus Travels Foundation in the spring of 2019 with aspirations of raising at least £500,000 in our fi rst three years, which we could invest in projects and initiatives that would protect the communities and environments we love to visit on our award winning adventures. As an organisation and as a team of travellers and explorers, Exodus have engaged in this type of direct action for decades. But the formation of our charitable foundation has allowed us to focus our efforts, increase transparency and deliver better on our aim of improving life in hard-to-reach places.

Near enough one year after the birth of our foundation, the COVID-19 pandemic began. Travel stopped and our professional and personal lives - and those of our customers, partners, suppliers, leaders, porters, drivers and guides - ground to an abrupt halt. The economic devastation of the pandemic is a new and emerging threat to communities and wildlife that have a strong economic reliance on the tourism sector. It’s some consolation for all of us at Exodus that while we wait for a time when travel can resume, we’ve been able to render some support to communities in India, Nepal, Kenya, Peru and elsewhere through the foundation. In 2021 as travel resumes, the foundation will be focussing on offering further support to those communities most impacted, while Exodus Travels have launched our new Planet Promise, committing to reduce our carbon output, investing in carbon removal projects and promoting biodiversity through our partnership with Rewilding Europe.

My heartfelt thanks to all of our customers, colleagues and suppliers who have contributed fi nancially, or with their time and effort, to the important work of the foundation in 2020. Finally, I’d like to take this opportunity to thank our trustees for their good stewardship of the foundation over a tough year.

SAM SEWARD, MANAGING DIRECTOR, EXODUS TRAVELS

Join our journey!

You can donate or set up a monthly gift by going to www.exodustravels.com/foundation and clicking on the ‘donate now’ button.

100% of your donation will go to our projects improving life in hard-to-reach places.