Most of us will be familiar with the old adage: it’s better to give than to receive. Cynics might say that’s just a marketing ploy to prompt us to buy gifts, but there truly is something special about generosity and charity. And now, you can get that feel-good kick while staying with The Ritz-Carlton, which recently announced a new luxury voluntourism initiative, Impact Experiences, allowing guests to contribute something to the local community during their stay.
The program is part of the brand’s wider “Community Footprints” scheme and offers signature social and environmental impact activities that make a meaningful contribution and enable participants to feel personally connected during their stay. “We are proud to make Impact Experiences available at every one of our hotels around the world to provide our guests with an option to address local social and environmental issues,” said Herve Humler, president and COO of The Ritz-Carlton.
Among the Impact Experiences, guests can participate in a heritage farming project on an organic farm in Arizona; support critical coastal trail and rain forest restoration in Kapalua, Hawaii; plant endangered native trees in Dubai; and build bird nests for migrating rare bird species at the remarkable wetland that is the Futian Mangrove Natural Reserve Area in Shenzhen, China. There’s also a range of on-property experiences such as working with a hotel’s culinary team to prepare meals for local hunger relief organisations, or assembling school supplies and art materials for students in need. It’s never felt so good to give.
Impact Experiences also offers on-property activities that can be incorporated in the conference agenda during lunch breaks, receptions and coffee breaks, including:
Partnering with the hotel’s culinary team to prepare the ingredients for a regionally adapted dish for donation to a local hunger relief organization
Assembling school supplies and art materials in backpacks for donation to students whose academic success is threatened by poverty
Collaborating in teams to assemble emergency preparedness kits for shipping to a disaster relief facility or community organization
Designing and creating greetings and birthday cards for children in a local pediatric healthcare facility or children’s organization
Impact Hour, a platform for leaders from The Ritz-Carlton Community Footprints partner organizations to showcase how they are successfully addressing social and environmental issues