Fair Trade in Travel
What is Fair Trade?
Fair Trade is an equitable partnership between producers, traders, and consumers. It is a growing international movement that works to ensure that low-income artisans and farmers, the majority of whom live in Latin America, Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean, are fairly compensated for their work. Fair Trade marketers in developed countries foster long-term, direct relationships with these small-scale producers, bypassing the world market. As a result of this connection, the producers of Fair Trade products are ensured adequate prices for their goods, independent of current and unpredictable world prices.
Fair Trade wholesalers, retailers, and producers operate in agreement with the following criteria from the Fair Trade Federation (FTF):
- Paying fair wages in local context: workers are fairly compensated for their labor
- Supporting participatory workplaces: smaller cooperatives and producer associations help maintain safe and healthy working conditions, and the producers are better able to control and decide how to distribute their resources.
- Ensuring environmental sustainability: Fair Trade organizations use environmentally sustainable practices to manage local resources.
- Supplying financial and technical support: Fair Trade producers often lack access to affordable financing, so Fair Trade marketers often provide financial assistance to producers either through direct loans, prepayment, or linking producers with sources of financing.
- Respecting cultural identity: Fair Trade organizations seek to promote producers' artistic talents in a way that preserves cultural identity.
- Offering public accountability: for members of the FTF, finances, management policies, and business practices are open to the public and available for monitoring by the FTF
- Educating consumers: Fair Trade organizations educate consumers on the importance of buying fairly traded products that support healthy working conditions, environmental sustainability, and adequate wages (source: www.fairtradefederation.org/memcrit.html)
Fair Trade in Travel
Fair Trade in Travel programs create the opportunity for local workers to educate visitors about the benefits of Fair Trade and allow artisans to share their craft. A number of tours are available that encourage a constructive interaction between travelers and the communities they visit. Some programs even offer workshops, where you can learn the trades of your skilled hosts, or volunteer opportunities within the host communities. Personally interacting with these individuals provides a new perspective on the importance of Fair Trade in enabling marginalized producers and workers in developing countries to build a sustainable future for themselves, their families and their communities.
Travelers can easily make a difference by supporting locally owned businesses and visiting local markets. Another way to positively impact a community is to purchase Fair Trade products, available online and in some stores as well as abroad, to help guarantee that the producer receives sufficient compensation for the product or service that they offer.
Explore the World of Fair Trade
General Information
- For more information on the Fair Trade in Travel initiative, visit Sustainable Travel International
- The Fair Trade Federation has guidelines, criteria for Fair Trade businesses and producers, and general information
- The International Federation for Alternative Trade (IFAT) works t o promote Fair Trade while linking Fair Trade associations in Africa, Asia, and Latin America
See for yourself: Fair Trade Trips
These tours provide travelers the opportunity to understand the issues of Fair Trade on a personal level and to experience first-hand how Fair Trade works._
- Pachamama: A World of Artisans, provides tours of several worker-owned cooperatives in Nicaragua.
- Global Exchange offers "Reality Tours." These organized trips allow participants to see adverse situations in other countries firsthand. The Reality Tour options include opportunities to visit and even work with Fair Trade cooperatives.
- ResponsibleTravel.com works in conjunction with many local Fair Trade companies, such as Ajiyer of Bangladesh, People to People Tourism Kenya, and PhunPhiang of Thailand, to name a few. These tours provide the opportunity to meet and even work with local producers all across the world, from Asia, to Africa, to the Caribbean.
- Meet the People tours from Traidcraft let you "meet the people behind the products."
- Fair Trade in Tourism South Africa (FTTSA) offers a variety of accommodations and tours.
Shop Online
- STI's storefront (coming soon!)
- Global Exchange
- Aid to Artisans
- Ten Thousand Villages