Daniela Papi's Blog

So what does the last entry about literacy and international development work have to do with adventure bike treks?

Well, the tours are how we fund this project, and that is the innovative part of our complete PEPY org. We run volunteer and adventure tours where participants pay for their tour and then also have a fundraising minimum above the price of their tour which supports development work.

Some people have asked me, "Are you worried that some of the big tour companies will take your itineraries and your model?" That's the problem actually, they won't. Actually, I wish they would, because tourism would have a more positive impact here in Cambodia if they did.

The general population of world travelers are looking for "eco-tourism", "off-the-beaten-path travel ops", "a way to give-back", and that is where PEPY fits in. Because we are small and on the ground here in Cambodia, we can measure our impact, adjust our tours to provide inspirational travel opportunities which change the lives of participants (ie: our first tour with 35 people - 3 are now doing PhD or masters thesis on Cambodia, 9 have come back on a second tour, 5 are sponsoring children at $100 per month at a local orphanage, 1 created a PEPY Ride through Louisiana raising $15,000 for educational rebuilding there, and the list of residual impacts goes on like that...), and POSITIVELY impact the organizations and programs we support. Positively being the main focus. We are working to make sure that we minimize the negative impacts inherent in any tourism (from the basics - looking into a tree replanting program with a local NGO to enable us to off-set our tours as well as offer real tree planting off-setting options for our tour participants and other travelers, through to the most important to us and harder to measure impact of having short term visitors to a project).

This takes a LOT of time - working to create projects where a team of 5,10, 30 volunteers can participate, feel a sense of worth, see the results of their work, understand the reasons for the choices we made to bring them there, and provide a valuable service or product to the projects we are supporting. The big tour operators COULD do that, but they probably wont. I hope that some day they HAVE to, in order to keep the demand from their clients.