Our Take on Conservation

We are so privileged to reside in a continent as beautiful as Africa. As ambassadors of our beautiful Earth, we in the tourism sector, have a particular responsibility to ensure we take care of our continent and leave her in the condition we found her in for the generations to come. Her beauty is made up of pure endless landscapes occupied by plentiful and beautiful creatures of all shapes and sizes, as well as magnificent jaw dropping waterfalls and mountain ranges. Our goal is to show off her beauty to every traveller. And we are so blessed to be the caretakers of an abundance of wildlife that brings so many travellers to our shores. But first and foremost we need to ensure our footprint preserves our unique vast Africa.

Personal Collection proudly associates our brand with partners and products that put conservation and the environment at the forefront of their business model. Our compassion for wildlife and their environments is our first love. We join forces with organisations that are vocal with their fights to “protect and preserve”. To name just a few of the organisations we have joined forces with:

TREADRIGHT We are a proud member of the TreadRight Foundation, a non-profit foundation promoting sustainable tourism within our own family brands. TreadRight is Personal Collection by Thompsons Africa’s vehicle for all corporate social responsibility efforts, and manages a long-standing grants program that benefits sustainable tourism projects. To date, TreadRight has committed more than USD 2million to projects worldwide, and encourages industry best practice through their support for the World Travel & Tourism Council’s Tourism for Tomorrow Awards, The Travel Foundation & Tourism Cares. TreadRight has helped support some 40 sustainable tourism projects worldwide and in Africa, helps to support WildAid, The Wilderness Foundation, Bushmans Kloof Rock Art, Clanwilliam Cedar Trees, The Cape Leopard Trust and the Endangered Wildlife Trust.

BLOOD LIONS The Blood Lions Goal is to bring an end to canned hunting and the exploitative breeding of lions and other predators on farms across South Africa. The award winning Blood Lions® feature documentary premiered in 2015. At the same time the Blood Lions Campaign was launched to create global awareness around the captive predator breeding, canned hunting and lion bone industries as well as the related exploitative wildlife interactive tourism practices. Furthermore, the campaign encourages viewers of the film, visitors to Africa and followers on social media to make responsible choices about visiting or supporting wildlife interactive tourism facilities and activities. Through awareness and by reducing demand for exploitative products, the campaign aims to bring an end to the exploitation of captive-bred wild animals.

PANGOLIN AFRICA Pangolin Africa is a non-profit organisation dedicated to the survival of the most highly trafficked wildlife species on the continent – the African Pangolin. Through our three-pronged approach of Publicity, Participation and Protection we are working with partners in the tourism, conservation and corporate fields to increase education and awareness around all four African pangolin species; contribute towards much-needed research; and implement protection and rehabilitation projects on the ground. We also play an integral role in bringing together and supporting other individuals and organisations across Africa who are working in the pangolin conservation space.

Personal Collection does not support any wildlife interaction that we deem to be unethical in either its purpose or in any way results in cruelty as a side effect. We encourage our customers to consider this when requesting activities in our quotations.