Chagga Tours is a limited company registered in Tanzania, paying fees and local taxes in Tanzania.

Our Company is committed to sustainable tourism. We also try to stretch this claim by paying our local indigenous worker a fair salary.

At this time, porters receive $13 dollars per day, a cook 18$, an assistant guide $25, and a guide $35 dollars; pay that is constant with or above the July 2004 regulations of the National Park Administration. Fair pay and good work condition for the local help assures our climbers a world-class experience, allowing the team to focus on the well-being of the climbers rather than their own needs.

It is well known that some tour operators mistreat local workers participating in a tour (s. http://travel.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,10295-1469243,00.html; 5.2.2005, Porters’ protest march in Tanzania). In most cases, bargain-basement tour prices are the result of such unfair treatment. One must be suspicious of $900 dollar for a 6-day tour when the admission to the National Park alone is $630 dollars per hiker. Also, virtually all tour companies make it clear that hefty tips are expected to be paid to the local participants of the trip, again artificially reducing tour fees.

We aim to distinguish ourselves from these unfair practices and change the mandatory tipping to a completely voluntary event.

What actually means “sustainable”? A synonym dictionary of 1978 calls it “continuously”. We want to exist continuously as a tourism company and be successful. One of our goals is to be able to organize an off-sight with our employees to Zanzibar. Most of them were never there. In order to last, in order to be persistent, we must be successful on the free market and make some sort of profit. Profit is the sum that is left after subtracting all costs- and those are quite high. Most tourists are not aware that already the license for hiking tours costs 2000 USD per year, the annual balance costs 500 USD and one gallon gas 1.50 USD. We are convinced that sustainable development in Africa must include these three points: out of own power, with much diligence and at free market prices.