Our Founder became aware of the exploitation of porters on Kilimanjaro when she climbed the mountain and researched the market for her book Kilimanjaro Uncovered (published 2016).

Together with like-minded individuals from around the world, we developed the concept for a sustainable tour booking platform as part of a social entrepreneurship program with Philanthropy University.

Our Founder cycled from Cairo to Cape Town. Experiencing the beauty of the entire continent and the warmth of its people, the initial vision for Fair Voyage was born: To help you too explore Africa – safely and responsibly.

We launched our predecessor KiliGATE.com in cooperation with local responsible tour operators and the Kilimanjaro Porters Assistance Project (KPAP) to promote ethical Kilimanjaro climbs.

We’ve received the Travelife Partner award for our commitment to sustainability.

We participated in an ICT (UN/WTO) sponsored mission for female tourism entrepreneurs in Rwanda and Uganda. This helped us introduce the concept of responsible tourism certifications locally, and to source local tour operators who are already leaders in sustainability.

Seeing the need for more sustainable travel globally, we met with dozens of certified responsible tour operators from around the world during WTM London, the largest tourism conference globally. Ever since, we can’t wait to make the most exciting of those conscious travel experiences available to you.

We participated in a comprehensive training to audit tour operators who wish to become Travelife certified for their compliance with comprehensive responsible & sustainable tourism criteria. While we do not plan to audit companies directly in order to retain our independence, the auditor qualification helps us curate the best conscious travel experiences for you.

We rebranded from KiliGATE to Fair Voyage and launched our new platform. This will help us build a more personalized solution for you, and – over time – to help you customize your best conscious travel experiences for more and more destinations globally.

We became a member of the Swiss Travel Association STAR. All payments for bookings made to us have since been 100% secured by the Swiss Travel Security (STS) deposit guarantee scheme.

We participated in the leading travel conferences for Africa and the Middle East. Through hundreds of meetings, we’ve been able to source the most responsible local suppliers and truly exciting experiences for you across the entire continent.

We participated as one of Switzerland’s most promising start-ups in the Innosuisse Business Growth Program for ICT start-ups hosted by Venturelab.

We got selected as one of only 5 female founded social impact startups to present our sustainable travel vision at the Zug SIIA Impact Investment Summit in Switzerland.

We participated in the leading travel conference for East Africa and scouted the most exciting experiences and eco-friendly accommodations across Kenya for you. We were also honored to share our impressions live on Kenyan TV.

We participated in the seif Impact Academy for social entrepreneurs. seif is a Swiss organization that supports teams who apply innovative business ideas to respond to current social and/or environmental problems.

We initiated a research project in partnership with the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts (HSLU) to find the scientifically most accurate ways to measure and mitigate the carbon footprint of our trips, especially the impact of flying. As an outcome of our research, we defined our internal processes in order to make our trips carbon neutral.

We were honored to participate as fully hosted buyer at both of Africa’s largest travel conferences WTM & Indaba Africa. This gave us the opportunity to further deepen our strong relationships with local suppliers and travel experts from all over Africa.

We’ve become a member of the Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC). By promoting suppliers who are audited by GSTC accredited organizations, we are effectively promoting all 17 UN SDGs in tourism.

We were honored to participate as Hosted Buyer at the Himalayan Travel Mart conference in Nepal. We toured the country and sourced the most sustainable suppliers for you. By the end of the year, we were excited to bring Nepal trekking and many more exciting experiences across the Himalaya region to you!

We were nominated for the World Summit Awards 2019 as the best and most innovative digital solution in Culture & Tourism from Switzerland. In December, we even made it into the global shortlist!

We designed the Fair Voyage platform specifically for the needs of local expert advisors and global travellers when planning and booking multi-day trips. With our platform tried and tested end 2019, we added over 30 destinations around the word and were ready to quickly scale our impact globally in 2020.

To maintain high sustainability standards while scaling, we entered into a partnership with Travelife, the leading sustainability audit for travel agencies and tour operators in mid and lower income destinations. Together with Travelife, we curate the most responsible local suppliers and help them become more sustainable over time.

In partnership with Green Destinations, organizer of the annual Sustainable Top 100 Destination Awards, and bookdifferent.com, the leading platform for sustainable accommodations, we launched the Good Travel Alliance to increase visibility for sustainable destinations and make sustainable travel easier for you.

As soon as the pandemic hit, we shifted our focus to supporting local communities. Together with the Kilimanjaro Porters Assistance Project (KPAP), we launched initiatives to help save lives at Kilimanjaro. 2 years later, we are incredibly proud of KPAP for being the Global Winner of the WTM World Responsible Tourism Awards 2022 for “Sustaining Employees and Communities through the Pandemic”.

We took the slowdown in travel as an opportunity to fundamentally challenge and redesign our business model from the very core. How can travel overseas co-exist with a more sustainable future? Our conclusion: less is more—more purpose, more connection, more awareness. Ultimately leading to more health, more peace, and a better future for all.

Guided by our redesign, we invested significantly into building out our new solution for conscious travelers who value “slow” quality experiences that matter. Amongst others, we strengthened our in-house advisory capabilities to enable a highly personalized service offering and tailored trip arrangement services for conscious travelers—this, in turn, leading to a more fair and exclusive experience for all.

We are proud to have obtained the B Corp Certification in August 2022. This makes us the first B Corp certified travel agency in Switzerland, and proves our global sustainability leadership commitment with the world’s leading certification that you can trust!

We are excited and proud of all our new and repeat travelers, who helped us validate our more personalized experience design and shared valuable feedback from around the world. As in prior years, so also since 2022 and throughout 2023: Travelers consistently rate Fair Voyage 5-star! As of October 2022, you can now also see what travelers say.

in 2024, we hope to welcome you too on a “Fair Voyage”—a fair and exclusive journey crafted just for you. What are your travel wishes? Get in touch.