Just You Cares

We are passionate and driven to make our holidays a force for good.

We aim to make a positive impact on our customers and the places we visit. We have always made it our mission to make your holiday the experience of a lifetime, but now more than ever, we also strive to make our tours as responsible as possible, to ensure that local communities we visit overseas benefit from tourism and we contribute positively to our local community. We call it Just You Cares.

Community projects

For many years, Just You has been supporting local communities around the world, on many of our tours we encourage our travellers to visit local enterprises, enjoy meals in local restaurants and visit initiatives that highlight and preserve the traditional heritage of the region. For example, we visit the KOTO restaurant in Vietnam, a social enterprise that helps disadvantaged youth to train in the hospitality industry to provide a better future. In New Zealand we visit Te Pa Tu which shares the Maori history, traditions and seasonal feasts.  

We are continually looking out for new community projects to add to our tours that ensure that Just You travellers are able to travel and see the world with more meaning.

Our latest addition starts in September 2024, when we introduce an insightful visit to the Stax Museum of American Soul Music in Memphis, as part of the America’s Music Heritage Tour.  Through this visit, we are excited to support The Stax Academy, a unique learning centre that provides at-risk youth with mentorship, high-quality music education and performance opportunities, with a strong focus on the rich legacy and tradition of Stax Records. You can read more on this exciting new addition below.

This is just one example of how Just You adds not just great experiences on solo tours, but supports initiatives that drive meaningful change and create a lasting, positive legacy for future generations to benefit from.

In partnership with Planeterra

The Planeterra Foundation is a non-profit organisation that turns travel into impact in local communities. Since our partnership with Planeterra began, we have donated a small percentage of our profits to various projects, and on some of our tours, there is the opportunity to visit these projects and social. 

For example, you could enjoy a tour at the Mi Cafecito Coffee plantation in Costa Rica or the learn the about traditional weaving processes in Peru. Learn more about Planeterra and the projects we support in partnership with them here.

Planeterra donations

While not all of our tours visit a Planeterra project, many of our customers have expressed an interest in supporting this charity. We now offer all travellers the opportunity to make a voluntary £5 per person donation when they book with Just You. For every £5 donated by our customers, we will match that donation.

Sustainability initiatives

We try to have a positive impact in all areas of our business some of our standout successes include;

The decision not to use poly-wrap in mailings – Since 2018, we have not used plastic wrapping to send out our brochures instead, choosing to use a compostable bio-wrap. In addition to this all our direct mail is printed on sustainably source paper and we have significantly reduced the number of posted marketing communications.

Electronic documentation – For a long time all customer invoices, receipts and holiday documentation were sent via post. It was quite a change and has taken a number of years to get to this stage, however 97% of our customer documentation is now delivered electronically and our customers have quick and easy access to all their documentation online. 100% of our post-holiday surveys are sent via email.

Energy- efficient office space – In 2021 we moved into a new office. This space has a number of initiatives to reduce our environmental impact such as environmentally friendly, auto-adjusting artificial light and high-tech glazing.

Local Community Impact

It’s not just overseas where we are trying to have a positive impact but here in the UK, and our local community too.

We support Rainbows, a local charity that provides respite for families with babies, children and young people with life-limited and life-threatening conditions. They are a recommended charity for our Volunteer Days and members of our team love working in their charity shop and learning more about the good work that the charity does.

Set up in 2012, the Jubilee Food Bank is a local initiative which helps people experiencing food poverty with the mission to help end hunger across the local district. Since moving to our new offices, we have installed a collection box which is delivered to the food bank.

Welfare policies

We are continually reviewing our policies, for a number of years we have had our Animal Welfare and Modern Slavery policies in place, but we have recently reviewed our Family Leave policy and have Mental Health trained first-aiders in the office.

Just You is one of the Top 50 UK’s Best Workplaces™ as recognised by Great Place to Work®, the global authority on workplace culture. Best Workplaces™ consistently put people first – not just in terms of looking out for their own employees but also by caring for and supporting their surrounding community and environment. Just You has also been recognised as one of the UK’s Best Workplaces for Women.

This isn’t the end of our journey for our Just You Cares initiatives. We are constantly looking for projects that support communities around the world, support our team with training on new initiatives and policies, and identify ways to just be better.