Offer the benefit of our considerable knowledge and experience of Sahara

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Offer the benefit of our considerable knowledge and experience of Sahara

Libya
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Project Summary
Elevator Pitch

Concise Summary: Help us pitch this solution! Provide an explanation within 3-4 short sentences.

We are one of the major pioneer Libyan Tour Operators. Since our foundation we adopted desert tourism activities due to the beauty of the natural life which shall enable to discover many things when living abreast in the heart of the golden desert. Our name SAHARA FRIENDS contains deeply in it's meaning our aspirations - to make friendship and good ties with other people on earth.

Your idea
This will be the address used to plot your entry on the map.
Street Address

Jamal Abdulnasser Street

City

Sebha

State/Province
Postal/Zip Code

Po.Box :

Country
Year innovation began

1998

Geotourism Challenge Addressed by Entrant

Quality of tourism management and impact on the destination

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Indicate sector in which you principally work

Tourism-related business

Geographic location

Desert.

Plot your innovation within the Mosaic of Solutions
Main barrier addressed

Lack of collaboration

Main insight addressed

Education through hands-on experience

Innovation
What is the goal of your innovation?

We show our clients the life and traditions of the Tuareg and Bedouins and the natural life in the Sahara

How does your approach support or embody geotourism?

We support geotourism, because we show on our tours the life in and with the nature, we keep the nature like it is and we pay attention on that nobody destroys cultural heritage and the charakter of the places we visited

Describe your approach in detail. How is it innovative?

We have special teams of Tuareg and Bedouins which are born and grown up in Sahara, therefore offer clients the benefit of theier knowledge and experience of Sahara. We offer special tours by 4x4, camel or trekking tours.

What types of partnerships or professional development would be most beneficial in spreading your innovation?

We would like to have partnerships with agencies, companies or private persons which have the same idea about tourism and which would like to travel in Libya

Impact
In one sentence describe what kind of impact, change, or reform your approach is intended to achieve.

The nature and the cultural heritages (in this area on the Unesco List of World Cultural Heritage:1. Leptis Magna, 2. Sabratha, 3. Cyrene, 4. Acacus area, 5. Ghadames) to be preserve and remaine

Describe the degree of success of your approach to date. Clearly define how you measure quantitative and qualitative impact in terms of how your approach contributes to the sustainability or enhancement of local culture, environment, heritage, or aesthetics? How does your approach minimize negative impacts? 200 words or less

The Sahara is still a clean place, the travellers and tourists learn to care for it and learn to understand the culture of the Tuareg and Bedoiuns and not to destroy the environment, stay in small camps and keep the nature clean, leave the place like it was before.

How does your program promote traveler enthusiasm, satisfaction, and engagement with the locale?

The travellers can feel the peacefulness of the desert, they can meditate and can find the way back to theier inner self, often the travellers become close friendship to the team of Tuareg and Bedoins and often they come back again for an other tour

In what ways are local residents actively involved in your innovation, including participation and community input? How has the community responded to or benefited from your approach?

Only the local are active involved in my team and they can show the beauty of the natural life, provide delicious natural traditional desert food, show theier traditions on festivals and keep them so in this way too.

Describe how your innovation helps travelers and local residents better understand the value of the area’s cultural and natural heritage, and educates them on local environmental issues. How do you motivate them to act responsibly in their future travel decisions?

During the tours the travelers and the local team has always close contact together, they eat together, sit together around the camp fire, meet other locals. During the tours the locals can pass down the experience of life, pass down to our guests the feeling of the desert and the life in the rhythm of the nature.

Sustainability
Is your initiative financially and organizationally sustainable? If not, what is required to make it so? What is the potential demand for your innovation?

Yes.

How is your initiative currently financed? If available, provide information on your finances and organization that could help others. Please list: Annual budget, annual revenue generated, size of part-time, full-time and volunteer staff.

We are a travel agency and organise our tours in the way of geotourism.

What is your plan to expand your approach? Please indicate where/how you would like to grow or enhance your innovation, or have others do so.

I would like to have a lot of partnerships with other travel agencies from all over the world. I would like to welcome more people in the desert to show them the natural way of life, which they can keep for theier further life.

What are the main barriers you encounter in managing, implementing, or replicating your innovation? What barriers keep your program from having greater impact?

The main barriers are that the people sometimes expect different tourism, and not used to live wtih the nature.

The Story
What is the origin of your innovation? Tell your story.

Sahara Friends Tours is one of the major pioneer Libyan Tour Operators. Since its foundation in 1998 it has adopted desert tourism activities due to the beauty of the natural life which shall enables to discover many things when living abreast in the heart of the golden desert. Sahara Friends is a noun that means friendship and sahara, it contains deeply in its meaning our aspirations - to make friendship and good ties with other people on earth. We specialise in tours to the Libyan sahara and therefore offer clients the benefit of our considerable knowledge and experience of these remarkable countries. We also specialise in tailor-made itineraries, thus affording a flexibility not normally available with group tours. If you want to spend a little more time haggling over a purchase in the bazaar, or immersing yourself in the tranquility of a mosque, you can do so without worrying about holding up a tour party. With your own private vehicle and guide, you are assured of one-to-one attention at all times - this is also the best way to meet local people. However, if you prefer to travel in a group, we do offer a number of group tours to Libya. These are kept small to retain a personal touch.
The desert tour helps to find the inner self, to meditate, it is a cure for the burn-out syndrom, to relax, to find tranquility, to find the inner self.

Please provide a personal bio. Note this may be used in Changemakers' marketing material.

My name is Mohamed Ahmed, I'm a Tuareg, I was born in the Sahara and grown up in the Sahara. I know the roles and the risks of the desert and by the time the Sahara became my close friend.

Please write an overview of your project. This text will appear when people scroll over the icon for your entry on the Google map located on the competition homepage.

We are one of the major pioneer Libyan Tour Operators. Since our foundation we adopted desert tourism activities due to the beauty of the natural life which shall enable to discover many things when living abreast in the heart of the golden desert. Our name SAHARA FRIENDS contains deeply in it's meaning our aspirations - to make friendship and good ties with other people on earth.