RTA Development Partners

Each of the potential RTA Development Partners shares the same goal in as much as they are all committed to improving the lives of their citizens, students, beneficiaries or communities. They further this goal by helping to create:

• Opportunity & Employment - That ensures Business Partners, (and the local visitor-based economies) of a more equitable share of tourism revenue, and a safe, sustainable environment for all.

• Collaboration - Whenever it is possible, benefits us all. We ask that you explore the various options with us and identify a productive role for your particular organisation. 

   

Is a first-tier alliance partner. It is a non-profit foundation dedicated to addressing inequality and creating opportunity in the tourism industry by assisting micro and small tourism businesses with:

• The Development and Promotion - Of micro and small-sized tourism businesses (RTA Business Partners) in the destination or along designated tourist routes designed as excursions from or between destinations.

• The Creation of Marketing Materials- Multi-page interactive 'online profiles' for upload to the RTAs non-commission-based search, booking, and support platform. This is designed to level the playing field by ensuring them greater opportunity, and an equitable share of tourism revenues.

• Business Skills Training - Providing a range of workshops for the RTA Business Partners. Workshops are designed to improve service standards, responsible tourism best practices, financial and operations reporting, and business management skills.

• Non-tourism Reliant 2nd Revenue Streams - The introduction of non-tourism reliant 2nd revenue streams, and their supply chains. These are carefully selected and aim to provide alternative income and risk management for these RTA Business Partners, and others the in the local visitor-based economy. 

• The Individual Volunteers - Are RTA Ambassadors taking on a part-time development role working with VWB. They have their own 'online profiles'. (See Detail here.)

   

Willing to collaborate with us in delivering these training workshops. Many of these workshops would benefit those we are both tasked to help. NGOs could:  

• Participate - Have their participants attend our workshops,

• Share Resources – For use in VWB workshops.

• Share Workshops – Invite RTA Business Partners to attend workshops that they conduct.

Are invited to provide grant funding to any of the VWB projects. Beneficiaries of their support:

• Must Qualify - Through assessment and training

• Reporting - Must comply with rigorous reporting procedures tailored to ensure donors/foundations an agreed minimum RODI (Return on Donor Investment.)

• Review - The RTA project affords donors access to financial and operational reports for the individual RTA Business Partners on request.

Are invited to collaborate with the RTA and the VWB, to accomplish common goals, share costs, resources, and research to our mutual benefit.

Tourism Representative Bodies – are encouraged to support this initiative:

• For the benefit of the broader tourism industry membership, 70-90% of whom are not represented, or supported, by the mainstream, commission-based tourism supply chain

• Fo protect the sustainability of the industry they represent.

• Schools & Universities - Providing Tourism related studies, field study or GAP year trips, outdoor & environmental education, courses, workshops, and the use of VWB projects for CS (service learning.) 

• Corporate Groups – Use the VWB projects for Incentive trips, or CSR and team building programmes. These can be arranged through the RTA Local Agent

The RTA provides you with your online presentation, hosted on its platform. It affords you low-cost market access, to promote your services to the RTA membership. This is how the platform can help you:

• A Good Product – You may provide full detail of both your services and you collaboration with the RTA.

• Guest Comments– Comments you make on the service/compliance provided to you by RTA Business Partners you use.

• News & Events– you can use the News & Events feature to promote 'news and events' related to your collaboration with the RTA.

• Barter Trade– is optional - you use barter dollars won in RTA competitions to pay (in part) for search page advertising, and monthly hosting fees.

• Articles, Blogs, Forums– may be used to further promote your collaboration with the RTA and so increase your market exposure.

Note* Compare benefits for each level of membership in the table below. 

• Fees - To Track of the Tiger.

50% is allocated to hosting fees for the website and RTA members online presentations.
50% is allocated to marketing - which includes funding RTA Competition prizes.

• Donations - To  the VWB (Volunteers Without Borders Foundation)  our registered non-profit.

50% is allocated to subsidising VWB Volunteers to assist RTA Business Partners develop their business models, and design/upload their online presentations.
50% is allocated to providing business skills training and workshops for RTA Business Partners aimed at improving their business , hospitality and service skills, as well as helping them to establish and meet their own stated responsible tourism best standard compliance. It extends to helping them (where practical) to identify and develop viable non-tourism reliant 2nd revenue streams.

•  Fees - To Track of the Tiger - via the company PayPal account.

• Donations - To VWB - via the VWB - Join the Responsible Tourism Revolution Project on the Give.Asia Fundraising Platform.
  Using the Give.Asia platform allows us to minimise transaction costs for the benefit of VWB and our donors.
  VWB is a registered Foundation and will issue you a formal receipt that you (may) use to claim for an income tax rebate if eligible to do so.

You establish a table of charges for your services based on hourly charges putting programme itineraries together for RTA Ambassadors. (See: Benefits.)

The RTA encourages its RTA Local Agents to publish their advertised rates for the above on their RTA business profiles. That you quote an 'estimated' price in response to an initial enquiry, and update it if need be based on the additional work requested.

The RTA Community can find your profile on the RTA Search system, under 'search options' - by region, country, destination, and sub-category. As an RTA Development Partner, you may use the platform to find tourism products and services for your incentive, study, research, CS, or CSR or Team Building programmes.

• The RTA Development Partner - and all others in the RTA Community, have password-protected access to all areas of their online profiles and can hide or show information to others at will.

• The RTA Local Agent - has special password-enabled access to your online profile but cannot edit it. The Agent can see your personalised service and responsible tourism best practices databases, as well as your comment history, barter trade, etc. An agent can only access your profile when you are working with them.

• Security - All parties sign an agreement when you register. This protects everyone’s data privacy. The RTA agrees not to share your identifying information at any time, and to seek your permission to share your general data for research purposes. Personal detail (next of kin etc.) would only be accessed by RTA Admin in an emergency.

• Design Freedom - The RTA platform uses a template but within this template, you have the freedom to use a range of advanced multimedia features to customise your profile.

The RTA Local Agent will work closely with you to explore areas of possible collaboration to our mutual benefit. This will help us both to reach our respective and overlapping goals.

• From VWB Volunteers - you can be assigned to assist you in developing your online profile if needed.

• CS & CSR Projects- VWB has a range of projects worthy of your donor support and hands-on support. They cover agroforestry, small scale sustainable agriculture, education, construction in schools, and responsible tourism and non-tourism reliant 2^nd revenue stream development. CS & CSR Projects can be tailored to suit your group size, time available, and budget. Contact the RTA Local Agent for detail.

As a Development Partner, you may enter RTA competitions. The competitions are designed to engage and reward the Membership. 50% of membership fees go towards competition prizes.

• Competition Categories – There are six different categories of competitions. (1) Travel Quiz (2) Articles, (3) Blog posts, (4) Photography, (5) Video, (6) VWB Assignment Essays. You may enter content generated from any of your activities in support of the RTA & VWB.

• Competition Entry Vouchers - You need a verified competition entry voucher to submit entries to competitions each year. These are awarded based on your membership level.

• Draw dates - Each competition is drawn one week after the RTA Barter Dollar 1’000.- 'prize money funding figure has been reached. 

• Notification - One week before the draw date, the RTA Membership will be notified of the upcoming competition by email and invited to enter competitions. 

• Scoring – RTA members vote on what they think are the best competition entries. The entry with the highest number of votes will be declared the winner of that competition. 

• Payment - Payment in RTA Barter Dollars is made into the winning member’s RTA Trade Account – a part of their online profile.

Note* The number of competitions you may enter content for each year is decided by your membership level. Bronze = 0, Silver – 1, Gold = 2. Platinum = 3.

Is an optional (value added) feature for RTA Business Partners may sign up for or not.
It allows them to accept RTA Barter Dollars won in competitions by RTA Members, to purchase the products and services offered in barter trade at ‘advertised rates’ by the Business Partners. 
It allows the RTA Business Partner to sell additional inventory to:

• Gain additionl exposure for their products or services from those RTA Ambassadors who have RTA Barter Dollars won in competition.

• Benefit from selling inventory at the advertised rate. 

• Use RTA Barter Dollars accepted to pay for RTA  Search Panel (Pay per Click) Advertising. 

• Use RTA to pay for monthly membership fees (50% limit.)

RTA Barter Trading

Step 1. - The RTA Community Members enters & wins RTA Barter Dollars (in a voucher format) in RTA Competiitions. They are deposited in his or her RTA Barter Trade account on their online presentation.

Step 2. - When planning a holiday he or she looks for RTA Business Partners offering 'products and services' in Barter Trade'. The RTA competition winner benefits from the value of the competition prize. The RTA Business Partner benefits from selling inventory at the full advertised rate.

Step 3. Once the RTA Member and the Business Partner (via the RTA Local Agent) have reached agreement on barter trade, and the rest of the Ambassador’s booking has been confirmed, he or she transfers the agreed number of RTA Barter Dollars to cover the trade agreed from his or her RTA Barter Trade account, to that of the RTA Local Agent.

Step 4. - On paying the Business Partner for the booking, the Local Agent pays for (transfers) the agreed value in RTA Barter Dollars (identified by reference number) ito the account of the RTA Business Partner.

The main role of the RTA Members, when visiting the RTA Business Partner, is to review and comment on the standard of service provided, and best practices compliance as is stated on their Business Partner’s profile. The Member’s booking ref. and verified comment (and a score of 1 to 5) on each, would then be uploaded to the comment section of the business partner's business profile. 

• Comment Review- When using VWB projects as a platform for your Community Service and Corporate Social Responsibility projects, it is advised that you look through the verified guest comments on the profiles of interest to you with regards to collaboration on projects.  

• Objective - The objective is to encourage the Business Partner - through positive comments and promotional support - to achieve full compliance and the best possible service over time. 

• Positive Comments - Comments 'ticked' positive would be automatically uploaded directly to the site.

• Negative Comments - Comments 'ticked' as negative would be sent to the Business Partner who would have 7 days to resolve the problem and/or submit a rebuttal for upload.

• Transparency - The RTA Ambassador's history of comments is stored on his or her online profile, where it can be reviewed by the Local Agent in the event of a dispute.

• Forums - An information exchange between the RTA Community Members covering a range of topics.

• Resources - A forum for sharing resources that would be of benefit to those in the wider RTA Community.

You have the option of having your organisation advertised on the main search system display panel in response to categories and sub-categories selected during searches. These advertisements give your organisation greater visibility and promote your collaborations with the RTA.

On registering you must decide on your preferred membership level - bronze, silver, gold, platinum - determined by the costs vs benefits for each as explained - under costs above. Your registration will be confirmed by email once approved. You payment of membership fees will only commence when you make your first booking. However, we would really appreciate it if you made a one-off donation to VWB to help us fund volunteer and training costs. 

The notification will include a unique ID and password that allows you access to a user friendly online editor, used to manage the content and imagery on your profile, as well as to access forums, upload guest comments, enter competitions, etc., Assistance, if required, is available from the RTA Local Agent.

• Your Registration Data – Standard information that will assist us in providing you with a high standard of personalised service

• Your Online Profile Data – The additional information that you enter, using the online editor, covering more detailed information on your business. The registration form also includes the following agreements for your electronic signature.
• Using the Online Editor - Your registration will be confirmed by email once payment has been received. You will be sent a unique ID and password. You can use these to manage the content and imagery on your profile for yourself. These will also give you secure access to forums, guest comments, competitions, etc. If you need assistance with the online editor, your local RTA Agent will organise a VWB Volunteer to help you.
• The RTA General Business Agreement– Our assurance that we will not use your data (designated private, shared internally, or public) for any reason other than stipulated without your written consent. That you will respect our intellectual property rights to the RTA business model.
• RTA Development Partners Data Research Agreement – Authorising us to allow selected RTA Development Partners (university or tourism organisation research groups) access to your information (less your personal or identifying information.) This is to study the responsible tourism industry and the RTA’s role in it.

Details of the survey questions would be mailed to you on a case by case basis allowing you to decline participation if you so choose. Bear in mind, we offer this service to RTA Development Partner research groups in exchange for an agreed donation made to VWB (Volunteers Without Borders) which is used to fund development projects.

Explains how to use the system to your best advantage.

Step 1. Search Type - Select the Search Type Option.

Step 2. Location - Select the specific region, followed by the country and destination (province or city.)

Step 3. Category - Select the category of product or service you are interested in, and the sub-category where relevant.

Step 4. Price Range - Select the price/market - (all, budget, tourist, first class.)

Step 5. Accessibility - Select the accessibility criteria (disability/fitness.)

Step 6. Keyword Search - Refine or expand your search. Use keyword search if needed.

Step 7. Shortlist - Click search to review the refined search results pages (numbers on your shortlist and indicated by the search counter at the bottom of the search fields.)

Step 8. Fine Tune - Use the service standard score, or best practice compliance score settings to further refine your search of results listed in order of membership level (bronze, silver, gold, platinum.)

When planning a CS or CSR project, and after reviewing the options on the VWB profile, you may want to search and book for other services (accommodation, meals, etc.) on the RTA platform.

This is how the system works:

Step 1. Submit Enquiry - Use the CGI form on the communications & booking log on your profile page to submit either an enquiry or your proposed itinerary & timeline to the designated RTA Local Agent in the destination you are visiting. Note* we suggest that you include a couple of options for things like accommodation so that you may compare offers made.

Step 2. Local Agent Review - The RTA Local Agent reviews your itinerary and provides you with a provisional estimate of his or her fees (based on the estimated number of hours/costs involved in putting it together.) He or she agrees to come back to you for approval and with an explanation if that fee estimate changes during the enquiry/booking process.

Step 3. Approval - Once you confirm he or she should proceed, the RTA Local Agent contacts the various RTA Business Partners involved in your booking, checking availability, pricing, incentives, ability to meet your stated likes, dislikes, preferences.

Step 4. Personalised Service - The RTA Local Agent reviews your Hobbies & Interests and Personalised Service databases, (on your profile) to see what matches he can make during your visit. 

Step 5. Quotation - The RTA Local Agent then sends you his or her cost itemised proposal (using the same CGI form). You exchange responses using this same form until you both confirm the services and charges, at which point payment options are agreed the formal quotation is issued - including the requirements for payment of a deposit and the balance.

Step 6. Booking - You make your booking using the same system, stating what you would like to pay with RTA Barter Dollars (won in RTA competitions) if you have any in your RTA barter account (shown on your profile) and the RTA Business Partners you are booking has advertised RTA Barter Units (products and services) as being available. 

Step 7. Making Payment - You make your deposit or full payment to the Local Agent via the method agreed (credit card, bank transfer, PayPal). You transfer Barter Dollars from your barter account (on your profile page) to the account of the Agent, who in turn pays them to the Business Partners involved - in exchange for their barter products traded.  

Step 8. Confirmation - Once payments have been made, you are then sent a detailed itinerary, emergency contact detail and vouchers as required.

Note:  All exchanges are conducted using the CGI form in an embedded email system on your profile page. You receive notification of their arrival by email. Emails are time-stamped as part of our service standard monitoring programme.

Travel Articles, Video, Photography - You have taken on or offsite whilst visiting businesses / using VWB services can be copied to (a) the individual Business Partner, (b) the Local Agent, (c) submitted to the appropriate RTA competition (from your gallery).

You may win the competition you enter. Winning would earn your valuable RTA Barter Dollars - to be used on your next booking.