Tour Risks Identified and Mitigated

In seeking touring best practice and from training and experience, Nature Trail adopts a conservative approach in its tour design, trip planning and delivery, with safety as our overarching guiding principle.

Nature Trail applies a Risk Management Policy to ensure tour guest safety is a priority on all our tours, which is formalised in our Operations Manual.  This policy includes that for each Nature trail tour offered our tour leader undertakes a Risk Analysis as an integral part of our Tour Design process and Trip Planning process for a given tour.

Read more about Nature Trail’s Tour Design, Trip Planning & Tour Delivery

Travelling in the great outdoors provides the enjoyment of exploring new places, sights and experiences, and this comes with hazards and risks.  We recognise the inherent risks of our tour guests travelling in unfamiliar landscapes.  There are risks associated with the activity undertaken such as hiking and trekking, the route taken, the time of day and year chosen, the relative health, fitness, ability and experience of each tour guest, and environmental risks such as weather, potential injury, etc.

So as part of our Risk Management Policy, our tour leader undertakes a Risk Analysis for each tour.  This includes our trip leader undertaking a number of field recces of the entiore tour route prior to a tour being offered as a commercial tour.  While conducting a recce, teh trip leader identifies hazards, obstacles, assesses risks and considers risk mitigation to within acceptable safety criteria for the general public.  This route analysis is documented in a Risk Analysis Report which is then included in Nature Trail’s printed Tour Plan for the tour.

If during our Tour Design process, it is decided that a chosen tour is too risky such as unavoidable cliff edge exposure enroute, then the tour is removed from Nature Trail’s offering and the reasons documented in Nature Trail’s internal Operations Manual.

Similarly, for commercial tours, if during our Trip Planning process, it is decided that a particular trip is too risky such as forecast extreme weather hazards, then the trip is either cancelled or postponed, and an alternative date and comparable route offerred to our booked tour guests.