Statement on tours to the Uyghur region

30 August 2023

Wild Frontiers has a long history of visiting destinations often deemed controversial. Our approach is based on our general belief that if done correctly, tourism can benefit citizens living under oppressive regimes, providing an income as well as a link to the outside world. While we fully understand why some people might choose to boycott a destination, that has not been our general approach and we do not believe that travelling to a destination represents an endorsement of government policy. These decisions are not easy ones to make but from experience we have seen that tourism has the potential to provide livelihoods, expose closed-off societies to the world and create valuable global connections. That being said, we welcome UHRP’s report and the issues it raises, and are currently conducting a full investigation of our tours in the region.  We haven’t sent any visitors to Xinjiang Province since pre-Covid, and we have no-one booked to visit this year, but we will be looking into issues raised in the UHRP report to ensure that if we do visit the region in 2024, it will be done as sensitively as possible. In the meantime we will welcome the opportunity to discuss the issues raised further with UHRP.