About our company
Ecotours Hungary Ltd. is currently Hungary’s only officially registered incoming tour operator on its market. We organize Birdwatching, Butterfly, Dragonfly, General Nature and any type of ground-trips that are closely related to nature, such as canoeing, hiking, cycling tours in Central and Eastern Europe.
Ecotourism
Our ecotourism aims at providing superb natural holidays for birders, butterfly enthusiasts, and people with a general interest in nature-study, in a way that respects the natural environment and contributes to its protection. During our holidays we aim at building the best possible relations with the locals, trying to interest them in protecting their own environment, and to bring them benefits by using the services they provide. We also work together with some of the National Parks in Hungary and other countries in various ways, ranging from simply passing on our observations, records, to organizing and running butterfly monitoring projects. We also support local communities by fostering an interest in protecting their immediate natural environment, for example involving schools in Transylvania with Tengmalm’s Owl nestboxes, where the children are the “owners” of the boxes. When visiting Ghana we work with the local Ghana Wildlife Society employing their local guides and also by financially supporting their work.
Holiday / Customer Care
We believe that the reason for Ecotours becoming Britain’s most preferred ground agent in Hungary and the neighbouring region is mainly due to our customer care. Besides preparing a tour map and daily itinerary for each guest, we provide on board cappuccino and chocolate biscuits and regular comfort stops. In the evening after supper when we complete our checklists, we often give a laptop slide show of the days specialities. This helps us identify any mystery species and reinforces ID characteristics. Very educational and totally optional!
Our guides are often highly ranked in their specific field, but still, they make sure all levels of interest are catered for, and the pace of the tours pleases all participants. Clearly we are not twitchers, rather ordinary people who love to be out enjoying nature and experiencing what is there. However, thanks to our extensive network of relations we are always aware of the current bird movements, and this allows us to select where to go, optimize species seen and hopefully optimise time spent travelling.
We aim to use friendly little inns, hotels with local character and excellent cuisine. Meals are carefully selected, and the packed lunches are often constructed by the participants of the tour for themselves, to ensure the choice of sandwiches is to personal taste. However, we sometimes have indoor, hot lunches, depending on our route and weather conditions. We usually provide hot drinks and biscuits during the day at no cost.
We usually run tours with 5 passengers as a minimum. For groups of over 8 passengers we favour an 18 seater a/c Mercedes mini-coach with driver. It has a luggage trailer as well. For small groups we use an a/c minibus driven by the Ecotours Guide.
History
Our company was formed with the intention of popularizing Hungary as a perfect ecotourism destination both for amateur naturalists and for those with a more academic interest in plant and animal species, habitats and geology. One of the key figures who started our company, Ecotours Hungary Ltd. was Gabor Orban. He participated in his first Birding Camp during the seventies and became engaged in birding instantly. Later he broadened his interest in zoology, botany and geology as well. During the eighties and nineties he lead several tours in Hungary, Great Britain and Europe (Denmark, Sweden, Spain, etc.) while he was a biology and geography teacher. He qualified in zoology in 1994. He has worked and travelled in the US visiting more then 20 national parks. Returning to Hungary he started to organize Natours Hungary Travel Agency Ltd. which was transformed later into Ecotours Hungary Travel Agency Ltd. in 1999. He became an official professional tour guide during 1997.
One of our other key partners is BirdLife Hungary (MME). We were the official Tour organizers of the 15th International Conference of the European Bird Census Council, 2001 and the Owl Conference in 2003. We also support worldwide protection of wildlife and habitats by donations to WWF and in UK to the Butterfly Conservation Society.
Ecotours has been present as an exhibitor at the British Birdwatching Fair for the past 6 years.
