Thailand-based Tripseed has become the first company in the world to be awarded the Fair Tax Mark under the UK-based Fair Tax Foundation’s new National Business Standard, launched during Fair Tax Week 2026 in June. The standard allows businesses outside the UK that operate in a single country, such as Tripseed in Thailand, to be awarded the Fair Tax Mark.
The certification recognises companies that transparently pay corporation tax in the right jurisdiction and at the right time. Tripseed pursued the standard to challenge the industry’s existing economic sustainability frameworks, arguing that tax conduct remains an overlooked dimension of local tourism benefit.
Ewan Cluckie, co-founder and chief growth officer at Tripseed, said: “Over the last three years we tried to measure how much (of the economic benefit that we generate) is retained in the destination – and then we ran into a wall during that process. So much of this industry runs on offshore revenue recognition and opaque ownership structures that you often can’t tell from any public record how much a tour operator actually retains locally. The money may never even touch a Thai bank account.
“Tripseed was really founded on one core idea, and that’s that tourism should leave more behind in the places it touches than what it takes out. We measure how much of every trip stays in the local economy. We choose our suppliers on that basis. Our whole business is organised around local economic retention and the quality of the money that is retained.”
He added: “That was the moment tax moved to the centre of our thinking. Corporate income tax is one of the few parts of this picture that can be evidenced; it’s filed, it can be scrutinised, it can be independently assessed – so it became our way in. If you want one honest, verifiable signal of whether a company is really contributing to the places it profits from, look at what it pays in tax.”
To secure the accreditation, Tripseed aligned its independent tax disclosures with the global GRI 207 reporting standard before collaborating with the foundation to meet the new criteria.
Tripseed ultimately stepped away from several established industry sustainability certifications after finding they did not mandate domestic financial compliance.
“We realised that none of them asked the most basic question of all, which is: does this company actually comply with the law and pay its taxes where it operates?” Cluckie said.
“You could be a celebrated and certified tourism business here, yet still be using illegal ownership structures and still be routing all of your profits offshore.”
Tripseed is leveraging the milestone to urge travel industry certifiers to integrate tax conduct as a measurable pillar of economic sustainability.
Cluckie noted: “For a small DMC in northern Thailand, that’s not where you’d expect a global first to come from, but it’s something we’re extremely proud of. We also hope it doesn’t stay unusual for so long.”
Last week, Tripseed won Silver in the Local Economic Benefit category at the 2026 Responsible Tourism Awards Southeast Asia, presented during the 2026 International Conference on Responsible Tourism and Hospitality (ICRTH) in Miri, Sarawak, Malaysia.
