As a part of TUI Travel PLC, we recently received the prestigious Worlds’ Responsible Tourism Award at the 2009 World Travel Awards, as well as the British Travel Award for Most Environmentally Responsible airline. Whereas we’ve achieved a good deal in recent years, we recognise that we must work hard to ensure sustainable tourism now and into the future.
We understand that our holidays, as well as being treasured experiences, can also have impacts. We must therefore reduce carbon emissions, limit the amount of water we use (directly or indirectly) and protect biodiversity, an integral part of our customers’ experience on holiday. We must also respect the culture and people of destinations and offer real economic benefit to local communities. We must make travel experiences special for every customer, while balancing the impacts associated with providing them.
As one of the initiatives that demonstrates our commitment to sustainable tourism, we advise all the hotels we work with to utilise the Travelife Sustainability System. For some hotels, Travelife will have served as an introduction to sustainability, whereas for others it recognises the substantial work already undertaken, by the achievement of a Travelife award. Travelife has helped or is helping hotels on their sustainability journey, which in turn supports us on our own journey.
We’d like to imagine that not so long from now, we won’t be talking about sustainable tourism – it will be just the way we and others do business. In the meantime, a trend has emerged: the scores for Travelife awarded hotels on our holiday feedback questionnaires are typically delivering a better customer experience than others. So, why not choose a holiday with us this year at a Travelife hotel?