Green tourism initiatives taking place around the world

1. Limitation of accommodation facilities

Sawday, a UK and European accommodation provider similar to Airbnb and Wimdu, recently announced that it would be cutting back on its properties in some of the most overcrowded areas. This means that in a given area, the company will have to remove one property before building another.

This is one of the pioneering policies to help solve current tourism difficulties, such as infrastructure and service problems, resort real estate ownership, overtourism and negative impacts on the ecosystem.

Sawday representatives said that although they know the policy will not have a huge impact, the company hopes it will inspire other tourism operators. “Continually increasing the number of accommodations, hostels, and tourism products is unsustainable. We need to ensure that the number of visitors is at an acceptable level, especially in places that are over-touristed,” said Mike Bevens, CEO of Sawday.

2. Build an electric car rental filter

In early April, the cheap flight booking website Skyscanner launched a search filter for electric and hybrid car rentals (vehicles that use two sources of power: internal combustion engine and electric motor), making it easier for travelers to book environmentally friendly vehicles. Accordingly, the filter will transparently compare the cost of renting an electric car, while also displaying the network of electric charging points available across Europe and the United States. According to the new filter, Portugal is one of the destinations with the most reasonable electric car rental prices in summer 2022.

With this tool, Skyscanner hopes to increase demand for electric and hybrid car rentals, reducing the burden on the environment. The initiative builds on the Greener Choices flight filter tool that Skyscanner launched in 2019 to help travelers find flights with low CO2 emissions.₂than.

3. Kilimanjaro trekking tour exclusively for women

Kilimanjaro is the highest mountain in Africa. This giant volcano stands alone, its summit covered in snow all year round. At its foot are lush green forests with many endangered species of animals.

This coming July, Ireland-based trekking company Earth's Edge will be organizing the first-ever all-women expedition to Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa's tallest volcanic peak. More than 80 local Tanzanian women will also be hired as guides, cooks and porters for the trek.

This is an effort to increase the number of women working with Earth's Edge in Peru, Kenya and India. After gaining experience as porters, these women will have the opportunity to become tour guides on Kilimanjaro - one of the most lucrative jobs in the region, in an industry currently "dominated by men".

In preparation for the upcoming expedition, the company is partnering with the Kilimanjaro Porters Support Project – a non-profit organization that works for porters in the tourism industry – to recruit, train and encourage more local women to join the field.

4. Clear on Carbon Campaign

In early April, adventure travel company Explore announced one of the most comprehensive carbon measurement projects in the travel industry – the Clear on Carbon campaign. Specifically, with a total of 515 trips organized by Explore, the company collected information on travel itineraries, accommodations, food, activities, etc.; then listed and synthesized the carbon emissions of each trip. This data source will help consumers better understand the environmental impact when they travel.

Explore then worked with ClimateCare to offset its carbon emissions and continue to track them transparently. With this move, Explore plans to reduce its carbon footprint by 50% by 2030.

Similarly, two UK groups, Pura Aventura and Wilderness, have also started labelling carbon emissions on their tourism products.

5. Climate Action Plan

Hotelplan UK - the launch partner of the Glasgow Accord at the Cop26 Climate Change Summit - has appointed its first climate action group to spearhead climate change action, moving to promote sustainability during the pandemic with a range of green tourism policies.

In March 2022, Hotelplan UK partnered with ClimateCare on a carbon offset project. The company also pledged to audit its carbon footprint in 2023 to ensure it was taking its emissions reductions seriously. (A carbon footprint is the environmental impact of a property, such as the amount of natural resources it uses and the amount of harmful gases it produces.)

The company also partnered with Eco Ski, a ski business, to encourage winter vacationers to repair, rent or buy used equipment instead of buying new.

6. Travel without planes

Seeing how more and more people are traveling for events, slow travel company Byway has launched a no-fly travel planning service for international events. The first partner for the project isRun for Love, a six-day charity race taking place in Croatia in May. Through a partnership with Byway, competitors can choose to travel to the starting point entirely by train.

Byway founder Cat Jones sees the move as a move towards offering air-free travel in Europe, for both leisure and business. “Our mission is to make slow travel mainstream,” Jones says. “We’re building routes that don’t require flying. It’s about getting back the feeling of travel and discovery, rather than going straight from A to B.”

7. Environmental Initiatives

In October 2021, adventure travel company Exodus set a goal of becoming fully green by 2024, announcing a plan to halve its carbon emissions by 2030 and offer air-conditioned tours.

These are the first steps in Exodus’s Environmental Initiative, which aims to reduce its negative impact on natural ecosystems and actively support the regeneration of nature. The company is also partnering with the non-profit organization Rewilding Europe, on a project to rebuild 100 m²area of ​​land for each tour booked. The project is most extensive in the Apennines (Italy). Last year, the company funded the reforestation of more than 400 hectares of land in this region, equivalent to the ability to remove about 1,500 tons of carbon from the atmosphere each year.

8. Eliminate landfills

Founded in 2008, Lovat Parks has nine parks in Cornwall, Suffolk and Norfolk in the UK. With its landfill-busting project, Lovat has built areas with beach toys, food storage bins, free water stations and locally sourced ingredients in its cafes, while setting an ambitious target of reducing landfill waste by 90% by 2025.

To deliver on this commitment, Lovat will remove all single-use plastic bottles sold in its on-site shops and cafes. In Cornish properties alone, this could prevent over 1,700 bottles from ending up in landfill.

9. Intrepid's 22 Impact Initiatives for 2022

Intrepid Travel, the world's largest small-group adventure travel company, is considering eliminating all flights under 90 minutes from its 50 best-selling tours in a bid to reduce emissions.

Intrepid said that the company's tours always focus on local communities, which is clearly shown in the commitment "22 impact initiatives by 2022" Intrepid just announced. In which, tourists will be provided with direct experiences that benefit local people; preserve nature, wildlife and indigenous culture. A typical example is the experience of meeting Vietnamese craftsmen making art from trash collected in Ha Long Bay.

10. Sustainable villas

To meet the growing demand, Tuscany Now & More - an Italian company specializing in villas - has announced a list of sustainable villas, with criteria such as: using solar panels, experiencing a farm model built with sustainable materials, etc. The villas can accommodate 6 - 14 people, are installed with air cooling systems using renewable energy, swimming pools are cleaned and heated sustainably. Some villas also have organic vegetable gardens and electric vehicle charging points on the premises.

An translation