A total of 11,000 travel industry professionals have signed up to the Travel Foundation’s Make Travel Greener campaign, surpassing the target of 10,000 set for the end of the year.
The success of the Make Travel Greener programme has led the Travel Foundation to double the number of travel professionals it aims to sign up by 2010 to 20,000.
The maketravelgreener.com training and quiz was launched at the end of April to promote greater understanding of responsible tourism among travel agency and tour operator employees. It is hoped they will pass on their knowledge to clients.
TUI Travel UK, Thomas Cook, The Co-operative Travel, Virgin Holidays, Advantage Travel Centres and ABTA have all signed up to the initiative.
Travel Foundation chief executive Sue Hurdle said: “Our target was to have more than 10,000 industry professionals complete the quiz by the end of the year. With such great support, we have already smashed our goal. We don’t want the momentum to stop so we are challenging the industry to see if we can reach 20,000.”
About 6,000 TUI Travel UK agents had taken the quiz by the end of last week. TUI Travel UK head of sustainable development Jane Ashton said: “Make Travel Greener has proved a great learning tool for our shops. It is engaging and accessible and offers a solid introduction to sustainable tourism.”
ABTA chairman and Advantage Travel Centres chief executive John McEwan, who scored 97% when he took the quiz, said: “We are promoting Make Travel Greener to all 6,000 Advantage members.”
The Travel Foundation is an industry-backed sustainable tourism charity supported primarily by donations from holidaymakers. It is offering mugs, books and other prizes to the first 100 people to score 95% or more in the quiz this month.