A website for the Travel Lottery has gone live to allow customers to buy tickets to enter regular draws while raising funds for charity.
The site at thetravellottery.co.uk has been developed to be easy for travel companies to promote and simple for their customers to either buy tickets for a single draw, or to sign up to play regularly.
Tickets on sale are for a draw at the end of March, giving consumer the chance to win back the cost of their holiday – up to £5,000 – and support good causes in holiday destinations around the world. One winner will win at least £1,000 cash each month.
At least 20 different firms are expected to either direct customers to the website or sell tickets at the point of booking by the end of the year.
The aim is to sell at least 100,000 tickets and raise more than £50,000 for good causes in the first year.
The Travel Lottery also creates a new revenue stream for the travel industry. Those who direct customers to the website or sell directly can earn up to 20p per ticket sold, which can be donated to the charities they support or be added to the firm’s bottom line.
Salli Felton, acting chief executive at the Travel Foundation, the charity behind the lottery, said: “All types of businesses that sell holidays and travel-related services can now play their part in protecting the destinations on which they depend. We’ve created a fundraising mechanism that is fun, easy to communicate to customers and can be readily implemented into customer sales processes.”
Noel Josephides, chairman of the Travel Foundation, said: “This really is a win-win for everyone involved – for customers who have a chance to win a cash prize every month, for travel firms who can earn commission and support their corporate responsibility, and ultimately for the destinations which we rely on and send our customers to every year.”
At least 50p from each ticket sold will go directly to support charitable projects run by the Travel Foundation, with a further 50p contributing to the prize fund. The hope is that, as more and more organisations back the lottery, more than half the ticket price will go towards the delivery of charitable activities.