Travelling sustainably needn’t take effort, Joanna Booth discovers
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Not all of us want to spend our hard-earned fortnight off building a school, travelling only by public transport, or taking two-minute showers to save water.
That doesn’t mean that we don’t care about the environment, local communities, or wildlife. We’d just prefer to help in a passive, rather than an active way.
The good news is that clients don’t have to change how they holiday to make a positive difference. By making a few smart choices, they can let travel companies do the hard work and still stay sustainably.
Giving back
Donating money to charity is hardly draining when it comes to energy, and after saving up for a holiday many clients may feel a pound or two extra won’t make much difference to their bank balance. It can help make a big difference to others, however, if they book with a company that supports a charity or carries out its own charitable efforts.
Last year, a third of Thomson and First Choice customers – more than 1.3 million people – donated £1 per adult and 50p per child to the World Care Fund, which funds projects that help address the environmental impact of tourism and support local communities around the world.
Virgin Holidays automatically includes the same level of donation in all its holidays, with the funds going to charity partner The Travel Foundation and to initiatives such as the Branson Centre of Entrepreneurship in the Caribbean, which gives support to youngsters in the region who want to start their own businesses.
Both Intrepid Travel and G Adventures run non-profit foundations – The Intrepid Foundation and Planeterra respectively – providing support for projects that improve healthcare and education, support sustainable development and protect wildlife and the environment.
Hotel groups donate too, with Banyan Tree Hotels & Resorts matching guests’ contributions to its Green Imperative Fund, and Amari Hotels donating to an education-focused programme for disadvantaged children in its native Thailand.
The Sandals Foundation supports education, community and environmental work in the Caribbean, with more than $3.6 million raised in the last five years.
Staying sustainable
Clients don’t have to head for an eco-lodge to stay somewhere with sustainable credentials.
Many major UK tour operators, including Tui UK & Ireland, Thomas Cook, Cosmos, Kuoni and Virgin Holidays have joined the Travelife certification scheme, so customers can easily look for the bronze, silver and gold awards logos to see how committed properties are to sustainability. Other widely used certification schemes include EarthCheck, and Green Globe.
These days, sustainable hotels are less about opting out of having your towels washed, and more about what goes on behind the scenes. Most hoteliers are keen to ensure that guests’ experiences aren’t affected by the property’s commitment to the environment, so clients won’t have to make sacrifices.
Luxury Indian chain ITC Hotels makes sure clients can run the air-conditioning without guilt by sourcing 55% of its electricity from renewable sources, and that they can take long showers by recycling enough water to irrigate 65,000 trees.Sandals offsets up to 12% of its energy consumption through using photovoltaic cells to heat water, and Half Moon Resort in Jamaica treats 130,000 gallons of waste water per day.
The Costa Navarino resort on the Peloponnese peninsula, Greece, was built with two reservoirs to cover its irrigation needs, including two golf courses, plus a photovoltaic park and a geothermal system.
Off the Queensland coast, the owners of Bedarra Island Resort rebuilt the property following Cyclone Yasi with the environment in mind, from solar-generated power to sourcing water from rain and springwater.
Taj Group is working on ambitious conservation plans, and within five years will have saved enough electricity to power more than 50,000 homes, saved enough water to fill 338 Olympic-sized swimming pools and reduced carbon dioxide emissions by an amount comparable to taking 6,675 cars off the road.
It’s not all about energy however, the group also helps young people from underprivileged and marginalised sections of society to gain employment in the hospitality industry by providing training and recruitment in skills such as housekeeping, food and beverage service and baking.
In Africa, Wilderness Safaris not only builds its lodges and camps to the highest environmental standards, but also runs the Children in the Wilderness programme across seven countries. Camps are closed to tourists and host local children who are taught about protecting the environment.
In Bali, Alila Villas Uluwatu is helping Bali Life Foundation to build a new house for 60 orphans, and has set up a training programme to provide technical skills so they can find employment.
Wildlife welfare
When clients are taking a safari, trekking in the jungle or snorkelling, it’s likely they’ll be concerned about the welfare of the wildlife around them.
With rhino poaching at an all-time high in South Africa, &Beyond and Great Plains Conservation are working together on Rhinos Without Borders. The programme will safely relocate 100 rhino from an &Beyond reserve in South Africa to one in Botswana, where they’ll be protected by a dedicated anti-poaching team.
Riu Hotels & Resorts has established a 200-hectare Private National Wildlife Refuge next to its two hotels in Costa Rica to protect endangered species. In Peru, eco-lodge group Inkaterra has created a rescue centre for spectacled bears, started a butterfly breeding programme and restored five hectares of cloud forest, attracting hundreds of indigenous species.
Clients will also find programmes to protect wildlife in areas they might least expect it. Cities might not seem like nature reserves, but the Fairmont Royal York in Toronto is the location for the group’s first ‘pollinator bee hotel,’ set up on the roof alongside an apiary of six hives that have been flourishing for the last 15 years.
More than 150 hives can be found at 26 Fairmont hotels around the world, and are visited by more than five million bees a year. This programme provides honey for guests, but also works to reverse the declining global bee population – a serious concern when you consider that one in every three bites of food we eat is the result of animal pollination.
In Dubai, the Jumeirah Group’s turtle rehabilitation project has just celebrated its 10th anniversary with the release of 110 critically endangered hawksbill turtles back into the ocean.
It can be as much about what guests don’t do, as what they do. Intrepid Travel recently stopped offering elephant rides on its trips, and only visits a limited selection of approved sanctuaries.
Hands-on activities
Some clients may decide they would actually like to see sustainable practices in action on their trip. The Sani Resort in Greece runs a series of Eco Days throughout the season, flagging up its green initiatives with eco games for kids, a market for local producers and bird-watching trips in the wetlands on the hotel’s reserve.
In South Africa’s Eastern Cape, Kwandwe Private Game Reserve lets clients get hands on with a three-day, not-for-profit Rhino Conservation Safari, where participants take an active role in administering medication to the reserve’s black and white rhino, as well as taking measurements and DNA samples for scientific and medical purposes.
Banyan Tree celebrates its 20th anniversary this year with a range of new Guest Voluntourism Initiatives, from planting trees to preparing and serving meals to local communities.
Four Seasons Resort Maldives at Landaa Giraavaru has supported the Maldivian Manta Ray Project since 2006, and now offers guest the chance to join a seven-night research expedition to study these creatures with a leading expert.
Guests on certain Travelsphere tours can see how their donations are spent, whether by meeting former street children in Delhi or visiting the panda research centre where Bo Bo, the panda adopted by Travelsphere, lives.
