The Travel Corporation’s Shannon Guihan urges firms to look beyond marketing to secure a future for the industry
Often when we talk about sustainability in the travel industry, we talk about making our travel more meaningful – about supporting small local businesses in destination, staying longer, engaging in community tourism, treating animals respectfully, and so on.
Travel marketing is full of pictures of artisans at work, of Indigenous communities showcasing sustainable farming practices, of coral reefs being reborn.
All these things are tangible to the consumer and – don’t get me wrong – they are very important. We have our own examples of these at TTC in the form of our Make Travel Matter Experiences, each one anchored to one or more of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, and identified via a rigorous set of criteria. Travellers can understand them and – even better – participate in them, contributing to a shift in mindset that makes us all think twice about our travel choices.
But some of the most impactful things that we as industry leaders can do are often the least sexy and the least marketable to our clients. They are opaque, dry, science-led and, frankly, in many cases are not going to influence the consumer’s purchasing decision between one brand or another. But it’s critical we do them anyway, because they are what is going to make the difference to achieving net zero goals, and having a future in which we can still live, do business and holiday.
One such example is the carbon fund concept, a model more common in other sectors than in our own. In a tour operating first, TTC launched its own Carbon Fund last year to enable rapid investments in green technologies specifically selected for their ability to decarbonise our business. But how does it work, what difference is it going to make and, crucially, how can the travel industry learn from other sectors, and each other, to take the more impactful steps that are so urgently needed? Because reaching net zero has to be our number one priority, and businesses have to be prepared to pay for it.
In short, the carbon fund is an active, strategic move away from offsetting so that we can enable the business to instead focus on financing the path to decarbonisation. Each of TTC’s 40 travel brands – from hotels and river cruising, to touring and day trips – has been assessed for its impact on the environment, receiving an internal categorisation according to its level of CO2 emissions. Each will then contribute an appropriate level of generated revenue to TTC’s Carbon Fund, proportionate to the brand’s impact.
This allows the business to prioritise and earmark monies for the single purpose of accelerating our decarbonisation, from sourcing renewable energy power sources for our coaches, ships and buildings, to participating in research and supporting destinations and eventually our supply chain to decarbonise their businesses too.
It’s a model in play in a number of other sectors, with firms like Microsoft and transport and logistics company DSV operating similar funding schemes. Qantas announced a very similar structure just this year. We based our approach on learnings from other industries, and tailored it to suit our operating model, and I encourage every travel company to consider how this could apply to them.
For us, it will ensure that no matter the curveballs on the path ahead – and the pandemic showed us that we can’t take anything for granted – the financial mechanism is in place to address the biggest challenge of them all.
Shannon Guihan is chief sustainability officer at The Travel Corporation, which includes brands such as Trafalgar, Insight Vacations, Contiki and Uniworld.