Promoting Sustainable Travel
The Institute of Tourism at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, in collaboration with Kuoni, has conducted a broad study regarding customer demand of sustainable travel packages in early 2011. It was established that 22% of customers consider sustainability as one of the top three deciding factors when booking travel packages.
Particular attention is paid to customers who have expressed wishes for sustainable travel packages. Kuoni strives to continually increase the sustainability of its products and offer a wide range of sustainable products to its customers. Firstly, Kuoni collaborates closely with its most important hotel partners to improve the sustainability of hotels in the mass market. Secondly, Kuoni works with NGO and industry partners to develop new sustainable products. Thirdly, to counter the effects of travel on climate change, customers are offered compensation tickets for their flight emissions.
ananea: Sustainable Travel & Volunteering
The name of Kuoni’s sustainable product line ‘ananea’ is derived from Greek and means “renewal”. And that is what ananea is all about: a new way of travel. Unforgettable nature, authentic encounters, respectful travel towards people and the environment and the opportunity to get involved. ananea contains sustainable hotels, individual and guided tours, as well as volunteering opportunities. The latter are designed in collaboration with NGOs, experts and local partners in sustainability and are geared to provide customers with unique travel experiences while at the same time creating value for the local population and environment. Read more about ananea.
Travelife Awards
Apart from the flight to the holiday destination the accommodation has the highest social and environmental impact of a travel. By collaborating with hotels to improve their sustainability performance, Kuoni attempts to minimize the negative impact of its business activities. Working with the sustainability certification scheme Travelife allows Kuoni not only to monitor its core hotels but provides a means of communicating hotel’s sustainability performance to customers and gives them the choice to spend their vacation in a sustainably managed hotel. Read more here.
Fair Trade + Travel
Fair Trade Travel offers the opportunity to realise forms of tourism that are economically, ecologically and socially sustainable. This kind of tourism meets the expectations of both the tourists wanting relaxing holidays and local people at the destination wanting to maintain their livelihoods, cultural diversity and dignity. Kuoni is therefore proud to offer its UK and Swiss clients the world’s first-ever Fair Trade Travel (FTT) certified package through its sustainable product line, ananea. With this product offering, Kuoni has also become the first tour operator in the UK to be Fair Trade certified. Read more here.
Offering carbon offsets
The consequences of climate change will have a major effect on the tourist sector over the next few years, and of course the tourist sector makes its own contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions. That’s why Kuoni collaborates with two exemplary carbon offsetting organisations, myclimate and Green Seat, to offer our clients high-quality offsets for their flight emissions. Read about how our clients can help reduce their environmental impact through the purchase of these offsets here.
Sustainable Travel Tips
We want to offer travel that is and remains a truly wonderful experience not just for you but also for the people and the natural environment at and around your chosen destination. “Fair travel” means respecting other cultures, cultivating true partnerships with people in the host country, travelling with due environmental care and concern, and ensuring that the local people also benefit from the tourist travel experience in both material and more abstract terms. Read the tips found here to see how you can play your part.