Industry calls for ‘green accreditation’ scheme
The industry needs to have a ‘green accreditation’ to define what makes a travel company green, according to senior figures.
Mintel senior travel analyst Richard Cope said it was difficult to say what made a travel company environmentally sound and called for the UNWTO or a similar organisation to come up with an accreditation scheme.
Other panellists at TravelMole’s Travel Industry Question Time debate into the future of high street agents agreed and said travel companies would be forced to demonstrate more action on green issues as consumers become increasingly conscious of the environmental impact.
According to Mintel’s research, awareness among consumers is already high of the damage tourism is doing.
Cope said: “Awareness is very strong. Although the sentiments are worthy they don’t anything about it so there is room for agents to pitch themselves as green agents.”
Advantage managing director John McEwan agreed the issue would come more and more to the fore.
“We need retailers and operators to get behind The Travel Foundation because it needs financial support for its projects. There will be more awareness as a result of that,” he said.
Report by Linda Fox
Linda Fox
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