Destinations

Optimising our holidays’ environmental, economic and social impacts

When managed well, tourism supports conservation and preserves natural heritage. The tourism value chain – accommodation, catering, retail, excursions, transfer and airport services – provides employment and training opportunities and stimulates local enterprise to the extent that, in 2008, tourism accounted for 30% of the world’s exports of services (UNWTO World Tourism Barometer).

Our sustainability impact in destinations is largely indirect, particularly through our accommodation suppliers, and we assume a level of responsibility for encouraging them to improve in this area. 77%* of TUI Travel businesses are actively engaging with suppliers on environmental issues. In addition, TUI Travel is involved in hundreds of projects designed to improve the livelihoods of local people in destinations. *Weighted by employee numbers.

We have also developed Groupwide policies on animal welfare in excursion locations and the protection of children in tourist areas. We also initiated a project to gain a better understanding of the socio-economic impacts of our operations in developing destinations, particularly in relation to the growing all-inclusive holiday market.

Our suppliers

Our principal suppliers are hotel owners and operators and transport and excursion providers. Our UK and destination teams undertake regular inspections of accommodation, transport and excursion suppliers to assess not just health and safety, but also quality and sustainability. We work with our suppliers on a cycle of continuous improvement and if suppliers fall below our expectations, we remove them from our programmes.

The Travelife Sustainability System (www.travelife.co.uk) has been adopted by a number of businesses in the Mainstream Sector Northern Region and Western Europe and in the Specialist & Emerging Markets Sector. Central Europe is continuing with its well-recognised TUI Umwelt Champion (’Environment Champion’) award for its 100 most environmentally friendly hotels.

TUI UK & Ireland has introduced a sustainable development addendum as part of all accommodation contracts. This means that each hotelier must initiate (or continue to develop) a sustainability programme, managing their impacts on the environment, their employees and the local community. This is an industry first for UK mainstream tour operations. Over the course of the next financial year, the addendum will be embedded into the contracting processes of the Mainstream Sector Northern Region and Western Europe and in the Specialist & Emerging Markets Sector.

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