Travel and tourism is the world’s largest industry, fuelling growth and employment to the extent that it has become a critical component of the world economy. Our industry’s activities account (directly or indirectly) for 11% of the world's GDP and 12% of its exports (UNWTO).

Around 50 of the world’s least developed countries rely largely on this activity for economic development and recent studies suggest that in these locations a significant proportion of tourist spending reaches the poor (ODI). In these countries in particular, our industry has the potential to make a considerable contribution to raising living standards and alleviating poverty.

The UN World Tourism Organization estimates that travel and tourism emits around 5% of global carbon emissions, of which 2% are from aviation and the remainder are mostly from accommodation and other transport (UNWTO).

Therein lies the challenge for TUI Travel – to understand how we can balance the impact of our activities to arrive at the optimum social, economic and environmental benefits for all concerned. TUI Travel’s sustainable development strategy is based on consideration of the key issues affecting the company, now and in the future. Our Sustainable Development Policy sets out our vision and approach to sustainable development. To view our policy, please click here.

Our five strategic priorities for sustainable development are Embedding, Carbon management, Destinations, Our colleagues and Our customers.

To view our strategic priorities, please click here.