World Environment Day is the perfect time to consider the potential opportunities that sustainable travel options provide for your business. With the climate crisis increasingly at the forefront of many travellers’ minds, and more people than ever experiencing ‘eco-guilt’, it’s crucial that you’re offering sustainable travel options for your customers to take advantage of, allowing them to enjoy their travels guilt-free.
As a travel agent, you are no doubt aware of the increase in demand for sustainable travel options across the globe. More travellers are concerned about the impact of their trips than ever before and are making decisions based on their values and beliefs.
In fact, a reported 90% of consumers say they are looking for sustainable options when researching travel opportunities this year. With this growing interest in sustainable tourism, there is a wealth of exciting opportunities for you to offer to your clients, whatever their travel type and budget!
From eco-friendly hotels and experiences to alternative transport to micro-adventures where travellers can stray from the beaten track, offering sustainable travel options is absolutely essential to help you meet the changing demands of conscious travellers. This will ensure the success of your agency, plus protecting the planet, for years to come.
Whether you’re already a green planet pro or you’re just starting to consider eco-friendly travel options, we’ve put together some helpful ways for you to easily tap into the blossoming sustainable tourism market.
More hotels are making eco-friendly choices: this is fantastic news, since this is an easy way for travellers to feel like they’re doing good regardless of their reason for travel. In fact, many studies have shown that travellers are actually willing to pay more to stay in a green hotel. That doesn’t necessarily mean a cabin in the woods: there are many hotels, from boutique to luxury, doing their bit, whether it's using green energy, reducing plastic use, or supporting local farms through responsible food sourcing and reduced food waste. Be sure to recommend eco-friendly hotels to your clients!
Top tip: The Bedsonline Booking Engine has a sustainable ‘Sustainable Hotel’ filter, helping you find eco-friendly hotels or those with green incentives at the click of a button. In fact, we’ve seen a 30% growth in travellers booking eco-friendly hotels through our Sustainable Hotels programme!
Additionally, an increasing number of hotels in our portfolio have taken the pledge to go plastic-free - and since this year's World Environment Day theme is #beatplasticpollution, we are sure that many more will soon make that same commitment.
There’s a range of sustainable tour packages that you could offer to excite your eco-conscious clients. In particular, nature-based options are one to watch, expected to account for 57% of travel packages across the world in 2023 (according to Euromonitor). From wildlife spotting and hiking to aqua adventures and wild swimming, your agency could begin to offer unique experiences where travellers can switch off and get back to nature to care for themselves and the planet. Sustainable transport alternatives are important to consider, whether it’s electric car rental or train travel instead of flying.
Bedsonline can help you access thousands of sustainable mobility options and experiences! We’re already helping more than 55,000+ travel distributors to tap into the sustainable tourism market through an exclusive portfolio of activities and experiences to offer your clients.
For the more budget-conscious traveller, offer packages and locations where they can spend longer and spend less. Emerging destinations are a great way for eco-tourists to seek authentic and sustainable experiences away from the beaten path. You could also consider recommending off-peak times for them to travel.
Some travellers are looking to create a net positive impact from their trip, known as regenerative travel. There’s even carbon-positive hotels beginning to pop up, like Denver’s Populus, where travellers can actively help the planet - win-win! Could you get ahead of this upcoming trend and offer regenerative locations and packages?
Luxury travel and high-impact conservation is certainly seeing a boom, but it’s really important to offer a range of options for all budgets to ensure travellers can choose sustainable - whatever their budget. Travellers around the world are also spending differently due to concerns around inflation: in fact, inflation was reported as the top issue impacting travel plans in the next 12 months in Expedia’s Traveller Values Index, and is a situation that certainly cannot be ignored.
Although the global economic situation is worrying, it is an exciting time for sustainable tourism and could be seen as an antidote. Not only does this trend see travellers making more meaningful and considered travel choices which reflect their values, it is also broadly accepted that eco-conscious trips cost more. By offering sustainable options and packages, your clients will be sure to feel they are getting their money’s worth and can travel guilt-free.
It’s really important to embody eco-conscious principles in your agency. Travellers are more perceptive than ever to ‘greenwashing’ attempts, the idea that you can market to travellers as being considerate of the environment without actually doing much in reality, or even selling packages which appear eco-friendly but actually do harm.
Sustainability starts at home, so choose and sell your offerings responsibly and make sure they are genuinely eco-friendly options that are not mislabelled or vague. Ensure you are following your own environmentally friendly practices. Your eco-minded clients will notice, and they’ll thank you!
The travel industry, and each person working within it, plays an important role in protecting the world in the wake of the climate crisis. Sustainable travel doesn’t have to mean sacrificing comfort or luxury: it’s about protecting the environment and the economy. This will mean that travellers can enjoy their trips guilt-free whilst ensuring future generations can also experience these locations in the same way. Sustainable travel is certainly not going anywhere, so don’t miss out!
