The Travel Foundation

Please take a look at the information below, and click on any of the highlighted names to link directly to each members website for further information.

The International Hotels Environment Initiative was created in 1992, as a non-profit organisation when a group of chief executives of twelve multi-national hotel companies joined forces to promote continuous improvement in environmental performance by the hotel industry worldwide.

IHEI focuses exclusively on hotels and how to improve their environmental management. In recent years, hotels have become increasingly focused on the broader environment issues of community and social responsibility.

The International Institute for Environment and Development is an independent, non-profit organisation promoting sustainable patterns of world development through collaborative research, policy studies, networking and knowledge dissemination. Over the last thirty years IIED has earned a world-wide reputation and was the first recipient of the Blue Planet Prize (1992) for outstanding contributions to environmental policy and action. IIED carries out research and consultancies into pro-poor tourism, impacts of tourism on local people, polocay and institutional requirements to ensure people benefit from tourism, company-community tourism partnerships and the role of tourism as an engine for sustainable development.

Based in the UK, The Imaginative Traveller are the country's leading adventure tour operator to the Middle East, Africa, Asia, South East Asia, Europe, South & Central America, Antarctica and the South Pacific. Responsible Travel policies and the supporting of environmental and humanitarian projects are issues running through the heart of The Imaginative Traveller and from 2006 travellers have the opportunity to volunteer at selected programmes during their tour.

Imperial College was established in 1907 and its mission is to: embody and deliver world class scholarship, education and research in science, engineering and medicine, with particular regard to their application in industry, commerce and healthcare. It performs research on various aspects of sustainable tourism, including communications.

Established in 1984, Inntravel is one of the leading specialist tour operators in Britain. They are recognised as innovators in their field, and have won many awards for their brochures and level of service. The majority of their holidays take place in rural areas of Europe and stimulate wealth-creation through major job opportunities and the multiplier effect. They try to use smaller, locally-owned hotels, and they emphasise local gastronomic and cultural traditions in their holiday notes. Some of their walks in the remoter regions are helping to maintain traditional communications routes, and they offer a public transport option of travelling to almost all their holidays.