The Travel Foundation - new initiatives

We are helping to build the industry's understanding of sustainable tourism by providing first hand experience on our destination projects. We are starting with a three week pilot programme for between six and twelve volunteers in late 2006.

Building on the original SAVE excursion routes, a series of self-drive leaflets to encourage tourists to visit rural villages, restaurants, handicrafts producers etc. are being produced. Click here to access some of the information in the Cyprus project summary.

Awareness raising programmes for hoteliers, guides and tourists about the turtles nesting on beaches are being conducted, in order to encourage good practice. The training programme includes the production of information materials and there are plans to extend this across the Mediterranean in 2007.

A communications programme is being established, to help fisher folk, restaurants, hotels and tourists understand what type of seafood can be harvested and eaten at certain times of year and what the alternatives are. The pilot is to be conducted in Tobago with extension to the Mediterranean as a second phase.

We are supporting the installation of low energy lighting in Jamaican hotels, as well as researching other actions the industry can take to reduce the carbon emissions that are associated with tourism in destinations. Click here for further information on what we are doing to reduce our carbon footprint.

A sustainability audit has been carried out on three hotels in Cyprus, Turkey and the Azores and implementation plans are being drawn up to assist the hotels in making positive changes. A handbook and other communication materials are currently being produced to help promote change more widely - these will be published online as soon as they become available.

Appealing directly to travelling children, a kids’ insider guide in the form of an activity booklet, with a cartoon character mascot “Hatch” the turtle, has been created, to build understanding of how children and their families can have a more sustainable holiday. Click here to find out more.

Together with Thomas Cook we are sponsoring five female Turkish students, who would not otherwise be able to afford it, through a tourism degree course, providing educational opportunity and building recognition of tourism management as a career option for Turkish women. As a second phase, the sustainable tourism module of the degree programme will be adapted for other parts of the education system in Turkey.

Training sessions delivered through destination Steering Committees on local sustainability issues, are planned for 2006, to determine how they are being addressed and how reps can help support them, either directly or through encouraging good practice with their customers.

An off-the-shelf introduction to sustainable tourism package for in-house delivery is under development, along with a toolkit for assisting five divisions of a tour operating company, to integrate the principles of sustainable tourism into operational practice.

New initiatives will be added as information becomes available - so please check back again soon!