A new partnership between the Travel Foundation and easyJet holidays will lead the way by putting a pioneering “destination stewardship” approach into action. This will bring together private, public and local community representation to establish a common set of priorities for tourism management and long-term resilience coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

 

As part of a new and ongoing partnership between the tour operator and the global tourism NGO, the Travel Foundation will initially work closely with five of easyJet holidays’ top destinations to demonstrate an approach that puts community needs first. The destinations are likely to be:

• Tenerife (Spain)
• Mallorca (Spain)
• Dalaman (Turkey)
• Rhodes (Greece)
• The Algarve (Portugal)

In collaboration with easyJet holidays, the Travel Foundation will act as facilitator for a destination stewardship approach. It will conduct research to better understand the most important tourism-related challenges and opportunities in each destination, to develop more balanced and equitable outcomes. It will look at tourism as a whole, not just easyJet holidays’ operations, and ensure there is engagement from a wide range of stakeholders – including competitors, community representatives and those responsible for public assets - to consider tourism’s most significant impacts and build consensus around common goals and a pathway to achieving them.

 

The announcement follows the launch of easyJet holidays’ inaugural sustainability strategy in September, with a vision for “a world where travel makes a positive impact on the environment and local communities.” easyJet holidays has already announced it will encourage its directly contracted hotels to be certified to Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GTSC) standards by the end of 2025 and it was the first major UK tour operator to offset carbon emissions for its holidays – including flights, transfers plus the energy from hotel stays - which has been retroactively applied to all holidays since its launch in November 2019. For the Travel Foundation, the collaboration represents a core component of its strategy to partner with both destinations and companies to promote a stewardship approach that delivers on climate and equity.

Garry Wilson, CEO of easyJet holidays, said:

 

“At easyJet holidays we have ambitious sustainability commitments combined with an opportunity to do things differently. There is a responsibility for us all to play our part to reopen tourism sustainably and we absolutely need to, and can, work together. So one of the biggest challenges is going to be how we can share best practice, collaborate, and make changes as an industry. We see the Travel Foundation as the ideal partner for facilitating this within destinations, and we share the same aim to lead the charge here and demonstrate a new kind of relationship between businesses and destination communities. Ultimately, we’ll show that doing this right will deliver a better experience for our customers and real, positive benefits for communities.”  

Jeremy Sampson, CEO of the Travel Foundation, said:

“Because of the trust that easyJet holidays has placed on us and its desire to put destinations first, we have this exciting opportunity to practice what we preach and advance a shared vision for prioritising and managing destination risks and opportunities. With these five mainstream destinations we will ask fundamental questions about the future of tourism, with local stakeholders leading the way, deliberating the options based on robust evidence, and reaching a consensus on the actions to take. We hope to show the benefits of public-private collaboration and to advance some practical solutions that bring the principles of destination stewardship alive.”

The destination stewardship programme will result in jointly agreed recommendations and actions to support tourism recovery and resilience in each destination, in addition to follow-on activities to support destinations in putting their plans into action. The Travel Foundation will also support easyJet holidays to make changes to its own operations and customer communications to align with the aims of the destinations and as part of its sustainability strategy.

 

Finally, easyJet holidays will support the Travel Foundation’s wider work, recognising its crucial role in research, advocacy and innovation within the sector through programmes such as the Future of Tourism Coalition, which easyJet holidays has also signed on to. 

-ENDS-

 

For more information on the partnership between easyJet holidays and the Travel Foundation, please contact:

• Ben Lynam, Head of Strategic Communications at the Travel Foundation: ben.lynam@thetravelfoundation.org.uk / 0117 930 7176
• For more information, interview requests or imagery, please contact the easyJet holidays team on holidays.pressoffice@easyjet.com / 01582 525374

About the Travel Foundation

The Travel Foundation is a leading global sustainable tourism organisation that works in partnership with governments, businesses and communities to develop and manage tourism to maximise its benefits for communities and the environment. Founded in 2003, it has worked in nearly 30 countries around the world.

www.thetravelfoundation.org.uk

About easyJet holidays

easyJet holidays offers great-value beach, city and lakes holidays to more than 100 destinations across Europe, directly through its website and through over 3000 travel agent partners. The ATOL-protected holidays company combines easyJet’s flexible flight programme, with handpicked hotels and best-in-class technology to provide hassle-free personalised holiday experiences which can be secured with a deposit of just £60 per person. The holidays operator is an ABTA member too, providing additional reassurance to customers under the UK’s most trusted travel scheme. With a range of holiday types, from adult and family to luxury and undiscovered, transfers included on beach holidays, 23kg hold luggage included on all bookings, and over 5,000 hotels, across over 500 resorts, customers can holiday the way they want.

All easyJet holidays are covered by its Protection Promise, an industry leading policy giving customers ultimate flexibility, protection and reassurance and letting them book with total confidence. The Promise offers a refund guarantee, freedom to change a booking, a reduced balance due date, a Best Price Guarantee, and deposit refunds.

In 2021 easyJet holidays launched its inaugural sustainability strategy and became the first major UK tour operator to offset the carbon emissions from its package holidays, comprising the fuel used for flights and in-destination transfers, as well as the energy used from hotel stays without any cost being passed to customers.  The new strategy.

focuses on three core pillars – create better holiday choices which is about making sustainable travel affordable and accessible to everyone; keep our holidays special which is maximising the benefits and minimising the negative impacts of travel and tourism including a commitment to support hotels it works with to achieve certification by a GSTC accredited certification body or certification to a GSTC recognised standard, and transform travel for everyone which means embedding sustainability into business decisions and behaviours and driving meaningful change in the industry.

More about a Destination Stewardship approach:

See the report written by the Travel Foundation, European Tourism Futures Institute and World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC), published by the WTTC earlier this year: “Towards Destination Stewardship”.

About the Future of Tourism Coalition:

The Future of Tourism Coalition is a collaborative effort to chart a new, more sustainable direction for tourism and shift the status quo. The Coalition is comprised of six non-governmental organizations: the Center for Responsible Travel (CREST), Destination Stewardship Center, Green Destinations, Sustainable Travel International, Tourism Cares, and the Travel Foundation, with the guidance of the Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC). Through commitment to their 13 Guiding Principles, more than 600 tourism organisations have aligned around a path forward for a more sustainable future for tourism.

www.futureoftourism.org