Madrid, Spain, 30 September 2024 - UN Tourism and easyJet holidays have stepped up their collaboration as they develop a groundbreaking ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) Framework for businesses across the sector.

According to the latest UN Tourism data, international tourist arrivals have returned to 96% of pre-pandemic levels, with full recovery likely by the end of the year. With further growth anticipated, there is a pressing need to look beyond economic impacts of the sector and measure metrics relating to environmental dependencies, community impact, employee wellbeing, and much more. However, the sector currently lacks a unified Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) reporting framework, making it difficult for tourism companies and stakeholders to measure, compare, and meaningfully communicate their sustainability efforts and impacts.

Scaling up support for ESG

To address this, UN Tourism, in collaboration with the University of Oxford (Oxford SDG Impact Lab), has been developing the first harmonized ESG Framework for Tourism Businesses. easyJet holidays has been part of the project from its inception and is now scaling up its support to accelerate the next critical phases. Through this strategic partnership, easyJet holidays will play a key role in supporting the research and development of the ESG Framework, including pilot testing with companies worldwide, stakeholder engagement, and organization of awareness initiatives.

UN Tourism Secretary-General Zurab Pololikashvili says: “UN Tourism is proud to be working with easyJet holidays to address the vital need for a clear, consistent ESG Framework for our sector. As we rollout this out, such public-private collaboration play a key role in scaling up our efforts to better understand and manage tourism’s impacts at every level.”

Garry Wilson, easyJet holidays’ Chief Executive Officer, adds:

“We’re extremely proud to continue our partnership with UN Tourism, as a founding partner in developing  the first consistent ESG framework for the tourism industry. We strongly believe in the power of collaboration, between the public and private sector, as an important and effective driver of achieving our Sustainable Development Goals. We’re committed to continuing to engage many of our partners in supporting this project, to drive meaningful change in ensuring tourism has a positive impact on the people and places that make holidays so special.”

Collaborative effort and common statistics framework

The development of the ESG Framework is being guided by extensive research, with input from nearly 600 tourism companies worldwide to date. This comprehensive approach ensures that the Framework addresses the real-world challenges and opportunities facing the sector.

The ESG Framework aligns closely with UN Tourism’s “Statistical Framework for Measuring the Sustainability of Tourism” (SF-MST), endorsed by the United Nations Statistical Commission with unanimous support from all 193 UN Member States. MST establishes fundamental concepts, definitions, data structures, and indicators for assessing tourism sustainability from the international to the local levels. The ESG Framework extends these principles to businesses, fostering greater alignment between public and private sector data.

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Notes to editors:

For more information, interview requests or imagery, please contact the easyJet holidays team on Holidays.pressoffice@easyjet.com / 01582 280508 or the easyJet Press Office on 01582 525252, log onto www.easyJet.com or follow @easyJet_Press

About easyJet holidays: 

easyJet holidays, which launched in 2019, is one of the UK’s fastest growing tour operators, having taken almost 2 million people away in 2023. Named Travel Brand of The Year in 2024, it offers great-value beach, city and lakes holidays to over 7000 hotels, in more than 100 destinations across Europe, directly through its website and through over 5000 travel agent partners. The ATOL-protected holidays can be secured with a deposit of just £60 per person, including flights and hotel, with 23kg luggage and transfers on beach holidays. easyJet holidays is a member of ABTA, and all packages are covered by its Ultimate Flexibility, offering freedom to change a booking, a refund guarantee, and best price guarantee. In 2024 the holiday provider also started operating from Switzerland, France and Germany.

Winners of the Sustainable Future Award at the Globe Travel Awards, easyJet holidays’ sustainability strategy, ‘Holiday Better’, focuses on three key 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, and transform travel for everyone which means embedding sustainability into business decisions and behaviours and driving meaningful change in the industry. The tour operator has partnered with UN Tourism to help develop the first environmental, social and governance (ESG) framework for tourism businesses, co-designing a measurement tool that is meaningful and feasible for better monitoring how tourism businesses impact, and depend on, people, planet and prosperity.

easyJet holidays has been named one of the Sunday Times Best Places to Work 2023 and 2024, as well as being named one of the Best Workplaces in Travel 2023.