Mireia Delgado, business director at sustainability consultants Preverisk, told Abta’s Delivering Sustainable Travel seminar green concerns had to be thought of in the same fashion as other holiday basics, adding that operators and accommodation providers would have to shoulder the cost.
“You cannot wait for customers to pay for sustainability,” she said. “Thirty years ago, health and safety was not a given, but we did not think to offer a 30% premium on prices to offer it. That’s where we need to go with sustainability.”
Delgado told delegates travel’s transition to sustainable operations was not about tackling everything at the same time, it was about assessing where there are "direct impacts".
Operators should start small, she said, such as by asking hotels to measure the amount of food waste they generate and their water consumption. "Waste is one of the key drivers in terms of the negative impact accommodation has,” she said.
Delgado added she believed the momentum the sustainability movement gained during Covid would continue now that it is being enshrined in regulations.
“The latest European directive will force companies from 2027 to report sustainability indicators," said Delgado. "The private sector had to start this, now governments are saying we need to standardise and request minimums.”
Karen Musgrave, Barrhead Travel Group head of PR and communications, said the issue was now “seen as a non-negotiable rather than a nice to have”.
“If you’re in travel, it’s your business to be concerned about sustainability – we don’t have dedicated resource, but everyone is concerned about it,” she said, adding the issue had become “quite overwhelming”. “We decided to first tackle what was in our control, our retail network – every store manager looked at single-use plastics.
“We are asking suppliers to tell us what they are doing; there’s so much we possibly did not know about. We’re now doing some staff training, that’s just come from asking a couple of questions.”
She warned against “green hushing”. “People are afraid to say they’ve done something really well, it’s important to say it," she said, adding Barrhead’s US parent Travel Leaders Group was now fully “invested” in the issue. “That’s great, it’s coming from the top down.”
