Travel Matters Campaign
to Make Travel Matter

What you need to know…

At Travel Matters, we make it our business to not only organise holidays which minimise on negative impact whilst maximising on quality but to educate our customers as to how they can continue to make a difference in their future adventures. As of 2023, we have been accredited as a certified B Corp™ business. As such, we are proud of our efforts in shaping the Travel Matters Sustainability Vision (that we have formed from more than two decades of experience) and we offer assistance to like-minded businesses who want to embark on crafting their own commitment to sustainability, which you can access here!

Our Travel Matters Make Travel Matter Campaign promotes travel as a privilege. Our aim is to encourage people to make more conscious decisions during their travels and to be more pro-active in relation to the idea of protecting the environment and the communities they encounter along the way. Our wish is to make people’s travels really matter, and we want the travel experience to be complete with the involvement of learning from the local community. We want to give you a hand in organising a holiday with heart in it, meeting new people, experiencing their culture as well as respecting their country and land.

The campaign sets out to demonstrate how our behaviour, when we travel, can have a positive impact on the people and places we visit and spend our time in. In addition, we believe that a vital aspect of one’s travel experience should reflect in their self-growth as a human being in relation to themselves as well as others.

Below you may find out more about how you can Make (Your) Travel Matter, you can download our guide on how to become a more responsible global tourist.

We are so proud to have been doing what we love for over 20 years and really looking forward to future challenges and achievements. Find out about our vision for a 3rd decade here - our mission, how we operate our company, address our carbon footprint and more. Please fill out the form below and you will be able to access & download the 25 page Travel Matters Sustainability Vision PDF.

To learn more about some of the mandates, practices and business we support and are a signatory of, please continue scroll through our selected partners. Here you will learn a little more about what we are both trying to achieve. Thank you for you intrigue…

Sustainability Partners

Travel Matters is honoured to be a supporter and signatory of numerous initiatives, which offer the basis of a recovery plan for decades to come. We, along with these partners, strive to put Nature, People and the Planet at the heart of global value creation. For instance, we recognise the ‘Sustainable Markets Initiative’ as a benchmark, particularly its 10-Point Action Plan, which was launched at The World Economic Forum 2020 Annual Meeting, in Davos. With sustainable initiative markets, such as this, Travel Matters is part of a growing global coalition (of the willing), who share the vision around the need to accelerate global progress towards a sustainable future. Here are some of our chosen partners -

(OUR) FUTURE of TOURISM BELONGS TO ALL OF US

Decades of unfettered growth in travel have put the world’s treasured places at risk – environmentally, culturally, socially, and financially. The travel and tourism industries face a precarious and uncertain future due to the COVID-19 global pandemic, with international tourist numbers projected to fall 60-80% in 2020. As tourism moves forward and recovers, re-centering around a strong set of principles is vital for long term sustainable and equitable growth.

We are proud to have been ruled by strong values which have reflected in the way that we’ve been running our business for over twenty years. The excitement was tangible when we declared ourselves a supporter of the Future of Tourism Coalition. The Guiding Principles provide a clear moral and business imperative for building a healthier tourism industry while protecting the places and people on which it depends.

1. See the whole picture

2. Use sustainability standards

3. Collaborate in destination management

4. Choose quality over quantity

5. Demand fair income distribution

6. Reduce tourism’s burden

7. Redefine economic success

8. Mitigate climate impacts

9. Close the loop on resources

10. Contain tourism’s land use

11. Diversify source markets

12. Protect sense of place

13. Operate business responsibly

Travel Matters Declares Climate Emergency

As a business, we encourage people to travel in a sustainable way, using tourism as a force for good. Our Travel Matters Make Travel Matter Campaign creates awareness and teaches people to travel more responsibly. But, it is not enough. How could we then, at the start of 2020 continue business as usual? How can we continue to ignore the fate of the planet? We can’t. We want to reflect our genuine concern for the environment, recognising that all of us have to act now in order to minimise carbon emissions and their associated climate impact. We hope to inspire urgent action among our travel industry partners.

We have joined others to declare a climate emergency and will challenge ourselves to set own targets and actions and be the behaviour change required. We are not claiming to be perfect. We are on a journey. We hope to use our voice to advocate for change that would help our industry speed up progress towards a low-carbon future. We are therefore very pleased to announce our founding signatory with Tourism Declares as part of our first initiative of 2020 to become a more responsible business.

1. We have developed our own Climate Emergency Plan.

2. On a yearly basis we are planning to share our commitment and progress publicly under the shape of an Infographic, through our Travel Matters Make Travel Matter Campaign as well as our social media channels and newsletter.

3. Cut carbon emissions and accept current Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) advice stating the need to cut global carbon emissions to 55% below 2017 levels by 2030 in order to keep the planet within 1.5 degrees of warming.

4. Work together and encourage suppliers and partners to make the same declaration; share best practice amongst clients as well as peers; and actively participate in the Tourism Declares community.

5. Advocate for change by recognising the need for system change across the industry, and call for urgent regulatory action to accelerate the transition towards zero carbon air travel.

Charities & partners with whom we work and support

Since the Travel Foundation’s inception in 2003, we have helped to ensure tourism brings greater benefits for people and environments in tourism destinations around the world. When managed well, tourism can bring significant socio-economic benefits for people living in destinations and funds for conservation.

For every trip booked with us we make a small contribution to this amazing charity that’s been helping local communities to flourish for the past 15 years.

If you would like to show your support towards this cause, you can always donate directly or get involved as a business or alternatively as a travel destination.

The Galapagos Conservation Trust have been our partners for many years. Since 1995, the Galapagos Conservation Trust has been the only UK organisation dedicated solely to conservation and sustainable development on the Islands. Our partnership with the charity aligns with our Travel Matters Make Travel Matter Campaign principles. The charity’s work supports high impact and research-driven species conservation programmes, backed up by educational outreach to engage and inspire the conservationists of tomorrow. Given we promote this amazing destination, we want to ensure our travellers are equipped and educated about the charity’s crucial work.

The history of the Galapagos Islands is fascinating, whether from a natural, geological or human perspective. GCT is dedicated to ensure that the 240,000 people visiting the Galapagos Islands every year are not damaging the natural habitats of some of the world’s most treasure animal species.

We encourage you to also help this amazing organisation by adopting an animal or by donating towards saving Galapagos’ Land Birds.

You can also show your support by becoming a member or by simply having a read through their magazine, Galapagos Matters.

Since 1993, Trees for Cities has been the only UK charity working on an international scale to improve general quality of life by planting urban trees and recreating cities in a much greener manner. Over 1 million trees have been planted by volunteers in parks, streets, woodlands, schools, hospitals and housing estates.

Given the nature of our industry, we have a responsibility to actively play our part in protecting the environment. We’re very pleased to be working alongside with Trees for Cities. We have pledged that for every trip that you book with us, we will plant a tree. We also encourage you to match our donation and plant a tree for yourself. Other ways to support this fantastic charity is by volunteering or by fundraising.

Climate Perks is a fantastic new scheme for employers who want to contribute to a better, more environmentally friendly approach to travel.

Employers are empowering employees to travel by land or sea by offering paid journey days. This concept is designed to inspire people to think of alternative routes of travelling to a holiday destination. There are numerous benefits to using trains or boats as means of transportation. Travellers can get to explore their surroundings up close, not missing out on beautiful landscapes and sometimes even getting to socialise by making new connections with other passengers.

Interested in implementing this scheme in your workplace? Find out more on www.climateperks.com/employers.

Jump is the UK’s leading supplier of engagement programmes that boost sustainability and wellbeing. Working with companies, universities and the public sector to motivate individuals to take positive steps, clients include Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, Barclays, Camden Council, Scottish Courts & Tribunal Service and the University of Bristol. Over the last year, Jump schemes recorded almost 3 million positive actions across all client programmes, avoiding over 765,000 kg in CO2 emissions.

We couldn’t recommend their programmes enough. If you’d like to get in touch with them, you can do so via their website.

Equality in Tourism is an independent, non-profit women’s consultancy and network, dedicated to ensuring that women have an equal voice in, and share of the benefits from, tourism worldwide. They are a vehicle providing gender specialist advice, training, capacity building and innovation for every level of the industry.

Equality in Tourism International (EiT), initiated a ground-breaking, sustainable tourism project in Tanzania to strengthen linkages between the Kilimanjaro tourism industry and the region’s subsistence farming industry. Together with local women’s empowerment organisation, KWIECO they have trained 120 of the most marginalised women farmers to improve their livelihoods through modern, sustainable farming practices, microfinance, business operations, cooperative management and gender empowerment. It is the first such project globally.

The Derek Moore Foundation was founded by the three Trustees - Derek Moore, Andy Toms and Rene Siva.
Their objective is to promote sustainable economic growth and empowerment in socially and economically disadvantaged communities.

The foundation aims to achieve this by providing grants to assist in the development and growth of community projects which promote education or sport, or nurture traditional arts and crafts or music.

Following the principle of not just giving a man a fish but instead teaching him how to fish, training is a key part of their projects, and, for many of the projects, the development of sustainable tourism at a local community level is a part of the overall aim of helping to change lives.

The foundation works with smaller community projects that larger charities overlook and only works with existing Projects to maximise the safety of donations. They are all volunteers so 100% of the money goes to the Projects.

Tomorrow’s Air was founded in 2019 by Christina Beckmann and Nim de Swardt after their life-changing experience together in Antarctica with Sir Robert Swan OBE (the first person to walk to both the North and South Poles).
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At the bottom of the planet, surrounded by ice, breathing in crisp, pure air, and face to face with its decay as a result of global warming, they saw an opportunity to band together with fellow passionate travellers. Tomorrow’s Air was born to consolidate the massive, distributed power of global travel to clean up the excess carbon disrupting all life in order to keep the joys of exploring our world available into the future. Their vision is fresh air and a stable climate for everyone.

Travel Matters are proud sign the Tomorrow’s Air Clean Up Pact, support a growing, global network of sustainable travel partners, launched in partnership with revolutionary direct air capture provider Climeworks.

SUNx Malta - is a not for profit, EU based, organization, partnered with the government of Malta that has created a unique, low cost, system to help companies & communities transform to the New Climate Economy.

SUNx continue the vision of their mentor, the late Maurice Strong –Climate Activist&Sustainable Development pioneer,acting as a catalyst for sector change & a conduit to mainstream UN Climate & Sustainability targets

There is no greater single threat to humanity than Climate Change - it is existential.

SUNx focuses on this reality and provide an exchange of smart solutions, tools, and resources to help any community and its tourism stakeholders.