Green Travel Transformation: Multi-stakeholder dialogue in Berlin

On 11 April 2016, project and practice partners, as well as representatives from ministries, associations and certifiers, gathered in the capital for the multi-stakeholder dialogue ‘Green Travel Transformation’. Prof. Dr. Edgar Kreilkamp and the project team began the conference by providing information on the current status of the project before the concepts developed for identifying and highlighting sustainable travel offers in common information and booking systems were discussed in the plenary session. The participants provided important impetus for the next phase, in which the solutions discussed will now be specified in more detail and finally put into practice.

Travel agencies as competence partners for sustainable travel

Through joint dialogue with the tourism industry, the Green Travel Transformation project is developing solutions to achieve greater sustainability in tourism and increase the share of sustainable travel in total sales. More and more holidaymakers want to travel in a socially and environmentally responsible manner. However, sustainable offers are usually not recognisable and therefore cannot be communicated by brick-and-mortar travel agencies. That is why the project team is working on labelling these offers and making them bookable.

In order to increase the sale of sustainable travel, competent advice from travel agencies on the subject of sustainability also plays an important role. In a further project step, an awareness and training campaign for travel distributors is therefore planned, which is intended to bring about a transformation in work and consulting routines. In this way, travel agency employees will be trained to become competent partners for sustainable travel.