Six Ways Travel Advisors Can Integrate Sustainable Experiences

Travel is not just about reaching a destination; it's about the transformative experiences that shape us along the way. For travel advisors, the role goes beyond booking flights and accommodations. The expertise lies in curating journeys that leave a lasting impact on the people and places involved, including the client, destination and host community.

As the world becomes increasingly aware of the negative environmental and social impacts created by climate change and other human-induced activities, many businesses have shifted their focus to incorporate more sustainable practices into their operations. For travel advisors, this means finding ways to integrate more meaningful experiences for their clients, resulting in itineraries that positivity benefit host communities, protect cultural and natural assets, and connect guests with destinations in a deeper way. How can travel advisors ensure that they are properly integrating meaningful travel into their operations?

Check out these six ways travel advisors can improve their sustainability journey.

1.)    Leverage Your Role and Impact

As a travel advisor, your clients trust you to deliver them experiences that will be engaging, exciting, fun and in some cases even lifechanging. You have a lot of power to shape those experiences while supporting local communities and environments, and helping make travel a force for good. You have the opportunity to educate and inspire your clients about the benefits of meaningful travel. Don’t wait for a client to seek out or ask for sustainable experiences, go ahead and start integrating them into your operations now. Empower your clients with resources, guidelines and tips to be better travelers, so that they keep coming back asking for more.

Pro Tip: Sustainability is not a sprint but rather a journey. Start out simple and measure your progress along the way. Lean on your colleagues and association partners for inspiration and reach out to resources like Tourism Cares for further guidance. Even the smallest changes can make a big impact.

2.)   Research Sustainable Suppliers

Just like with any proposal or itinerary, it is important to do research beforehand to make sure you are adding in vetted, sustainable experiences. You don’t need to be a sustainability expert, but it is important to know where to find meaningful experiences and how to better understand sustainability claims from tour operators, hotels, airlines, cruise companies and other suppliers. By researching the various types of suppliers that are deploying sustainability and meaningful travel, you may get a sense of who is doing a better job.​

Pro Tip: Create a list of the 10-15 suppliers and/or destinations that you work ​with the most. ​Visit their websites to learn about what they are saying about ​sustainability, responsible travel, and climate action. ​If you can’t find the information, chances are they aren’t doing enough. It should be easy to find! Click here for more ideas on what to look for using Tourism Cares’ Meaningful Travel Platform.

 3.)  Talk with Your Guests

Clients will have a range of opinions and feelings about sustainability and meaningful travel, all the way from not caring at all to strongly factoring it into their decision making. To streamline the process, consider adding a question about sustainability into your intake/discovery process. For a more in-depth resource, check out Lindblad’s “A Travel Advisor’s Guide: Sustainable Travel,” which gives detailed advice for connecting with guests on sustainability regardless of where they are.

Pro Tip: For guests who indicate that they don’t think about sustainability often, suggest a meaningful travel experience and emphasize how unique and authentic they are. Then add information about its impact as a secondary benefit. ​

4.)  Add a Meaningful Supplier to Packaged Tour

For travel advisors that are in a position to recommend or package together experiences for guests, consider including an organization from Tourism Cares Meaningful Travel Map, which highlights sustainable, community-led enterprises, products, services, accommodations and tours around the globe. This is an easy way to find vetted, impactful suppliers for a client’s itinerary. 

Pro Tip: Leverage a client’s travel interests to connect the dots between a client’s preferred experiences and meaningful suppliers within that category. For instance, if guests like food – connect them with local markets, home hosted meals, cooking classes and food tours. Café Reconcile in New Orleans, for example, serves fantastic soul food through a job training program that lifts young people out of poverty.

Click here to view more other ways to connect to a client’s interest.

5.)  Help Manage Overtourism

Some parts of the world are seeing too many tourists and destinations are suffering from overcrowding and wear and tear on their local infrastructure. Travel advisors can help offset this growing problem by steering guests away from hot spots like Venice, Barcelona, Tahoe, Dubrovnik, and Santorini towards secondary cities that are in more rural settings. Alternatively, encourage guests to travel during off-seasons or during a less busy time.  

Pro Tip: Be prepared to explain to clients the benefits and downsides to visiting these places, and the potential economic benefits they will receive from selecting an off-the-beaten path destination. 

6.)  Emphasize Local

Using locally owned businesses that also hire and source locally strengthens ties between tourism and a community’s well-being, creating resilient destinations that embrace tourism. It also enhances authenticity and quality for guests. As you build out an itinerary, steer away from chain hotels and avoid accommodations that sell cheap, imported goods in their gift shops.

Pro Tip: Encourage guests to use local transit or biking, homestays, or community-led experiences in off-the-beaten-path locations. For example, at Iraq Al-Amir Women Cooperative Society in Jordan, local women gain financial independence and preserve local heritage while sharing special skills with travelers like traditional weaving, paper making, ceramics and cooking. 

Sustainability in travel is a long-term strategy to positively support the people and places we cherish and visit. It is a journey that requires the collective work of the travel industry to make real change. By integrating more sustainable practices, travel advisors have the potential to create loyal customers through richer experiences, support destinations and empower local communities.

For more information on ways travel advisors can be more sustainable, check out Tourism Cares’ “Travel Advisors Guide to Meaningful Travel.”