… and ditch single-use plastics (SUPs) for good!

Of course, sustainability is necessary for the planet - but in order to thrive the travel industry needs to rapidly create and promote a world where exploration does not equal damage, sustainable initiatives, single-use plastic free accommodation and travel experiences are the norm.

Plastic pollution is one of the biggest challenges facing the planet and the travel industry right now; plastic waste, especially microplastics, decreases the visual appeal of destinations, pollutes the natural environment, and can contribute to poor human and loss of biodiversity.

As travel advisors you’re at the forefront of being able to change travel even before it happens, with access to travelers when they are most open to inspiration and influence - the ‘dreaming’ phase of the traveler journey.

So, it’s time to leave the single-use plastic out of your customers’ itinerary to keep business coming in! Here’s why.

Appeal To A High-Spend Segment: Sustainable Travelers

Every travel agency wants to be front and center of their clients’ mind when they’re dreaming up the perfect trip, right? 

Having a portfolio of and promoting hotels and destinations with sustainability at the forefront of their ethos is a sure-fire way to attract the high-value, sustainable traveler segment. 

Plus, ensuring that more sustainable hotels and travel opportunities are front and center for travelers at the beginning of their booking journey encourages and enables more sustainable choices – allowing the industry to work together to transform the ‘traditional’ traveler into a sustainable traveler!

Our CEO Nicolas Huss suggests that ‘travelers are much more conscious of their carbon footprint and impact on the environment than ever before’, and research supports this notion, with around 43% of global travelers willing to spend more for the knowledge that their stay has a reduced impact on the environment. 

So, naturally, you want to go where the opportunities are and for the foreseeable future the highest value segment for travel agencies is the sustainable traveler. 

But who is this type of traveler? 

We looked at the travelers of tomorrow that all travel agencies should be catering for, but when it comes to sustainable travelers, Millennials, Gen Z and the influential Gen Alpha (children of Millennial families) are the people who you want to impress, attract, and retain as customers. 

Why?

• The majority of Gen Z wants to travel sustainably and are three times more likely to get involved with volunteering or regenerative travel projects when visiting another country.
• 82% of Millennials suggest they want trips that have minimal impact on the environment.
• Gen Z are the travelers spending the most on travel out of all demographics - suggesting that even despite inflation, that travel is one of the key factors in their lives. So, providing sustainable travel options will keep these high-spending customers around!
• Millennials also represent about a quarter of the world's population, contributing around 17% towards global consumer spending - that's huge spending power! 

Add to this the fact that the global sustainable tourism industry is valued at 3.12 trillion in 2024, and is constantly growing, which means there are great opportunities for companies, organizations, and providers who embrace sustainable tourism and partner with others in the travel industry with a focus on sustainability. 

The ‘Sustainable Hotel’ Filter in our Booking Engine

This rising demand for sustainable hotels and experiences is also something we’ve clearly seen at Bedsonline in the last few years.

As part of our parent company, HBX Group, our Sustainable Hotels Programme started in 2020 and offered 15,000 properties to travel sellers and the eco-conscious traveler. Since then it has grown to around 40,000 hotels!

We also saw a significant 30% growth in the number of travelers booking green and plastic-free hotels on our platform in the 2022-2023 period, and interest shows no sign of slowing down. Now our portfolio of plastic-free hotels sits at around 5500, with new, eco-conscious accommodation options added all the time.

What’s more, all these sustainable hotels are easily accessible under our ‘Sustainable Hotels’ filter in our online Booking Engine, which refines searches to highlight hotels that have marked themselves as plastic-free, or who have joined our Sustainable Hotels Programme and gained some of the highest industry-level certifications for their sustainability operations.

Hotels are only shown in our ‘Sustainable Hotels’ filter in our travel booking platform, if they have achieved industry-certified sustainability levels such as the Hotel Sustainability Basics certificate by the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) and the GSTC Industry Criteria offered by the Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC).

This, combined with the powerful, data-driven and user-friendly nature of our Booking Engine, which helps streamline daily tasks for travel providers, means it is easier than ever for travel advisors to find the most relevant properties for eco-conscious travelers in just a few clicks.

Register your travel agency today or Log in to access our growing portfolio of sustainable hotels and begin broadening your offerings to the most vital segment out there at the moment – young, sustainably-focused travelers! 

Better For The Planet & Society, Better For Your Reputation

In today’s digital era, the reputation of a business online is just as important as the services it provides. This why it’s so important that to remain successful within the growing audience of eco-conscious travelers, you need to not only be seen promoting green alternatives, but you need to believe in them.

Top tip: practice what you preach - bolster your reputation by embodying the practices that you are promoting online or endorsing. Your audience is one that will quickly catch on to any business that could be accused of ‘greenwashing’, and will avoid it.

• Consistently promote plastic-free and greener alternatives for travelers.
• Be authentic in your approach to going sustainable- today’s traveler won’t tolerate brands who are only taking part to follow a ‘trend’. Sustainability isn’t a trend, it's a necessity!
• Measure your own carbon footprint - and then set goals to reduce it gradually. 
• Commit to reducing your impact, and mean it! - signing pledges like the Glasgow Declaration for Climate Change in Tourism can be an extra incentive, for example.
• Invest in ‘give back’ projects - like tree planting, much like our adjoining company Hotelbeds is dedicated to planting tens of thousands of trees in the Hotelbeds Forest! Or beach clean-ups, like those organised by our parent company HBX Group, in destinations as far-reaching as Shanghai, Mexico, and Mallorca.
• Get reusable materials for your office - ditch paper and single-use plastics by using reusable bottles, recyclable water cups, and use digital products to replace paper.

Accor Hotels: A Successful Case Study In Going Single-Use Plastic-Free

Major hotel chains have already made a step forward in order to tackle plastic waste, and have benefited as a result. One good example is Accor Hotels, which joined the Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC) in 2022 and has since announced two global partnerships with Green Key and Green Globe certifications. 

Going single-use plastic-free can be a challenging task for any business in the travel industry, but here's proof that such an aim is not only attainable but significantly rewarding for businesses that do. In the following video, Jordane de Villaret Bentinck, VP of Sustainability Communications & Change at Accor, explains the actions the chain has implemented so far and how they have been received by customers.

Traveler Need Is High, But Direction Is Uncertain

Around 87% of travelers want to travel sustainably, but 40% of them don’t know where to start! 

This is where you as travel advisors are even more key. The demand is definitely out there, so it’s now down to you and other travel providers to develop and offer sustainable opportunities for this audience.

Practical Ways You Can Help Travelers Ditch Single-Use Plastics

• Use our ‘Sustainable Hotel’ filter in the Booking Engine to quickly and easily find hotels that have marked themselves as ‘plastic-free’ or have gained external certification for their sustainability.
• Offer tours that use eco-friendly transportation - such as electric vehicles, public transport or even bicycles! 
• Partner with tour operators that reduce single-use plastic waste on their experiences – from asking travelers to bring their own reusable bottles, to ensuring they provide plastic-free cutlery where necessary, there are so many ways that tour operators can offer the same level of quality without plastic. Partner with them!
• Recommend and book travelers on airlines that have removed or reduced single-use plastics - American Airlines has been named the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index (DJSI World) for the second year in a row, while Air France-KLM has been recognized as the most sustainable airline group in the world using this same index.
• All aboard! Offer cruises that have removed or reduced their single-use plastics - Hurtigruten was the first cruise line to ban single-use plastic in 2018; and more recently Virgin Voyages has eliminated single-use plastics, and Beyond Tours, Cunard and P&O all removed single-use plastics by 2022.
• Consider setting up a reward scheme - around 42% of recently surveyed travelers said they would be more likely to travel sustainably if offered reward points for making greener choices.

We’re also seeing, according to our booking platform, that of the travel providers out there, travel agencies are at the top of their game when it comes to booking sustainable hotels with us here at Bedsonline, in some of the most popular destinations for sustainable travel right now. 

So when it comes to going single-use plastic-free and offering sustainable alternatives for travelers, it’s in the hands of travel advisors like you! 

Tourism Is Going Sustainable - Don’t Get Left Behind!

As travelers are becoming more conscious about their impact, there's a potential risk that popular destinations with high plastic waste will be left behind. An impactful study in Mallorca showed that 84% of surveyed travelers surveyed said they would be willing to pay more for an experience that's free of single-use plastics.

In fact, there are examples from all around the world, and across many different sectors within the industry, that demonstrate the growing demands for plastic-free and sustainable travel opportunities:

• Recycling initiatives to reduce landfill waste have only gained traction - for example, since its launch in 2016, the Refill Not Landfill initiative based in Cambodia has spread to 19 countries including including Thailand, Laos, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Myanmar and New Zealand, saving thousands of tonnes of plastic from the oceans! Plus, we're even partnering with key hotelier partners in recycling initiatives that take discarded pool floats and turn them into fabrics.

• Circular economies are becoming more commonplace, such as Basecamp Maasai Brand (BMB), where discarded mosquito repellent bottles and plastic tanks are transformed by Masaai women into handcrafted necklaces, bracelets and key rings. Programmes like these provide economic benefits to locals, help preserve cultural heritage and simultaneously reduce the amount of plastic waste in popular tourist destinations.

• Regenerative tourism and volunteering schemes are in high demand, and are a critical avenue for positive-impact and eco-conscious tourism practices while offering significant opportunities for tourism businesses across the industry. In fact, a recent report by Red Sea Global (RSG), the Future Investment Initiative (FII) Institute, Wave, and the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation highlighted that the 'demand for eco-conscious experiences and travel is far outweighing the industry's capacity to deliver restorative experiences'. This so-called 'blue economy' - valued at a staggering $2.5 trillion, which is expected to double by 2030 - is a hugely undeserved segment of the travel industry, and is a key area to help deliver on much-needed sustainability and social responsibility goals for local and global communities.

   

• Leaning into this, our parent company HBX Group has organised several impactful clean-up activities across the globe in destinations as far-reaching as Shanghai, Mexico, and Mallorca. A key highlight was our collective volunteer effort on International Plastic Free Day 2024, where 133 volunteers dedicated 223 hours to collecting 444.58 kg of waste!

That said, while as many as 85% of global tourists want more plastic-free alternatives, many travellers can also be quick to respond negatively if these alternatives are not convenient. 

However, innovative solutions like those from Zimbabwean-owned EcoDrop offer accessible and convenient solutions for all. By placing refill stations around Victoria Falls, the airport, town and the UNESCO World Heritage site itself, this initiative allows visitors and residents to purchase a refillable bottle equipped with a code that can be scanned at any of the refill stations to fill their bottles This not only offers a unique souvenir, but tackles the production and consumption of refillable bottles by allowing pre-purchased bottles access to all water refills.

It's clear that if popular destinations don't start going sustainable and becoming more socially responsible, and if travel experts don't start recommending eco-friendly hotels and activities in those areas, there's a real chance of losing business as customers opt for more sustainable options.

The Slow, Sustainable Traveler

Linking to this, we’ve previously discussed the continuing rise of slow travel and experiential travel, both of which connect to the wider sentiment of responsible travel. This is a travel movement that, according to the Global Sustainable Tourism Council:

‘Refers to the behavior of individual travelers … [which] align with minimizing the negative impacts and maximizing positive ones when one visits a tourism destination.’

The elimination of single-use plastic waste is one of the things that arguably connects these traveler types together. Whether your clients are traveling slowly through their destination, connecting with local businesses, or engaging in immersive activities or locations for an authentic experience of their destination of choice, it’s important to them that they’re reducing their negative impact on the environment. 

So, saying goodbye to single-use plastic is one of the best ways that you can create better travel plans for your clients, attract a wider variety of eco-conscious travelers, and have a more positive impact on the planet and on communities all over the world! 

What’s the first step? 

Offering sustainable hotels to your clients is the first step of many when it comes to enabling travelers to make more sustainable choices. 

We’ve made this easier than ever by collating a stunning selection of around 40,000 sustainable hotels as part of our parent company Hotelbeds’ Sustainable Hotels Programme, including 5500 plastic-free accommodation options, available to you in our Booking Engine using the handy ‘Sustainable Hotel’ filter. 

So there’s no excuse, you’ve got the goods! Where will you let your clients travel sustainably next? 

Register your travel agency today or Log in to your account to begin ditching single-use plastics for good and delight your clients with more sustainable alternatives!