New sustainable travel campaign unveiled at WTTC summit

At this week's World Travel & Tourism Council 2015 Global Summit in Madrid, the NGO Sustainable Travel International unveiled an industry-wide campaign entitled 10 Million Better to monitor and scale up social and environmental benefits from travel and tourism.

The 10 year initiative convenes leading tourism corporations, organizations and destinations around the globe with the goal of tracking and demonstrating improvements in the lives of at least 10 million people and their families by 2025.  Improvements to be monitored include growth of income and opportunity, and better protection of destinations’ natural, cultural and heritage sites.

Other ambassadors to the campaign include representatives of such leading travel companies as Delaware North, Intrepid Travel, and the Soneva Group.  The campaign is also endorsed by Sustainable Travel Leadership Network and Sustainable Destination Leadership Network, two Sustainable Travel International-convened collaborations which represent leading brands committed to advancing the industry's sustainability efforts, including Globus, Finnair, Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, Ltd., United Airlines and others.  

Among the campaign’s initiatives is the creation of an accessible, open-source impact monitoring tool which companies and destinations can help develop, designed to overcome existing barriers to monitoring and reporting, and balance data relevance with technical feasibility and financial viability.