Building thriving destinations - Abta


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Building thriving destinations Enabling sustainable tourism

Building thriving destinations Enabling sustainable tourism ABTA works with countries and resorts to enable thriving destinations for our Members to work with and for holidaymakers to enjoy now and tomorrow. Our destinations and sustainable tourism teams work with the UK and destination governments, partners and businesses to ensure the well-being of destinations and provide best practice in sustainability solutions for our Members. This short guide to our destinations and sustainability work shows how key activities in health and safety, on operations and on sustainability for hotel and accommodations through Travelife, helps support your business and our industry.

How we work with customers – Members – destinations We work to: Improve customer experience Help manage crises Keep customers safe Raise understanding of regulation and compliance ✓ Help our Members manage their brand reputation ✓ Build destinations’ appeal ✓ Build thriving sustainable businesses.

✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

Meet ABTA’s Destinations and Sustainability Department Our work in this area is diverse, we focus on three programmes of activity.

01

The Destinations Team looks after our operational work with our Members and government stakeholders – they monitor world events and latest travel and safety advice as well as working with destinations to improve standards in areas such as health and safety and crisis handling.

02

The Sustainable Tourism team work with experts across industry, government, academia and the third sector to build an understanding of industry wide sustainability matters. They provide our Members with guidance and expertise in how to operate more sustainably and how to deliver more responsible and authentic products through their supply chain.

03

Travelife – works with tour operators and hotels and accommodations to help them improve their sustainability. To achieve Travelife certification, member hotels must demonstrate they meet criteria to show they are supporting local people and businesses, and protecting the local environment.

The issues we tackle in partnership We support Members on a hugely diverse range of issues from national infrastructure, health and safety, operations such as visas and local taxes, impacts associated with building and development and providing guidance on themes such as animal welfare and child protection. A snapshot and some case studies are provided below, please visit www.abta.com for more information.

National systems and resorts We work with countries on their systems that need a national approach to support local tourism and local communities. We advise them on ways to cope with the demand from our industry for energy and water and managing impacts such as waste. We also work closely with tourism stakeholders and NGOs – coordinating resort committees in order to collectively tackle issues and highlight challenges and successes.

Communication We work with destinations so that they can proactively manage their brand reputation and services around tourism. We provide advice on how to react to events and work together to gather essential information so that we can give timely and accurate information to our Members.

Our operational bulletins help inform Members in real time about business critical issues such as adverse weather, strike action, public health matters, visas and passports and changes to travel advice.

Policy

Infrastructure

We lobby governments to ensure the best outcome for travel businesses and the travelling public. For example, we work with visa and border authorities to ensure that there are clear processes in place. This year we worked closely with the authorities in Turkey to ensure their new e-visa system was well communicated across our membership.

Tourism can have significant impacts on local communities, we work with resorts and local government in destinations to highlight the impacts of issues like building development on visitors and how best to manage these.

Guidance and tools ABTA has developed wide ranging guidance on a range of issues affecting consumers, businesses and the industry more generally. Our guidance on animal welfare for example, informs our Members about standards and how to work with their suppliers – ensuring that they can provide reassurance to consumers about the products they sell.

Health and safety

Authenticity

We know that safety and security is of paramount importance to consumers. ABTA works to ensure that health and safety matters are well understood across our Membership – we give expert advice to Members and also to destinations on issues such as food hygiene, safety risks and swim safety.

Customers want to be able to relax but they also want authentic experiences of local culture and communities when they travel. We encourage travel providers to work with destinations to build-in the uniqueness of their offer – ensuring that customers appreciate and become part of how those destinations and communities thrive.

Accessibility We ensure that education and training programmes both in the UK and in destinations, are delivered with a strong focus on peer information.

ABTA works closely with stakeholders to keep abreast of detailed legislation on how the industry assists and enables travel for passengers with reduced mobility and disabilities. As well as informing our Members about regulation, we also work hard to ensure they embrace the market for accessible travel. Our guidance is focused on relevant information and tips about how to ensure good customer experiences for all.

Safeguarding children We work on helping businesses have the best possible understanding of how they can ensure the right experiences for customers abroad. We promote the important issues such as how to safeguard children – both children who are travelling and local children – and give the workforce the tools they need to report incidents and raise standards.

Contact ABTA We want holidaymakers to travel with confidence in thriving destinations. Our responsibility is collective and we can achieve the most when we work together.

Please contact us for more information via [email protected] [email protected] and see www.travelife.org for more information.

ABTA Ltd Post: 30 Park Street, London, SE1 9EQ Tel: +44 (0)20 3117 0500

Web: www.abta.com Twitter: @ABTAtravel