VIENNA — TourRadar, the adventure booking platform (ABP) with more than 50,000 organized adventures, has released its Climate Action Plan with the goal of all its active operators having sustainability initiatives in place by 2030, and developing an impact measurement tool to simplify carbon measurement and reporting.
With more than 2,500 operators, all with different levels of sustainability initiatives, TourRadar’s CEO Travis Pittman said the company saw an opportunity to create and nurture a community and ecosystem around shared values and goals, to define its main and most achievable purpose to bring the industry together to work collaboratively on solutions to the challenges of the climate crisis, and to raise awareness about sustainable travel in the organized adventure category.
“By leveraging our position at the center of the adventure booking platform ecosystem, we can educate and drive sustainability initiatives and rebuild travel in a better way,” said Pittman.
Currently, the organized adventure sector has no centralized, standardized hub or tool to measure and report on its CO2 emissions. The Impact Measurement Tool, which TourRadar aims to develop in collaboration with its partners, will provide a simple and centralized way of carbon measurement and reporting, allowing operators and industry supply chains to focus more energy and efforts on decarbonizing and mitigating the footprint of their adventures and operations. This tool will be available as an open-source solution in the TourRadar Operator Dashboard.
“As a signatory to the Glasgow Declaration, and with this ambitious plan in place, TourRadar is demonstrating the type of leadership we need; not simply focusing on its own climate impact, but on supporting the multi-day tour sector to accelerate its journey towards Net Zero, through innovation and collaborative action. We look forward to supporting TourRadar’s efforts and working together to achieve real impact,” said Jeremy Sampson, CEO of The Travel Foundation and co-author of the Glasgow Declaration on Climate Action in Tourism.
Another key part of the sustainability plan is to support and encourage operators to run sustainably organized adventures. TourRadar will showcase how tour operators incorporate sustainability into their itineraries, allowing travelers to know the impact of their adventures. Travellers will be able to choose organized adventures operated by companies with initiatives to reduce carbon emissions and animal welfare guidelines in place. They will be able to choose tours led by locals or locally owned that support community development and environmental projects. The company has set a goal that by 2030, all active operators on the ABP will have sustainability initiatives in place.
TourRadar’s ABP connects operators to travellers, travel advisors, and other partners through proprietary technology.
TourRadar launched its commissionable Adventure Booking Platform for travel advisors in 2021, and by mid-2022, close to 2,000 travel advisors had signed up. Travel agents can sign up for free at the TourRadar Partner Portal.
