MONTREAL — It’s official: Transat is now Travelife Certified.

This marks the first time that a major international tour operator has been awarded the international certification for its full range of activities.

To hold and maintain Travelife Certified status, Transat must comply with more than 200 criteria covering its workplace practices, product range, business partners and customers. Travelife certification is accredited by the UN-supported Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC), and also complies with the ISO 26000 Corporate Social Responsibility Standard, which puts forward guidelines on environment, human rights and labour relations.

“Twelve years ago, we began a structured approach aimed at becoming a model of sustainable tourism,” said Annick Guérard, Chief Operating Officer, Transat. “In the process, we strengthened our environmental management and our social engagement, including toward children, trained our teams on the importance of sustainable development, retooled our operations to better address customers’ concerns, and urged our partners to implement sustainability practices. We are very proud to receive the Travelife Certified attestation, recognizing best practices in responsible tourism across all of our tour operator and travel agency activities, which were painstakingly reviewed to secure certification.”

Mélanie Joly, Minister of tourism, Official Language and La Francophonie, added: “The tourism industry is growing in Canada and around the world, and we want to make sure Canadians benefit from that. We applaud Transat’s leadership in sustainable tourism as demonstrated by the company receiving certification that recognizes its commitment to the environment, communities and sustainable tourism development.”

Transat has been committed to sustainable development since 2006, with multiple initiatives in environmental stewardship and heritage protection, which are described on resp.transat.com. It has also established policies recognizing sustainability certifications by its hotelier partners, adopted a code of conduct for tourism service providers, and created volunteering and humanitarian leave programs for its employees.

In conjunction with the award, Transat is now following a new Action Plan (2018-2020) aimed at raising awareness among employees and customers of sustainable development and responsible tourism practices.