Future-proofing business trips: Why green travel needs greater transparency

Worldwide: Vivi Cahyadi Himmel, co-founder and CEO of cloud-based global accommodation booking platform AltoVita, discusses the need for greater transparency when it comes to travelling sustainably for business trips.

After two years of travel restrictions, extended trips abroad are back.

According to UNWTO [The United Nations World Tourism Organisation], the first quarter of this year saw an estimated 117 million international arrivals compared to 41 million in the same period of previous year, a 182 per cent year-on-year increase. The International Air Transport Association [IATA] is also optimistic about the industry’s recovery, expecting overall travel numbers to improve to 83 per cent of 2019 levels this year and to 94 per cent by next year.

There is no doubt that more people are planning their travels again – for both leisure and business. Yet it is interesting to see how their travel decisions are now different from a year ago. According to the recent Deloitte 2022 summer leisure travel survey, financial factors are the main concern when it comes to travelling.

To future-proof corporate travel, it is now down to hospitality operators to make sure that businesses [and their employees] can make sustainable decisions with ease.

State of sustainable travel

Launched in the middle of the pandemic, The Conscious Travel Foundation is a non-profit network that aims to promote responsible travel practices through mentorship programmes and enable travel companies to contribute to projects that can bring tangible benefits to local communities and habitat. If further proof was needed, a recent Booking.com survey showed that for 58 per cent of people it was important that their trip had a beneficial effect on the local community, while more than a quarter researched the effect or improvement their holiday spending would have on the local communities.

This shows that there is an interest from hospitality businesses and, of course, from individuals who may want to mirror their sustainable leisure travels when it comes to their business trips.

In fact, travelling sustainably has an increasingly important part to play, with SAP Concur reporting 56 per cent of businesses surveyed having senior leadership driving the sustainability agenda for corporate travel.

Air travel may have a bad name, but figures show that its CO2 emissions are in fact around just two per cent of the 42 billion tonnes of CO2 generated by human activities, lower than many other industries. The paradox may reside in the fact that, although rail journeys may cause 80 per cent fewer CO2 emissions, train fares can also be 50 per cent more expensive than flight tickets, leaving “passengers [facing] a “near impossible” choice between low ticket prices and climate-friendly travel”.