AUCKLAND, Aotearoa New Zealand (9 May, 2022): Travalyst, the not-for-profit sustainable travel organisation founded by Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex is calling on New Zealanders to help advance its mission of encouraging travellers to put sustainability at the heart of their holidays. While travellers have long been able to rate their holiday stay, Travalyst is now asking: How would your holiday rate you?
New Zealanders now have access to a holiday rating tool on the Travalyst website, in a pilot initiative which encourages travellers to consider sustainable options during planning for their next holiday including supporting local communities, travelling with kaitiaki values and looking after nature and wildlife. The site also features a more extensive research survey on travel habits and showcases stories from kiwi travel operators leading the way with sustainable travel options. Current studies1 show that while many travellers want to make healthy and sustainable travel choices, many do not know where to start, with their intent not translating into action.
To launch the initiative, Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex has appeared in a launch video alongside kiwi stars Rhys Darby, Dave Fane and Rena Owen.
Developed with input from Aotearoa New Zealand travel operators, the aim of the local effort – the first consumer campaign for Travalyst – is to better understand consumer attitudes towards sustainable travel. As part of this, the campaign will shine a light on world-leading sustainable travel practices New Zealand is pioneering and will help Travalyst and its partners fast-track these into the mainstream, to help travellers make better choices contributing to the health and wellbeing of the destinations and communities they visit.
“As travel continues to come back, we have an opportunity and a need to redefine the industry – for better, for good,” said Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex, Founder of Travalyst. “We created the non-profit Travalyst to rethink how travel can continue to expand our global understanding, to break down barriers, and to create cultural connections through experiences we otherwise wouldn’t have. We do this while, at the same time, ensuring local communities truly feel benefit from tourism and safeguarding essential ecosystems. In a world where we’re tasked with rating so many things, we’re now asking: what if your destination rated you? Starting in beautiful Aotearoa New Zealand, we’re launching our first campaign. There is a well-known Māori proverb: Ehara taku toa i te toa takitahi, ēngari he toa takitini (Success is not the work of an individual. But the work of many) – we invite you to be a part of our many.”
Travalyst is a global coalition of some of the biggest brands in travel, with partners including Booking.com, Expedia Group, Google, Skyscanner, Trip.com, Tripadvisor and Visa. Together, they are collaborating actively on large scale sustainability initiatives to ensure a resilient and thriving future for travel and destinations worldwide.
Sally Davey, CEO, Travalyst said, “Aotearoa New Zealand is the ideal setting to pilot our first consumer-focused sustainable travel campaign. We are looking to complement the many local collaborative efforts already underway, such as the Tiaki Promise.
“We hope to learn more from kiwi travellers and operators, in order to ensure that consumers everywhere can and do make better travel choices.”
Driving Travalyst’s efforts in Aotearoa New Zealand is a local collective formed by the Aera Foundation, with funding and support from the Fife Foundation.
The team, chaired by Aera founder and climate technology investor Derek Handley, has been convening discussions with local tourism advisers, experts and community leaders over the past 12 months to help inform the local campaign produced by award-winning agencies Augusto and Together Media. Insights gained from the eight-week research and communications campaign will be shared with local partners and consumers later in 2022.
Trent Yeo, Executive Director of Ziptrek Ecotours and a board member of Tourism Industry Aotearoa, is supportive of Travalyst’s efforts to shine the light on sustainable travel in Aotearoa New Zealand: “Sharing knowledge and conversation on how to be a sustainably-focused traveller will help keep global best practices front and centre for everyone. We all love to rate our travel and hospitality experiences but the notion of turning those ratings back on ourselves is brilliant.”
Travalyst recently announced a standardised way to calculate carbon emissions for air travel, which is being implemented by Google, Skyscanner and other coalition partners.
[1] Reference Materials