ENVIRONMENT
The sustainable development of the travel and tourism sector is hinged upon our collective responsibility for the preservation and improving the environment. Association of European Travel and Tourism Agencies (AETTA) supports measures aimed at alleviating or, better still, wherever possible altogether removing the negative impact of human activities including reduction of CO2 emissions, preservation of forests, sound urbanisation and water usage policies.
The travel and tourism sector has a significant impact in the area of carbon emissions - experts' estimates range from 6% to 8% of all man-made CO2 emissions. The members of AETTA recognise that all actors of this sector including travel and tourism agencies should take all possible measures to contribute to the reduction of this negative impact.
To assist our members with this objective AETTA set up the research group Environmental Task Force. This research group targets its activities on studying the environmental situation in various regions, analysing the actions of other stakeholders such as industry suppliers or local governments and, based on that, makes recommendations for the members of the Association. These recommendations can, for example, take the form of privileging environmentally responsible carriers or avoiding travel destinations where we believe the local development policies are harmful for the nature. The members of AETTA are certainly free to apply or not these recommendations. However, as our evidence shows many members of the Association choose to follow them and, in turn, inform their clients about the environmental aspects of their decisions.
