Ten more travel brands have signed up to industry-wide charity the Safer Tourism Foundation since its launch in September.
The foundation now hopes to set up a means of measuring how companies are honouring pledges – which could be recognised by awards – and is looking for more companies, including travel agencies, to sign up.
The Safer Tourism Foundation was set up to reduce the number of avoidable deaths, injuries and illnesses among British tourists.
Patron Sharon Wood, mother of children Christi and Bobby Shepherd who died of carbon monoxide poisoning on a Thomas Cook holiday in Corfu in 2006, has campaigned for justice for more than 10 years.
Thomas Cook, which gave £1 million in funding, Tui, Hotelplan and Saga pledged to improve the health and safety of customers at the charity’s launch.
Now, British Airways Holidays, Neilson, Audley Travel and Travelopia brands Hayes & Jarvis, Citalia, Austravel, Sovereign, Exodus, TrekAmerica and Headwater have joined the charity’s list of pledgers.
The charity’s chief executive, Katherine Atkinson, said: “Everyone I’ve talked to has been very positive. When it comes to health and safety, travel companies all want to see customers safe and well; competitive interests are put aside.”
Atkinson, appointed a year ago to spearhead the launch, said the Safer Tourism Foundation was not trying to supplant associations like Abta and Aito, which have their own health and safety forums.
“We are working with them,” she said. “But I don’t think anyone has gone out to the whole industry in terms of health and safety before. We want the widest possible reach.
“We now want to develop the pledge further with something that would be measured to give companies and customers assurances. The obvious question is ‘what difference does the pledge make?’, and this would be a way of showing companies are fulfilling statements of intent.”
Atkinson was a panellist at a Hill Dickinson travel law seminar in November and hopes to speak at more industry events this year.