Travel Weekly Blog

I advise anyone who has a passing interest in climate change to read "Six Degrees" by Mark Lynas.

Should I not mention that the ITT recently held their annual event in Cyprus, which meant TW, delegates, travel agents had to fly.

Why not hold it in the UK?

It seems hypocritial to do such a survey.

Ranted about it :)

Darren

Perfectly valid question, and this wouldn't be the first overseas event the objection has been levelled at.

Here's one counterargument: delegates aren't just paying to go to business sessions. They pay to go away, socialise with contacts and enjoy a destination. So is there a pronounced moral difference between 400 ITT delegates flying out to enjoy an event, and 400 'pure' tourists flying out in the same seats (which they would have done, since this was a scheduled flight) to enjoy a holiday? If the objection is to not-stricttly-necessary air travel, it isn't just the ITT that is guilty.

I'm also not sure you can argue that organising an event abroad prohibits the ITT from asking travel agents what they think about climate change. It would prohibit it from claiming to be totally green and carbon neutral, but it never did - running a survey isn't the same as adopting a moral position.

Bottom line: it would have been smart to have offered a carbon offset on every ITT ticket - I'm looking back through my stuff but I don't think that was an option.

I predict most of the big conferences will go down that route in the coming years. As your comment shows Darren, not doing so is too much of a PR risk, not to mention morally iffy.

Damn bloggers posting controversial comments on a Friday evening! ;)

Fair point about delegates and tourists, but, I think the travel industry should be setting a good example.

My critism isn't really leveled at one party, it's the industry in general.

Why can't the industry work as a group, and look at creating a project where there is an emphasis on becoming more environmentally friendly and educating travel consumers in the process.

I don't have the background in the industry, but in my mind anything is possible if people work together.

Darren, your last point is the big one. The industry really does need to come together on these issues. Sadly it is not very good at doing this - at the moment.

Martin, I know this is easily said than done, but why not:

TW organise a group of people from travel agencies, hotels, media, bloggers (I’d love to be involved) and between the group create realistic list of 10 points (like I wrote in my post) where the industry can work towards to be more environmentally friendly.

We know it’s not going to happen over night, but the industry can be at least seen to be doing something about global warming and the environment. I’m no expert on the environment, and I have never worked within the travel industry, but I’d be happy to help out in any spare time that I have.

A great idea and thanks for the offer of help. We will need to have a chat offline to progress this - Travel Weekly is very keen to get the industry moving on this. Let's see what we can do . . .