With Australia and New Zealand starting to heat up as we bloom into spring, we’re turning an eye to green travel with our Sustainable September series, starting with our guide to sustainable travel incentives.
Later this month we’ll be dropping our first annual KoruGreen Report showing how much we’ve managed to achieve within the first year of our commitment, and the interest in the program has blown us away. It’s important to be able to share sustainable travel tips and steps that we take to provide top-tier travel incentives that don’t damage the planet, so we’re going to take you through how we do it!
If the idea of spring blossoms has you itching to see the world in a brand-new light, then read on as we break down the premier guide to sustainable incentive travel or reach out today – we know how to do green travel!
Taking the first step towards planning a sustainable tourism program can seem tough, but we’re here to help guide you through. We like to start by ensuring that we’ve answered these questions:
For those who might feel anxious about the idea of trading luxury for ecological-friendly practices, you have nothing to worry about. Eco-friendly hotels and lodges aren’t forsaking providing peak relaxation in exchange for anything. These locations don’t skimp on any of the trimmings that make your stay special.
So, now that we’ve established how we provide luxury travel with sustainable impacts, we can move on to incorporating sustainability into the entertainment packages for our guests.
Beyond accommodation, presenting a sustainable travel incentive experience is more than just ecological conservation. At 212F, we believe that changing behaviour is essential to creating change. This is something we use while planning all our B2B loyalty and reward programs, so it only makes sense that we’d implement this into our sustainable travel incentives too!
So, beyond where guests stay and what presents we provide, we also work to provide the groups with insight into what the local cultures and environment are all about. This means planning trips through local rainforests and beaches, special events interacting with residents and their businesses, and just being able to soak in the local culture with both interactive and passive occasions witnessing all that the location has to offer.
A recent example of this is our BBQ in the Bronx program, where we worked with our clients to provide an authentic AU/NZ barbecue for Bronx NY residents for charity. We used locally sourced foods, donated the barbecues we used to community centres, and raised $5,000 USD which was given to five different local NFP organisations. By allowing our guests to connect with the local culture while sharing some of their own, we created a lasting connection and impact that the trip may not have otherwise been able to provide.
By providing the guests a connection with the local culture and environment, we feel that they will be able to engage with specific conservation efforts and understand why the work we do to protect, reduce, and undo the damage done to these communities is so important. This allows the groups to better realize the beauty of the world around us and be able to speak to the amazing, once-in-a-lifetime experiences that they’ve managed to have on their group travel incentive opportunities.
Additionally, we always provide green-friendly travel methods for all groups on their experiences. Options like electric cars, e-bikes, and scooters remove the guilt of seeing the sights while allowing convenience for the guests to fully experience everything the local communities have to offer. Just another small touch to protect our planet for a brighter future!
At this stage, there isn’t a fully viable way for our travel incentive programs to be fully neutral on their own. Flights are tricky to provide as a neutral option, and the cost can be prohibitive to some clients until the technology catches up with what we’d like to achieve when it comes to sustainability. So, how do we ensure that we can provide our group incentive travel programs while committing to net zero?
Our KoruGreen commitment begins with our KoruGreen calculator, which we use to measure the impact of our domestic or international travel and event activities – across all our travel incentive programs, conferences, and events. We seek to understand the full impact of the group, so that way post-event or -travel, we can offset 100% of the program’s impact by investing in projects that reduce emissions via the United Nations Carbon Offset Platform.
By taking responsibility for the unavoidable greenhouse gas emissions of the trip – at zero cost to our clients – we are able to continue providing bespoke, exhilarating travel incentives to our clients and their groups while ensuring that we’re doing our part to make sure that the world we want to see will be around tomorrow.
We also provide our clients with guidance on reducing emissions in their program, a report at the conclusion of the event or trip on CO2eq consumption, and an annual report outlining the details of the sustainability initiatives that our investments have funded to provide additional understanding on the impact and behaviours that we hope to continue to instill.
If this blog has got you thinking about taking the plunge with a sustainable travel incentive program for your customers and staff, reach out today. We’re eager to continue supplying Australia and New Zealand with top-tier incentive programs that will change your partner’s behaviour – in more ways than one!
