'The year ahead is one of interesting challenges and great opportunities to promote and support sustainable development within our sector. We look forward to expanding the role we play in sustaining the communities and environment that we depend on.'
Joan Vila, Managing Director, Accommodation & Destinations

The Accommodation & Destinations Sector combines three divisions. The B2B Division is a global integrated supplier of accommodation and destination services, offering a wide product range and superior service to a diverse customer base. The A&D Specialist Division is a portfolio of destination management companies (DMCs) and minority shareholdings in niche destination specialists. Our B2C Division comprises online accommodation retailers with commissionable sales models and leadership positions in their regions and includes Hotelopia, LateRooms.com and AsiaRooms.com.

We recognise we must play a role in sustaining the communities and the environment that we so depend on. The B2B Division and the A&D Specialist Division have different approaches to many areas within sustainable development and are tackling their responsibilities in different ways.

This year we carried out a sector survey worldwide with all our business units and destination offices. As a result, we have learned more about the sustainability-related activities taking place within Accommodation & Destinations. We have also confirmed what we already knew: that we need to lay the foundations for a sector strategy on sustainable development that will define our policy principles, objectives and actions, unifying our lines of work.

Our main aim for the year 2008/09 is to have a common sector sustainable development strategy in line with the Groupwide priorities, which will help us maximise our efforts towards common goals, making sure we share best practice and learn from each other.

Climate Change

As a provider of ground transport services to TUI Travel tour operators and other companies, the Accommodation & Destinations Sector is a key contributor to the Ground Transport workstream within the Groupwide Climate Change priority.

Destinations

Accommodation
As the name of our sector suggests, providing accommodation is a big part of our business. We have a health & safety management system in place that not only helps us check the health & safety standards of our suppliers, but also whether the hotels we work with are participants in a sustainable tourism certification programme.

Excursions
Another important part of our business is excursions. All our destination offices try to offer sustainable excursions, including a fair trade chocolate tour in the Dominican Republic and a sea turtle project in Limón, Costa Rica.

Destination projects
TUI España maintains institutional contacts with the Spanish local governments, councils and tourist municipalities, reaching many collaborative agreements.

Hotelbeds Costa Rica recently signed the Child-Protection Code.

It would be impossible to list all the examples of how our offices collaborate with different associations and charities locally. Some examples include: Kenya Wildlife Service, MEAK UK, Children for Children's Future (CCF) in Kenya, Macassar Haven in Namibia, the Boys Home Maharagama in Sri Lanka, Mauritius Wildlife Foundation (MWF), Crèche Coeur Immaculée de Marie in Quatre Bornes in Mauritius, Mare Nostrum in Romania, SOS Kinderdorf in Bulgaria, and the Vicente Ferrer Foundation in Spain.

Our People

Engaging our people will be a key element of our sector sustainable development strategy. Our sector newsletter currently has a dedicated sustainable development section.

Our Customers

The main role of the Accommodation & Destinations Sector in involving customers in sustainable development issues is to promote more sustainable accommodation to our customers, both B2B and B2C. As part of our sector sustainable development strategy, we aim to identify and promote sustainable products from TUI Travel tour operators and others.