On July 25, 2018, Travel Research Online, “The Voice of the Travel Agent Community,” published a story on the BeachCorps model. The story showed how travel agents can benefit by booking sustainable travel. The story noted that the Booking.com Sustainable Travel Report released this April for Earth Day confirmed that demand for sustainable travel continues to grow. In this case, sustainability is defined in the broad sense: travel that promotes local economies, social services, and culture as well as the environment – both local and global. The report indicates that 87% of global travelers want to travel sustainably. However, 48% indicate they never, rarely or only sometimes manage to travel sustainably. This suggests there is still plenty of room to turn intentions into action.
Travel agents can play an important role in guiding clients towards sustainable travel, particularly in the case of sustainable volunteer vacations. Travel agents often know their clients far better than an online search engine. Travel agents can link clients to the right sustainable travel and volunteer options. But travel agents are limited by the lack of connections between traditional vacations and pro-sustainability causes. Most people want to stay in comfortable hotels, yet most volunteer vacations use mediocre lodging. Travel agents also know that much “voluntourism” is justly criticized because the “cause” is invented to please tourists, not make a difference. BeachCorps allows travel agents to book REAL sustainable travel and keep the commissions to themselves!
#TravelAgent #TravelResearchOnline #SustainableTravel #DominicanRepublic #BeachCorps #Nonprofit #SustainableTourism
