Asmita Mukherjee - Hyderabad TOFT India, the nature based travel trade alliance focusing on driving more sustainable travel in South Asia, has launched the internationally-recognised Travelife programme to help drive up tour operation standards in India’s tourism sector.
“India’s track record on travel and tourism sustainability is very poor, according to the latest UNWTO report 2019, far behind many of its competitors, including Sri Lanka. So being able to bring a respected international partner to India, together with our own accommodation certification programme, means we are now ready to drive up eco-standards and work with states and destinations to help them develop better ecotourism and more sustainable formats for tourism,” said Julian Matthews, Chairman, TOFT.
“We are delighted to be working with TOFT in India, helping to drive up standards in tour operation across the country. This pandemic has helped highlighted the need for far greater sustainability in travel and tourism globally – and our certification for operators and DMC’s will help drive the supply chain pressure faster towards more responsible, eco-friendly and fairer tourism across South Asia,” said Naut Kusters, GM of Travelife for Tour operators, based in the Netherlands.
“All TOFT current DMC members will gain free access to a range of online tools that they can use to start the journey towards greater sustainability in their own operations, in the tours, they market and operate, and help in the destinations their clients visit. It all starts with making this commitment before full certification can be reached,” added Ritu Makhija, Manager Sustainability, TOFT India.
Increasingly travellers and the tour operators and OTA’s that operate them, are demanding greater levels of environmental and social transparency with regards to the holidays they sell, especially the international market. Increasingly the domestic market is asking these questions too and destinations grow, so we are delighted to finally be able to offer the industry and globally recognised and industry supported system that will allow India’s best to continue to compete in the marketplace – post-Covid.
