“When it comes to climate-conscious travel, passengers are still on a learning curve. Technology plays a key role in shifting their attitudes,” noted Digitrips CEO & Co-founder Nicolas Brumelot at A World for Travel in Seville last week, held alongside the Tourism Innovation Summit.
Moderated by BBC journalist Rajan Datar, the panel discussion featured industry luminaries Lucas Bobes (Amadeus), Inge Huijbrechts (Radisson Hotel Group), Ada Xu (Alibaba Group), and Ibrahim Osta (Chemonics International).
Nicolas argued that while many passengers are now conscious of their carbon footprint, the industry is still in the ‘raising awareness’ phase. He emphasised, “It is our responsibility as technology providers to enlighten passengers about why and how they should factor in sustainability when travelling. This must start with fully informing them about the ecological effects of flying. Only by doing so can we nurture climate consciousness and ensure climate protection initiatives continue to flourish.
“Secondly, we must be clear and transparent with passengers about their own carbon footprint. By using third-party data to show how each flight proposition performs against the average CO2 footprint of all propositions on that routing, we infuse sustainability into the customer’s decision-making process.”
As Nicolas explained, the next phase is behavioural change, whereby technology providers will once again lead the charge in helping travellers bridge the gap between their attitudes and actions – by encouraging direct flights, longer stays, and intermodal travel.
Digitrips – the owner of leading French multi-product travel platform MisterFly – works with not-for-profit organisation Atmosfair to offer travellers comprehensive and easily understandable emissions calculations as part of their travel booking process. The calculations take into account a wide range of factors including aircraft type, number of seats, occupation, flight altitude, and even contrails.
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