Guide to Meaningful Travel Product

The Tourism Cares Guide to Meaningful Travel Product helps travel companies make more responsible choices when building travel products. Tourism is a powerful tool that, when designed properly, can help alleviate some of the world’s biggest problems like social inequality, food sovereignty, and conserving environmental and cultural assets. This Guide can help travel professionals and businesses reflect on these connections and then make changes to their products to improve the positive impact of travel.

There is extensive evidence that global travelers are seeking more sustainable travel options that also boost the local economy, and that they are yearning for authentic, unique experiences that help them connect with a destination on a deeper level. This Guide can help product developers meet these needs by designing these elements into their tours. As part of the Guide, you will learn how to:

  • Generate economic benefits for local people,

  • Enhance the well-being of destinations

  • Create engaging and innovative experiences for travelers who want to form a deeper connection with the people they meet when traveling.

Why Incorporate Meaningful Travel Products?

  • Differentiate your product from competitors while showing your commitment to the future of the industry

  • Offer authentic experiences, demanded by travelers

  • Meaningful experiences often don’t cost more, especially if you swap with existing elements

  • Purposeful brands are favored in the marketplace

  • Booking.com 2022 Sustainable Travel Report survey results (30,000 travelers in 32 countries) show:

    • 71% of travelers want to make more effort in the next year to travel more sustainable

    • Over half of travelers are more determined to make sustainable travel choices when they travel vs. a year ago

    • 66% want to have authentic experiences that are representative of the local culture

A Step-by-Step Guide to Adding Meaningful Travel Product

The Meaningful Travel Product Guide shows you how to answer these questions:

Create a strategy

  • Use the UN Sustainable Development Goals as a guideline. What issues does your organization care about what do those issues look like in practice within travel product?

  • What does your customer base look like and what are some examples of meaningful product that might be relevant to them, based on their values and characteristics?

  • What are the different aspects of your supply chain that might be swapped for more impactful product?

Source Product Opportunities

  • What is the best fit within your product for meaningful experiences?

  • What questions should you ask and how do you research this type of product offering?

  • How should you work with meaningful businesses and non-profits?

Evaluate Meaningful Experiences

  • What are the types of social, economic and environmental issues that organizations address, why are these important, and how do they relate to the UN SDGs?

Work with New Suppliers, Implementation, and Evaluate Success

  • How will you measure success for your business and for the local community?

Get the Guide to Meaningful Travel Product

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Introduction to the Tourism Cares Meaningful Travel Map