Prince Harry launches eco-friendly travel initiative, partners with Visa, Booking.com
Travalyst, the green initiative by Prince Harry, hopes to make travel more sustainable in the future to protect destinations, benefit local communities, and enable consumers to make more environment-friendly choices while travelling.
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Amid backlash and criticism over the use of a private jet, Britain’s Prince Harry has joined forces with major travel and payments firms across the globe to launch an eco-friendly travel programme, Travalyst.
A portmanteau of the words travel and catalyst, and inspired from the British royal’s role as a catalyst to accelerate positive changes in global tourism, the green initiative would be aimed at transforming the future of travel while putting communities at the heart of the solution.
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The Duke of Sussex launches Travalyst to promote sustainable travel initiative.
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In this initiative, the Duke of Sussex is joined by global travel firms such as Booking.com, Skyscanner, TripAdvisor, Ctrip, and payments major Visa. Together, the founding partners hope to make travel more sustainable in the future to protect destinations, benefit local communities, and enable consumers to make more eco-friendly choices while travelling.
While announcing the launch on Tuesday, Prince Harry on Instagram said: “I am not a tourism or business expert, but through my travels, I have observed the unique relationship between community and environment, and have noticed something alarming.”
He continued, “There wasn’t the symbiosis or connection that needed to be there and I wanted to understand why. I am one of those people fortunate enough to have a platform and I want to use it to tackle hard problems, in the hope of finding solutions… and that’s how Travalyst was born.”
According to a UN World Tourism Organisation report, the global travel and tourism industry has grown exponentially. Tourism is one of the few economic sectors that has been growing relentlessly, having a significant impact on the worldwide socio-economic development, employment, infrastructure development and export revenues.
With consistent growth and rise of newer players in the sector, the company believes that it is critical to adopt sustainable travel practices.
“Bringing companies, consumers, and communities together is our best chance to protect destinations and ecosystems for the future generations,” The Duke of Sussex said on the Travalyst site.
(Edited by Suman Singh)
