Trip.com Group, a leading global travel service provider, has announced its long-term goal to build green tourism, covering three key areas, including: working with partners to launch over 10,000 low-carbon travel products; promoting sustainable travel concepts and engaging 100 million travelers in low-carbon practices; and, aiming to further reduce carbon emissions across its own operations.
Launching 10,000 low-carbon travel products
Trip.com Group aims to launch over 10,000 eco-friendly travel products, with several initiatives already underway in the Group’s long-term plan. Trip.com and Skyscanner, sub-brands of Trip.com Group, have partnered with CHOOOSE, a company dedicated to offsetting the CO2 emissions for flights by supporting impactful climate solutions worldwide and enabling customers to seamlessly address their CO2 emissions as part of the customer experience. Users from over 35 different Trip.com sites are now able to purchase this carbon offsetting option across almost all flight inventory.
In Mainland China, Trip.com Group’s sub-brand Ctrip, has been working with suppliers to offer a wide variety of eco-friendly travel products, such as zero waste camping and eco hiking. Trip.Biz, a corporate travel brand of the Group, has recently conducted a campaign to promote “Green Hotels” and “Green Flights” in mainland China. The corporate travel brand was also awarded a Silver rating by EcoVadis, an internationally recognized corporate social responsibility (CSR) rating platform in 2022. In its car rental business, Ctrip advocates travel with alternative fuel vehicles and through this promotion has seen related orders grow at an annual rate of approximately 140 per cent. According to the current order assessment, compared with traditional vehicles, renting alternative fuel vehicles will reduce carbon emissions by about 10,000 tons in 2022.
Promoting sustainability awareness and inspiring 100 million travelers
As part of the Group’s long-term commitment to improving sustainability awareness, consumer brand Trip.com surveyed its customers to learn more about user sentiment towards sustainable travel and how the pandemic has impacted consumer opinion. Crucially, the survey revealed that travelling sustainably is essential to most respondents.
Trip.com Group continues to build upon its content marketing strategy to provide awareness of more sustainable options. Trip Moments, the home of user-generated traveller content on Trip.com, encourages users to review, recommend and share their travel content with over two million travelers worldwide. Building up to World Environment Day 2022, Trip.com South Korea held various events and activities to encourage users to think more sustainably and share content on Trip Moments with the hashtag ‘sustainable travel’ – driving awareness among users.
In promoting sustainable tourism, Ctrip is using its self-produced variety show to advertise eco-friendly travel. The green travel variety show is a collaboration between Ctrip and National Geographic featuring environmental experts and travel professionals who accompany special guests to explore sustainable lifestyles whilst discovering the beauty of China’s cities and countryside. It is China’s first travel variety show focusing on ecological awareness.
Reducing carbon emissions across operations
As a one-stop travel service provider with more than 30,000 employees and businesses across the world, Trip.com Group continues to value operational practices that look after the environment. The Group pledges to further reduce carbon emissions across its own operations in the near future.
The Group has adopted several environmental initiatives, including building intelligent energy management system, solar hot water system, and renewable heating system to reduce energy consumption. Its headquarters in Shanghai has been awarded LEED Gold certification for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. From 2019 to 2021, a new round of energy saving investment was made in the Trip.com Group Shanghai headquarter offices, this upgrade resulted in a 45-50 per cent reduction in energy used for lighting the buildings.
In 2021, Trip.com Group announced to establish its ESG Committee and joined the UN Global Compact, committing to create a more sustainable future for tourism and society.
Jane Sun, Trip.com Group CEO commented, “We have always adhered to the vision of ‘pursuing the perfect trip for a better world ’ and will work with our users and partners to further reduce carbon emissions in a more holistic and systematic manner. We still have a long way to go and much more to do.”
