26 September 2023
Nominate your favourite eco-friendly tour operator to Spain now
In partnership with Turespaña, we've created a special award to recognise the tour operators with the best sustainable tours to Spain. Vote now for your worthy winner!
In partnership with Turespaña, we've created a special award to recognise the tour operators with the best sustainable tours to Spain. Vote now for your worthy winner!
With more of a third of its land protected, vast national parks to explore and eco-conscious cities, it's easy to travel responsibly through Spain. These tour operators are all going above and beyond to ensure their trips to Spain are as sustainable as possible. That's why we have set up this special award in partnership with Turespaña to celebrate the organisations with the most eco-friendly ways of exploring this incredible country. But there can only be one winner, so who will get your vote?
Intrepid Travel has been a world leader in responsible travel for more than 30 years. Intrepid’s mission is to create positive change through the joy of travel and has it’s own network of destination management companies in 27 countries and run over 1000 trips in more than 100 countries. Intrepid became the world’s largest travel company to achieve B-Corp certification in 2018. Intrepid is also the first tour operator with near-term science-based climate targets through the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) that is in line with a 1.5°C future. Intrepid Travel has been the world’s largest carbon neutral travel company since 2010 and has been Climate Active certified since 2018.
Sunvil's Spanish programme is designed to introduce travellers to lesser-known destinations (Subbetica, Extremadura and Castilla Y Leon to name but a few), with a focus predominantly on locally owned accommodation and entrepreneurs offering immersive and gastronomic experiences. Through our carefully-crafted holidays, we ensure that money stays within the local economy as well as leading the promotion of cultural events and activities - raising local pride. We want our guests to return enriched from their time in Spain, with a greater knowledge of the country and a passion for the places and people they met. To play our small part in mitigating carbon emissions we are now offering itineraries to Spain by train.
Having been a pioneering tour operator in carbon measuring every single one of its 350+ trips in 2022, Explore Worldwide is now working hard to reduce the carbon emissions of its programme. A founding signatory of the Glasgow Declaration, the company has one of the leading Climate Action Plans in the business. This year, they’ve moved away from traditional avoidance-based carbon offsetting in favour of carbon removal with partners Klimate.co. They were also a launch partner of ethy, a new platform that verifies sustainability claims. Earlier this year, the company launched The Explore Foundation to enable the raising of funds for targeting poverty, increasing access to education and healthcare, and promote conservation.
KE Adventure Travel are continuing to make small but important and impactful changes to improve sustainability on our Spanish adventures and all trips. We have substantially reduced the use of plastic; in many destinations our agents use fabric bags for snacks and we encourage the use of refillable bottles. We use small family-run hotels, hostels and agents wherever possible to help the local economy. One of our Spanish agents uses an electric hybrid minibus for client transfer and we emphasise sustainability and climate awareness in all our communications. For short haul destinations like Spain we also encourage travel by train. Since 2020 KE have calculated the amount of carbon emitted on all our trips. We then annually donate the equivalent amount required to offset the carbon to the Livelihood Fund, who support a number of reforestation, agroforestry and rural energy projects around the world.
Sustainability is a commitment that has been at the heart of our business from the very beginning – and not just because our holidays are about exploring on foot or by bike. A key ingredient of our holidays has always been the accommodation that we feature – small, family-run hotels and guesthouses which, by employing local people and serving local produce in their restaurants, play an essential role in maintaining the rural economy and curbing rural depopulation. We encourage low-carbon travel options to our customers, and, through our in-house rail expertise, we regularly arrange train travel for our customers to all corners of Spain, even the far south.
Creating sustainable adventures is at the heart of everything Exodus Travels does. We believe that travel can and should be a force for good, which is why our People, Places and Planet plan passionately seeks to improve life through travel — for the places we visit, the people we meet, and the planet we explore. Through the Exodus Travels Foundation, we are continuously and proactively looking for ways to make a positive impact, whether that’s working with organisations to restore wild areas and promote biodiversity, creating educational programmes in the world’s most remote corners or pursuing carbon reduction across our trips and offices.
Our trips are built on forming meaningful connections to the people and places you visit, offering a wide choice of sustainable stays and experiences. You might replace a flight with a train journey, opt for experiences that give back to the communities you’re visiting, or stay in locally owned hotels. We strive to ensure the benefits of travel stay within local communities, and where possible, we work with guides who live — or even grew up — nearby. So whether you’re taking a walking tour through Seville or learning to cook paella in Barcelona, you can make a positive impact on your travels.
Pura Aventura is a pioneer in sustainability. One of the first travel companies in the UK to be certified B Corp, we offer off-the beaten track holidays throughout Spain, including many no-fly options. We pay a fair wage and work directly with our local partners in Spain which means they keep all of the money we send them which in turn supports the many small local communities where we operate. We also have one of the most ambitious carbon mitigation plans in the industry and will compensate ever kilometre you travel by one mile. That is 160% of your carbon footprint.
At Byway, our mission is to make flight-free travel mainstream, and so accelerate the world's transition to sustainable travel. We’re a certified B Corp, and we make it easy for our customers to discover the joys of multi-stop overland travel, helping them love the journey, not just a destination. We also partner with historically flight-centric travel brands to help them do the same. Our latest impact report showed that in one year, our customers saved 170 tonnes of carbon by choosing trains over planes, which is equivalent to a whole forest! Our trips also prioritise non-hotspots and socially sustainable travel - meaning we are committed to boosting the local economy and increasing tourist spend on sustainable products and businesses.
As a British heritage brand, HF Holidays is represented by a not-for-profit ethos, a deep respect for their guests and members, and a love of rural pleasures. They see it as their responsibility to minimise their emissions. HF Holidays works with carbon consultancy, ecollective, which enables them to measure their carbon footprint and create a strategy to reduce the carbon intensity of their product by 5% each year. The ambition is to be net zero by 2040 – or earlier – and to reduce waste and increase recycling by 50% by 2025.
At Inspire, we are actively embracing sustainability in travel. Our innovative sustainable travel gift card ensures every journey leaves a positive mark. Through carbon credit offsets, each booking becomes a step towards a greener future. Navigate our user-friendly website equipped with sustainable travel filters, empowering users to make eco-friendly choices effortlessly. For the most eco-conscious travellers, we collaborate with a network of forward-thinking travel suppliers such as GAdventures, with a commitment to responsible travel via “community tourism” as a force for good. Inspire blends exploration with environmental responsibility, and we look to increase our offerings further in the near future.
The past year has seen Kuoni step up a gear with its commitment to smarter, better, fairer travel. We've rolled out a new child protection policy which included auditing our entire programme and staff/supplier training, embarked on an ambitious carbon measurement/reduction programme with clear goals, increased the volume of sustainability certified hotels throughout our worldwide collection and committed to embedding sustainable stories into our online hotel descriptions by embarking on a major content overhaul. In addition, Kuoni UK is now a full partner of the DER Touristik Foundation, contributing funding for worldwide projects and able to influence where support is directed.
Ramblers Walking Holidays is arguably a pioneer of responsible travel, formed over 75 years ago with a charitable ethos to give back and support access for everyone to the great outdoors. They curate, organise and deliver exceptional walking holidays in the UK, Europe and Worldwide. Dedicated to exploration on foot, Ramblers Walking Holidays commit to minimising their impact, whilst supporting the work of many not-for-profit organisations through the Ramblers Holidays Charitable Trust, Walking Partnerships – offering financial support to walking groups – and their Heart & Sole initiative that supports sustainable initiatives in Spain and other destinations. They support sustainable tourism and recognise their social, economic, and environmental responsibilities, while head office uses a waterwheel to generate sustainable electricity, and on-site beehives promote local biodiversity through pollination.
Trafalgar’s sustainability strategy has 11 goals focused on Planet, People and Wildlife. We have net zero targets and an industry-first Carbon Fund to support them. We reduced our printed brochures by 82% in 2022 from 2019 and have eliminated plastic water bottles on our coaches. For 2024 Trafalgar will have a MAKE TRAVEL MATTER® Experience on 100% of Spain itineraries, positively impacting visitors and the visited. Trafalgar has supported the Cristina Heeran Foundation since 2019, providing 16+ scholarships to Flamenco dancers in Seville. We have a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion strategy in place and our wildlife experiences adhere to our strict Animal Welfare Policy to prevent animal cruelty.
Much Better Adventures are on a mission to build the world’s most positive impact travel company. The B Corp-certified travel company offers 160+ active adventure holidays run by expert local hosts in 60+ countries with 5% of revenues (not profits) supporting rewilding and reforestation projects. Much Better Adventures' Climate Action Plan is broken down into 4 main areas: Measure, Reduce, Remove and Campaign. They were the first international travel company to measure and transparently publish a carbon footprint label for each of their trips, openly sharing their methodology to encourage others to follow suit and build on it. They also co-founded the Tourism Declares movement, which led to the Glasgow Declaration at COP26, to enable everyone in tourism to implement the Climate Action Plans needed to halve sector emissions by 2030.
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