Sustainable Tourism: The Tour Operators' Contribution

4. Product Management and Development
Benefits
The benefits of the auditing programme include:
• A destination audit can be used to reduce the environmental impact of tour packages by highlighting
regional information on the availability of resources and the handling of waste;
• Information on the environmental standards of the destination can be distributed to customers so that
they are made aware of local conditions and can select destinations with low environmental impacts if
they wish;
• The information obtained from the questionnaires has been used by MyTravel NE to highlight
destinations where there is a water shortage, and what each guest can do to prevent or minimise
environmental impacts at the destination; and
• The questionnaires send a clear message to local authorities that MyTravel NE is interested in
cooperating to reduce environmental impacts from tourism and improve overall performance.
Comments
Because several tour operators that have contacted local authorities have found it to be a difficult and
long-term process, MyTravel NE has proposed that tour operators interested in this approach work
together. There are many benefits to working on a destination audit jointly. Local authorities are more
likely to respond to joint requests from a group of tour operators and will appreciate not having to answer
many different questionnaires covering the same issues. Individual tour operators will not have to unilaterally
contact all the destinations, which means that more time can be spent visiting local authorities in
person at each destination.
MyTravel NE next plans to analyse the best ways to make information from the audits available to
customers, identify those areas in which MyTravel NE can work with destinations, and increase the
number of destinations that respond to the questionnaire.
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Sustainable Tourism: The Tour Operators’ Contribution