‘Consumers are interested in sustainability’, says Virtuoso

Luxury travel agency network Virtuoso is confident consumers are interested in sustainability when booking holidays, following encouraging findings from its annual impact report.

The network introduced the Virtuoso Impact Report: Sustainable Travel in 2023 to catalogue the sustainability efforts of its partners, and, over the last year, has also started tracking the trends of Virtuoso member agencies.

The 2024 report saw 482 Virtuoso partners and more than 100 advisors answer 50 questions about sustainability.

A total of 88% of surveyed Virtuoso advisors said they saw selling sustainable travel as a business opportunity, while 66% of advisors felt their clients were willing to increase their spend if they understood a partner’s sustainability initiatives.

Virtuoso partners that participated in the report collectively represent more than 7,000 sustainability initiatives - a 43% increase compared to last year.

Surveyed partners also donate an average of $460 per visitor to local artisans, NGOs and other businesses and individuals, and a total of 22% of the partners’ revenue goes back into their local economy.

“We want to celebrate our accomplishments in sustainability; for more than 20 years, we have championed and learned together in this important movement, and it's paying off,” executive vice-president David Kolner told delegates at the opening ceremony of Virtuoso Travel Week in Las Vegas on August 11.

“Consumers are interested. A study we did on open rates of Virtuoso email marketing containing sustainability topics got more than twice our average and four times over the industry.

“This is not a niche opportunity for partners either. Released this week, the one-of-its-kind 2024 Virtuoso Impact Report yielded over 7,000 sustainability initiatives underway at our preferred partners.”

Kolner added that Virtuoso Travel Week’s Under One Sky lunch, which “celebrates [the network’s] sustainability vision”, sold out in 10 minutes.

Speaking at a press conference for media, Virtuoso’s vice-president of global public relations, Misty Belles (pictured), highlighted additional data from a 2024 Virtuoso sustainability community survey which showed that 50% of Virtuoso travellers feel global developments have encouraged them to travel more responsibly, citing geopolitical conflicts, over-tourism and the effects of climate change as key drivers.

“Just over half of them expressed their willingness to visit more popular destinations at off-peak times,” Belles said.

“We also saw that they were ready to explore some other alternative destinations, for example Slovenia, Portugal and Croatia as alternatives for Italy; Montenegro as an alternative for Croatia; and Guatemala as an alternative for Costa Rica.”

She added: “When we asked luxury travellers…what parts of sustainability really resonated with them, they talked about the fact that natural and cultural heritage was something that they most wanted to support, followed by local people and economies, and [lastly] environmentally friendly practices.

“What's interesting about that is, when we did this study in 2019, environment was in the lead, and the others were still catching up, so now we're starting to see that change where people are considering the other factors [around sustainability]. But environment is still really strong, and it's especially strong amongst the younger generation.”