Sabre Holdings / Travelocity Global, USA

Finalist, Global Tourism Business Award

In 2006, Sabre Holdings / Travelocity Global founded its Travel For Good programme. The programme is based on three key pillars: 1) reducing the corporate environmental footprint; 2) promoting environmental responsibility and sustainable business best practice through leadership; and 3) offering customers products and services that will facilitate sustainable travel.

Environmental management starts from the inside at Sabre. The company's corporate headquarters are LEED certified and include waste, energy, water and recycling programmes. It also promotes car-pooling and car-free transport amongst its 9,000 employees. Sabre has 11 Eco-Teams in its offices around the world working to reduce the company's environmental footprint. In 2009, Sabre created the Give Time Together annual campaign encouraging its employees to participate in local community volunteer projects.

The promotion of green travel through corporate leadership and to its customers is based on two key strategies. In 2008 Sabre launched a comprehensive Green Hotel Directory across its websites marking over 700 properties globally as environmentally friendly accommodation offers. The directory now has been expanded to include fuel-efficient vehicle hire companies. Sabre / Travelocity was also the first major travel agency to offer travellers the option to purchase carbon offsets. The second strategy of the Travel For Good programme is based on Voluntourism. Travelocity acts as an aggregator for pre-screened voluntourism organisations. Through its Change Ambassador Grants, Travel For Good allocates three USD5,000 grants per quarter to dedicated travellers and employees for voluntourism trips.

Sabre Holdings / Travelocity Global as a global travel service provider has adopted a strategy based on using its widespread reach and influence to become an agent of change in the field of sustainable travel.