With 2,012 hotels FTI offers more than a third of all sustainable accommodation registered in the Green Travel Index. They are labelled in the new FTI catalogues by a green leaf.
How holiday abroad can be combined with sustainable action is highly discussed at the moment. Ralph Schiller, Group Managing Director of FTI, commented: "As one of the largest representatives of the tourism industry it is our task to provide our customers the most environmentally and socially responsible holiday.” The FTI GROUP has created a basis with several cooperations to offset CO2 emissions and more than 2,000 green hotels in its portfolio. "The big challenge now as well is to encourage the demand for sustainable travel among average consumers. If we move them to rethink we will achieve great differences: around seven million FTI customers can build on those each year.”
FTI GROUP & Green Travel Index: Green leaf for orientation
In order to raise customer awareness FTI’s initial step is focusing on better labelling of green hotels. In its new catalogues, valid from the 2019/20 winter season and available from mid-July 2019, FTI is therefore introducing a green leaf for all hotels in its portfolio which are certified as sustainable. The Green Travel Index (GTI) of the independent provider travel bridge shows which accommodations are qualified.
The index has been compiled since September 2017 and presents the most important 150 different seals and certificates for sustainable tourism worldwide on a unified basis. The neutral platform defines four main criteria defined by the Global Sustainable Tourism Council on its lowest common denominator: effective sustainability planning, maximizing the social and economic benefits for the local community, enhancing the cultural heritage and reducing the negative impact on the environment. The index is supported by the major tour operators in Germany. "The FTI GROUP currently has exactly 2,012 hotels on the index", says Stephan Busch, Managing Director of travel bridge. "We currently list a total of around 6,000 international hotels. In comparison FTI is therefore the largest of all major tour operators which has the highest percentage of certified sustainable hotels in its portfolio.”
"We are focusing especially on uniform, cross-sector labelling by the GTI in order to facilitate the search for sustainable accommodation”, summarizes Ralph Schiller. Stephan Busch adds: "The fact that even a very large tour operators like FTI is so strongly oriented towards sustainability, illustrates the new, high significance of green offerings in our society. This makes our labelling all the more important for the entire industry.”
The brands
