Breaking silos: why cross-sector collaboration matters now more than ever

This will not be the first time you’re hearing this: sustainability needs to move from ideation to action. Quickly, and at scale. And for that, we need cross-sector collaboration.

At Travalyst, we’ve been focusing on getting sustainability information into the places where travellers are searching for and booking their trips. Through the Travel Impact Model – developed by Google in collaboration with Travalyst – aviation emissions information alone has been seen in billions of searches worldwide.

But as we’ve been working with the industry to understand what we can drive forward next, something quite clear has emerged: one of the most important things Travalyst can do is promote collaboration across the sector, because so much of travel and tourism’s sustainability conversations still happen in silos.

We need to make sure that we aren’t trying to solve shared problems in separate rooms. The health of the destinations that travellers visit is a shared risk. The emissions from the planes that bring people to those destinations is a shared risk. Decarbonising airports, hotels, tours and activities, and last-mile transport is a shared risk.

Ensuring that the industry we love can have a positive impact on a rapidly changing planet is an enormous challenge, but one that requires shared accountability and action from businesses, destinations, government, and even travellers themselves.

Many pieces will need to come together to make this work, but to start with, we need:

Regulatory guardrails and sustainability innovation must work hand-in-hand. Companies across the sector must understand what’s required to be compliant, and also where there’s room to experiment and collaborate on new ideas that have the potential to support large-scale systemic shifts.

For example, communicating about sustainability is currently a challenge, and one that impacts all areas of the sector. We need to know regulatory best practices to avoid greenwashing, but also work together to build messaging that’s clear, credible and consistent across the industry – for example, on ways to choose lower emissions modes of transport. That way, travellers can build up confidence in the information they see, and make more informed decisions about their trip.

The travel industry holds an enormous amount of data, but it’s not being shared openly and accessibly to help drive action. Understanding how to unlock this data is key because we cannot effectively manage shared risks without a shared view of the problem. Or, indeed, learn from each other’s successes without shareable insights.

For example, how can we collectively understand how to direct tourism distribution if we don’t know which destinations want and have the necessary infrastructure to welcome more? What transport options, preferably lower-carbon, are available to help tourism dispersal? And what success metrics are we tracking throughout? Governments, transport companies, OTAs, and many other businesses need real data to tackle this challenge.

I’ve seen first hand through my work with Travalyst the potential of a simple collaborative space. I was in the room when a group of travel tech businesses – direct competitors in everyday life – first agreed to collectively align behind the Travel Impact Model, present a shared view of aviation emissions to travellers, and build credibility for this data in the industry.

We need more of that. Let’s build more forums where people from across the industry are able to go deep into discussion on the practicalities of how to turn good ideas into projects. These kinds of conversations can be enormously powerful, but they won’t happen unless we’re getting more people into the same (virtual or real-life) rooms.

At Travalyst, we’ve been working with our coalition partner Skyscanner and strategic partner Travel Forward (who are also working to open up more spaces for collaborative conversations) to better understand how sustainability data can support collaborative projects. Currently, we’re exploring how we can use our Travel Impact Model aviation emissions information to support other use cases in the industry, like destination climate action plans, alongside a number of other pilot project proposals.

But we need to go further. We’re working to create scalable, sustainability-focussed solutions that no single organisation can achieve alone. If you’d like to help steer what’s next, have an idea for a cross-sector project, or are simply interested in finding out more, get in touch: partnerships@travalyst.org