Founded in 2019, Travalyst aims to be a source of trusted information “at scale” to empower better decision making and accelerate impact-led change across the travel industry. The not-for-profit global coalition of some of the biggest brands in travel and technology, (including Booking.com, Expedia Group, Google, Trip.com Group and Tripadvisor) has just released its Five Year Milestone Report .
Last year it disrupted the certification landscape by launching an initiative to try and offer a more standardised and transparent look at certifications for hotels. The move came a month before Booking.com, a partner of Travalyst, dropped its Travel Sustainable programme, which was launched in 2021. The digital travel platform said it would introduce new labelling for properties, which have attained third-party sustainability certification.
Editor, Felicity Cousins caught up with Travalyst’s data strategy lead, Aromica Bhattacharya a few days ago to talk about what makes certifications for accommodation such a complex and important subject for the future of sustainable travel.
What was the aim of the Travalyst sustainable certification initiative when it launched in 2024?
AB: “Our aim from the very start has been around bringing transparency and consistency to certifications. There was a lot of noise in the industry, and a lot of initiatives which were credible in their own right, but not necessarily certifications so it was always about bringing this sense of consistency and credibility to all of these certifications.”
Travalyst has around 60 certifications on its list now, and there are around 200 certifications worldwide – so how many do you eventually expect to make the grade?
AB: “We have 60 on the list for multiple reasons. This is a project that we have started very recently, in August (2024), and it is a voluntary initiative. The aim has also been to be inclusive from the very start and the whole aim of the criteria is to be able to filter. We are not the authority in terms of what is best and what is not.”
But you have your criteria and, for example, being third party verified is one of the key parts of the criteria but so many are not third party verified, so what sort of numbers do you think Travalyst will end up with given it’s a voluntary initiative?
AB: That’s an excellent question. I’m not sure any of us in the industry right now can put a number to it. There is a lot of impending legislation changes and ecosystems are evolving so to be able to give it a number would be really hard given that we are expecting quite a few entities in the ecosystem to also reassess themselves, and see where it is that they fit in, whether they actually remain as these schemes, or they decide to become certification bodies.”
Do different regions need different certifications based on the types of hotels that are in those regions?
AB: “Absolutely 100 per cent. Different regions certainly need different sustainability criteria but it goes without saying our criteria is about best practices and good governance of the certification scheme in itself, and the underlying principles there are: transparency, third party auditing, and sustainability.
A lot of properties are located in very remote places where it might not be as conducive to have third party auditing on site, so that’s the reason why our criteria has the on site and online, remote auditing. There is also a lot of guidance coming for this entire area when it comes to the impending legislation, so we are waiting to see where they go with it.”
Do you mean CSRD and the Green Claims directive?
AB: “Absolutely, exactly that, and also empowering the consumers. Empowering consumers is pretty much the umbrella directive, which is protecting the rights of the European consumer, and then under that, the Green Claims, very specifically for the environmental criteria. So both of those would be the ones that would lay down a lot of guardrails for the certifications ecosystem. We are keeping our eyes and ears open to see where it goes.”
Vera Jourová, VP for values and transparency: “Empowering consumers for the green transition means giving European citizens the tools to make informed choices and preventing practices such as greenwashing and early obsolescence from being used in the single market.”
A lot of certifications are very heavy on the eco side of sustainability, whereas there’s also the social side of sustainability. How can you see that evolving?
AB: “When we look at sustainability, we look at it holistically, but that does not take away from the credibility of the work that is being done in any particular pillar. That’s where the whole transparency part of things becomes really important for the consumer and also for the industry.
If you look at sustainability as a whole, then to your point, the environment is just one aspect of sustainability so it is very much up to you whether you decide to take a holistic approach, or whether you decide to take a laser focus approach to one.”
Some of your partners such as, Booking.com, and Google have been keen to work with the list but what about your other partners?
AB: “We work with our partners actively, and on a very regular basis so they’re very much informed of our work, very much supportive of our work, and very much looking forward to aligning with our work. Their internal requirements also evolve, so there are few partners that are already displaying certifications for the accommodation, but not all of them.
“These companies are also competitors, and in that respect we will not prescribe what they do company-wise, but the aim is always, and continues to be, bringing alignment in the industry and across different frameworks, across different companies, and even if they are different sectors.”
But isn’t that going to cause problems with alignment? If you’re trying to align everybody and help the industry and the end-consumer but even your partners are doing things differently?
AB: “With travellers our aim is very much to focus on the sustainability data and the information that we bring to the mainstream as long as there’s alignment on the sustainability information and the underlying data. Each company has their own requirements and their own way of informing the consumer but as long as the underlying sustainability information remains the same, we bring that much more clarity, transparency and reduce confusion for the consumer and also for the industry.”
Travalyst acquired Weeva last year, appointing Julie Cheetham as COO. That must have been a massive win in terms of the data side of sustainability. How has it helped and what has it done for Travalyst?
AB: “We were always in conversation with Weeva, because it was a pioneer in the industry and did such credible work with the scaling of sustainability data. Having them has helped us to accelerate a lot of our learnings and a lot of the insights that we could gain from them because of the work that they have already done.
“There are a lot of nuances, but overall, the underlying foundation of any sustainability as a whole is the data underneath – and Weeva was working with that data and looking to scale it across accommodation. So we got very lucky with that.”
When I talk to hotels about certifications a lot of them just don’t have the resources. Is it just going to end up with the people with the most resources getting the furthest and then everyone else falls by the wayside? How can you help those smaller chains and individual properties?
AB: “You make an excellent point and our aim has always been to be inclusive in the sense that this is not an initiative for a certain sector or a certain segment, but rather for the whole industry – not only for this work, it goes across for all of the other work that we do, which is why we make it available on our website, for everybody to be able to use it as a resource.
“This is where the ecosystem becomes really important, because we alone are not going to be able to solve everything so it is important we work as an ecosystem, and we divide and conquer.
“The whole cost around certification is something which is a really big pain point, and we all know it is one of the big blockers. One of our partners [Booking.com] has recently launched a product which actually handholds the accommodation providers to understand which certifications are best suited to the efforts they’re already making. So everyone is working together.”
Properties are giving it up to that centralised platform. Is centralisation always good, or does it take away the democracy of that data?
AB: “The idea with our Data Hub (which has been announced today in the Milestone Report) is to bring to scale sustainability data that should be openly available. The guardrails of data governance and data privacy and all of the other guardrails are not withstanding. Democratisation is basically the underlying principle behind the Data Hub, working towards another piece of the puzzle, and something that the industry has required for a long time.
“All of the ecosystem understands that is something that the industry requires, and other industries might actually have something similar, but accommodation obviously needs something like that too.”
How does this all translate back to the consumer? The average consumer may care about sustainability but they don’t know what every certification means. Is there a problem with the communication around certifications?
AB: “Absolutely and that’s the reason why transparency has been one of our main criterions of our initial set of criteria. The verification of the data, but the transparency piece that’s where you can put this sustainability information in front of the consumer, so the consumer has a source to be able to understand. The entire premise that Travalyst has been working on with the certifications initiative is so that there is transparency for the industry, but also for the consumer.
“For every single certification that you look at, you should be able to say, right, I have a understanding of how they’re working. Which are the pillars, what are the sustainability efforts that they are investing in, etc. Those are things that we are actively working towards.”
What about the challenges over the next five years? What can you see coming down the line that might impact even the decisions you’re making today?
AB: “I think there’s a unanimous agreement on what the challenges are, and that is pretty much the scaling of sustainability data, communicating it effectively to the consumer, taking the organisations or hotels or properties on this journey of the sustainability practices.
“All of the conversations that we have with each of these organisations is about our individual role and responsibility in the ecosystem, and how can we take the entire ecosystem as a whole towards more clarity and transparency as an industry. So that’s where we’re working with WTTC basics, or GSTC or GBTA or the Alliance – there are so many organisations that we are very regularly in contact with, and these are evolving discussions, because there’s a lot that’s going on in terms of compliance as well.”
Felicity Cousins spoke to Aromica Bhattacharya at the end of March 2025.