GLOBAL — BeCause, a start-up revolutionizing how the global hospitality, travel, and tourism industries manage their sustainability data, has partnered with the Global Destination Sustainability Movement (GDS Movement).
This partnership will help tourism and event organizations, including Convention and Visitor Bureaus (CVBs), Destination Management Organizations (DMOs), and National Tourism Organizations (NTOs), gain unprecedented insight into their region’s sustainable accommodations and offerings.
Members of GDS-Movement, an international change agency that catalyzes socio-economic and environmental transformation in regions and cities through tourism, can now access a specially designed data overview on the BeCause platform that shows them a real-time, comprehensive view of their destination’s hospitality landscape’s sustainability status.
Specifically, they can quickly see which hotels, restaurants, attractions, beaches and experiences have valid sustainability certifications, providing them with a trustworthy foundation for building a targeted sustainability strategy.
Prior to BeCause, destinations could only obtain this information by manually matching each certification to the accommodations and hospitality services in their coverage zone—an error-prone, laborious process that prevented DMOs and NTOs from promoting their full range of sustainable offerings.
As the only sustainability data management hub tailored for the visitor economy, BeCause works with over 70 eco-certification bodies, including globally recognized organizations like Green Key, Travalyst, Global Sustainable Tourism Council, Green Sign, and EarthCheck.
Its platform enables the seamless exchange of sustainability information between these organizations, hotels and other key stakeholders such as booking platforms, travel retailers and tourism organizations, significantly streamlining the data flow.
According to a 2024 Booking.com survey, 75% of global travelers say they want to travel more sustainably in the short term, while 89% of business travelers say they are taking extra steps to reduce their travel’s environmental impact.
Access to sustainable travel options is also a key consideration for meetings and event planners.
Thirteen percent of those surveyed for the American Express 2024 Global Meetings and Events Forecast rank sustainability as among the top two factors influencing where they choose to hold their events, and 39 percent admit that they struggle to identify sustainability-certified suppliers.
With the data overview from BeCause, organizations like VisitEngland can zoom in on specific regions and get a thorough overview of offerings in real time, as well as information on those certifications.
This will enable NTOs and DMOs to gain unforeseen insights into the status and trends within their own destinations, greatly empowering their strategic work with sustainability and building a data-led decision-making system.
Furthermore, it will enable them to address greenwashing claims head-on backed up by validated data and enhance their credibility as trusted sources for sustainability information on the destinations.
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