HOW TRAVELIFE WORKS
ABOUT TRAVELIFE
Travelife was founded by the UK and European travel industry as a way to ensure that measures were being taken to address environmental, social, labour and human rights issues in their accommodation supply chain.
Travelife certifies hotels against the Travelife Standard that contains 163 criteria. Work commenced on developing this standard in 2004 when a group of industry stakeholders and environmental experts was assembled to create and review the requirements that accommodation providers would need to meet in order to display a Travelife certification mark, thus making it easier for both travel companies and their customers to find sustainable accommodation.
The Travelife Standard is occasionally updated to address new issues and to reflect any changes made to the Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC) Standard, a set of globally recognised industry criteria. Travelife remains one of the few standards that comprehensively addresses business management, environmental impacts, and social issues, and is the only standard that was specifically designed by the tourism industry for the tourism industry.
In 2009, Travelife became a wholly owned subsidiary of ABTA, the UK travel association. Today Travelife has around 1,500 Member accommodation providers in over 50 countries, with approximately 900 of these being Travelife Certified at any one time.
HOW IT WORKS
Properties join Travelife through payment of a fee that includes a two-year membership and an audit. Upon joining, they gain access to a web-based system that contains tools for them to carry out a self-assessment against the Travelife Standard and a suite of resources to help them implement necessary changes.
Three to six months after joining, Members work with Travelife to schedule an audit. Travelife has a network of approximately 60 independent contract auditors who have been trained by an external auditing consultant. Travelife allocates an auditor to a Member and an on-site audit, normally taking around six hours depending on the size of the property, is carried out at a mutually agreed date against the Travelife Standard.
The auditor submits a report to Travelife and a specially trained certifications team quality checks each criterion in the standard then communicates with the hotel directly on any further improvements that are required. It is common for properties to have some improvements to make and they are given six months to complete these. If their audit identifies 40 or more improvements, they are failed and will need to pay for a new audit should they wish to continue with certification.
Once the Travelife certifications team is satisfied that all the criteria are met, the property is certified and given a Travelife Gold Certification in the form of a logo and certificate they can display. The certification is valid for two years at which point the property must renew membership and undergo another audit. Properties must continue to do this every two years in order to maintain their certification.
Visit www.travelifestaybetter.com to learn more about membership fees, benefits and how Travelife works.
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