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The Travelife Certification Requirements

You can view or download the short version of the requirements in your preferred language below.

Once you pay the Travelife certification fee, you will have access to a longer version that contains detailed notes and links to a comprehensive yet practical suite of guides, templates, examples and e-learning to will help you comply with each requirement.

Further down this page you will find a summary of the requirements as well as information about how we developed them.

View or download the requirements

View or download the appendix to the requirements

About the Travelife Certification Requirements

History and evolution

Travelife was founded in the early 2000’s with our first audits taking place in 2006. The original criteria that were developed as a result of a 2-year multi-stakeholder consultation involving a broad range of European participants. This included tour operators, trade associations, NGOs, research institutions and consultants.

Since then we have carried out over 5,000 accommodation sustainability inspection audits and regularly monitor sustainability developments and issues to ensure our requirements are always both useful and relevant.

The requirements have therefore been fine tuned over the years and have undergone a handful of formal revisions when we consult with stakeholders, conduct research and, when necessary, seek expert advice.

The current version of the Travelife Certifications Requirements underwent a formal revision between 2021 and 2023, before being used to certify properties from January 2024. During that revision process we consulted with our certified properties, Travelife auditors, the travel industry as well as United Nations Environment. We also made sure that the requirements aligned with the GSTC Industry Criteria for Hotels as well as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

What do the requirements cover?

Our certification requirements are designed to follow annual cycle that ensures properties are continually improving their impact on the people, places and animals.

We refer to this as the Annual Improvement Cycle and it can be broken down into seven steps as shown in the graphic.

The requirements are divided into the following sections:

Section A: Annual assessment, planning and core policies
Section B: Legal compliance and licensing
Section C: Honesty, transparency, fairness and responsiveness
Section D: Stakeholder engagement and support
Section E: Sustainable procurement
Section F: Minimising greenhouse gas emissions and protecting biodiversity
Section G: Minimising the impact of a crisis or emergency
Section H: Animal welfare
Section I: Measuring and monitoring environmental preformance

If you download the requirements and review each section, you will see that section A is essentially about having a sustainability management system in place.

Sections B through H are the basic activities, policies and actions that properties should have embedded in their daily operations.

Section I is about ensuring that they are monitoring their environmental performance (e.g. greenhouse gas emissions, water consumption, plastic purchasing) every month. Properties then repeat Section A every year.

Not just another environmental label

Although improving environmental impacts is an extremely important part of Travelife Certification, the tourism industry has broader impacts that can be either positive or negative, depending on how well they are managed.

That is why we believe it is essential to take a holistic approach to sustainability, rather than just focusing on one particular topic. We do not believe a certification has any true potential to be a positive influence in tourism if it does not address both people and places.

For that reason, Travelife Certification covers the following issues:

Measuring and monitoring greenhouse gas emissions from energy, water and solid waste.
Biodiversity and conservation.
Sustainable procurement.
Fair labour (e.g. minimum wages, working hours, anti-discrimination).
Human rights including prevention of human exploitation and labour exploitation (“modern slavery”).
Child safeguarding.
Supporting indigenous peoples.
Community engagement and support.
Animal welfare.