Google Will Help Travellers To Find Sustainable Options

Very soon when you search for hotels on&nbspGoogle, the search engine will show you names of those who have sustainable practice in place. Gradually, other travel sectors will also be included under this.

Concerned people have been pushing for sustainable tourism to counter over-tourism and its negative effect on the environment and the local communities for the past few years.  The COVID-19 pandemic has made it essential to contain the spread of the virus and also to restart tourism in the safe mode.

According to&nbspGoogle&rsquos Richard Holden, VP of Travel Products, &ldquoThere&rsquos a lot to consider when it comes to booking travel price, health and safety, environmental impact and more.&rdquo

Last year, the company shared travel tools to help people find health and safety information.

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&ldquoNow we want to make it easier for you to find sustainable options while traveling &mdash no matter what you&rsquore doing or where you&rsquore going,&rdquo said Holden on&nbspGoogle&rsquos news blog site.

Therefore, the company has created &lsquoa new team of engineers, designers and researchers focused solely on travel sustainability&rsquo. They will highlight sustainable options within&nbspGoogle&rsquos travel tools that people use every day.

Scheduled to launch this week, when someone searches for hotels on&nbspGoogle, they will see information about the hotel&rsquos sustainability efforts. Hotels that are certified for meeting high standards of sustainability from certain independent organizations, like Green Key or EarthCheck, will have an eco-certified badge next to their name, Holden said.

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Those who want to know about the hotel&rsquos specific sustainability practices may click on the &lsquoabout&rsquo tab where a list of what the hotel is doing &mdash from waste reduction efforts and sustainably sourced materials to energy efficiency and water conservation measures &mdash will be maintained.

According to&nbspGoogle&rsquos relevant &lsquoSupport&rsquo page, it says &ndash Hotels can now identify their sustainability efforts on their hotel detail page alongside amenities and health and safety practices. This information only appears for hotels that opt in to self-reporting and have sustainability practices to report.

&ldquoMaking travel more sustainable isn&rsquot something we can do alone, which is why we&rsquore also joining the global Travalyst coalition,&rdquo said Holden. &ldquoAs part of this group, we&rsquoll help develop a standardized way to calculate carbon emissions for air travel. This free, open impact model will provide an industry framework to estimate emissions for a given flight and share that information with potential travellers. We&rsquoll also contribute to the coalition&rsquos sustainability standards for accommodations and work to align our new hotel features with these broader efforts.&rdquo

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The search engine also clarified that because sustainability terms can have a number of meanings, they will be focusing on practices such as energy from carbon free sources, locally sourced food and beverages, organic cage free eggs, responsibly sourced seafood, and eco-friendly toiletries.