easyJet holidays, the UK’s rapidly expanding tour operator, has unveiled its fresh animal welfare policy.
This policy underscores a steadfast commitment to offering only experiences that uphold the welfare and conservation of animals, recognizing their crucial role in the global ecosystem.
Aligned with ABTA’s animal welfare guidelines, this policy stands as a testament to easyJet holidays’ aspiration to set industry standards.
It has been crafted in collaboration with esteemed animal rights organisations, including World Animal Protection. Concurrent with the policy announcement, the tour operator pledges to collaborate closely with its hotelier partners, fostering awareness about the significance of animal welfare.
Under this new directive, easyJet holidays will abstain from featuring or endorsing any harmful animal-related attractions in its tours and activities portfolio.
This includes refraining from promoting captivity-based establishments like zoos and marine parks, as well as events involving animal performances, rides, and sports.
This initiative represents the company’s ongoing efforts, which span from combatting food waste in hotels to offering sustainable travel alternatives such as electric transfers and introducing offbeat destinations like Akureyri in Iceland.
Moreover, easyJet holidays has forged a partnership with UN Tourism (formerly UNWTO) to pioneer the development of the first-ever environmental, social, and governance (ESG) framework for tourism enterprises. Together, they are co-designing a robust measurement tool aimed at enhancing the monitoring and management of tourism’s impacts, thereby fostering responsible tourism practices.
Matt Callaghan, easyJet holidays’ Chief Operating Officer, said: “As one of the largest tour operators, we’re committed to being an industry leader when it comes to responsible travel. Our own research tells us that sustainable travel experiences are important to our customers, so we want to make it easy for them to holiday better.
“We’re passionate about the protection and respect of all forms of nature in the destinations we offer holidays to, which is why we’ve made the decision to not offer or promote attractions that exploit animals within our tours and activities programme.
“We know tours and activities are a brilliant way to experience our holiday destinations, so we look forward to continuing to offer more sustainable and responsible experiences for our customers to further enhance their well-deserved holiday.”
Katheryn Wise, Wildlife Campaigns Manager at World Animal Protection UK, said: “easyJet holidays has really stepped up for animals with this strong and ambitious animal welfare policy.
From the outset easyJet holidays have been clear that they are committed to offering their customers responsible, wildlife friendly travel options and it has been a pleasure to work with a company focused on listening to their customers and choosing not to profit from captive wildlife entertainment. It is through working together and commitment like this that we can truly expect to see lasting change for wild animals across the world.”