TMCs are increasingly looking beyond corporate travel policies to influence how travellers behave during their trips, using pre-trip guidance and simple prompts to encourage greener choices.
Rather than trying to enforce individual behaviour, the focus is shifting towards making sustainable practices easier and building them into travellers’ everyday habits.
“We have been chatting to corporate clients about developing sustainability guides for their travellers that will guide them on basic green practices, such as packing light, not leaving the lights on, not requesting fresh towels every day,” said Jaco Brits, Head of Sales and Account Management at FCM South Africa. “It is positive, but it’s still early days.”
According to Linda Edwards, MD of XL Turners Travel, corporate clients, especially those with head offices in the USA and Europe where sustainability reporting is already in full force, are requesting more pre-trip reporting so that they can effectively monitor and adjust booking habits before travel.
There is also growing interest among South African companies.
“There’s also real interest from local corporate clients who have a strong sustainability focus and want to reduce the impact of their travel programmes,” said Saskia Fourie, an Account Manager at FCM South Africa.
“However, at this stage, they are far more interested in creating awareness and encouraging better behaviour than in trying to enforce it and I think that's the right instinct.”
Measuring gaps
While many current corporate travel booking tools can track ‘out of policy’ travel, there is still very little information about travellers’ on-the-ground behaviour because it is difficult to track.
Brits explained that FCM’s Platform for corporate bookings contained a range of tools that steered travellers towards greener suppliers that fell within the booking policy.
“This side of booking policies is well measured, but it's what happens once the traveller lands that we can't see clearly,” said Brits. “We've started this conversation with some clients, and the question and challenge that comes back is always the same: it isn't trackable.”
According to the preliminary results of the ABTA survey of corporate travellers, over half of the respondents “sometimes, rarely or never” think about the environmental impact of their actions when they travel for work. The survey found that very few business travellers actively sought out more sustainable options, with almost half citing convenience and speed as their priority.
Increased awareness to develop better habits
According to the TMCs, the solution to improving sustainable behaviour is not more extensive policy and stricter enforcement, but rather enhanced guidance and improved awareness that will gradually be incorporated into corporate clients’ cultures and traveller habits
“At this point in the sustainability journey, business travel isn't necessarily about expecting travellers to get everything right every time. It's about creating awareness and encouraging small, practical choices that fit naturally into the trip. Over time, those choices become habits, and their collective impact can be really powerful,” said Fourie.
She said the key to helping busy business travellers naturally practise sustainable travel habits was by making them the most convenient practices.
“This is somewhere we as agents can genuinely add value. Most of us are quite conscious about switching off the lights, the aircon and the electronics at home, but it's easy to forget when you're travelling, so a gentle pre-trip nudge goes a long way.”
Fourie said FCM was already developing green guides that offered travellers advice about how to make more sustainable decisions while travelling that would not inconvenience them.
“There's an understanding that enforcing individual behaviour isn't realistic, either for agents or for travellers. So the most productive way forward is a partnership: we bring the guidance and the awareness, and the client weaves it into their own travel culture,” said Brits.
“Most of our customers see it that way too. They'd far rather we help their people build good habits over time than promise a level of control that nobody can truly deliver.”
