Sustainability and Travel PR
Sustainability has become the defining topic of our age, making Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) communications a top priority for travel and tourism brands. In this crucial TravMedia Meets webinar, we tackled sustainability in travel PR. Our panel of industry experts offered their take on how communications professionals can address sustainability and effectively communicate their brands’ green credentials in campaigns while avoiding greenwashing.
If you missed this insightful and forward-looking panel session on the issue of our time, here’s your chance to watch again.
The Panel
Richard Hammond
Executive Producer & Founder, Green Traveller (Moderator)
Richard is a writer and videographer who has been covering sustainable travel and tourism since the late 1990s. He has been the Guardian’s eco travel correspondent, Editor of Green Hotelier, editor of Sawdays Green Places to Stay, and Travel Editor of National Geographic GREEN. His most recent written work has been for National Geographic Traveller, Financial Times Globetrotter, Sunday Times Scotland, and The Telegraph. Since 2009, Richard has run his media production agency Green Traveller, which works with a range of clients in the public and private sector, as well as PR Agencies to promote specific projects to targeted consumer and trade media. His latest book, ‘The Green Traveller – conscious adventure that doesn’t cost the earth’, was published in 2022 by Pavilion Books, an imprint of HarperCollins.
Chris Haslam
Chief Travel Writer, Sunday Times
Chris Haslam is Chief Travel Writer at the Sunday Times. He has a special interest in conservation and has been writing and broadcasting about sustainability in travel since 2008.
Tess Longfield
Head of Communications - UK/Sustainability, Sabre Corporation
Tess has two decades of PR and communications experience, in house and in global agencies, in the UK and internationally. She was the inaugural CMO at sustainable travel non-profit, Travalyst, where she led on brand, marketing and comms for the coalition of leading travel and technology companies. Her PR agency experience includes Ogilvy in the Middle East, LOTUS (part of W Comms) and her comms career started at bgb communications (now Four Travel). Destinations have been a major part of her comms career, as Head of Global PR for VisitBritain and more recently, the Jordan Tourism Board.
Tess now leads PR for Sabre in the UK and Ireland, South Africa, Benelux and Turkey and on sustainability as part of the global comms team.
Kate McWilliams
Managing Director, LOTUS, part of W Communications
Kate McWilliams is a founding member of UK-based travel PR & Marketing consultancy LOTUS. She has wide-ranging experience working on clients across the travel sphere having represented national and regional tourism boards, tour operators, airlines, hotel groups, travel tech, tour operators and travel associations. Kate has worked on a number of high-profile sustainability campaigns, including the introduction of tourism taxes in the Balearic Islands, Spain’s Slow Travel initiative and LATA’s sustainability charter. On 27 April, she will be hosting Spain’s first sustainability summit and media awards. Kate has been featured on CNN, LBC and in many travel and trade publications, speaking about travel trends. She is fluent in Spanish and is a trustee and volunteer of the LATA Foundation.
