by Lacey Pfalz
Last updated: 9:55 AM ET, Fri September 22, 2023
Kind Traveler, the responsible travel platform that connects travelers with responsible stays that give back to local communities, is launching its Every Stay Gives Back (ESGB) community impact program following a six-month pilot in which 15 boutique hotels raised $73,000 in donations for seven charities.
The ESGB collection offers travelers a new way to stay responsibly, with a selection of 32 hotels giving back to 17 different charities across nineteen destinations around the world — and these numbers are certain to grow.
The program works like this: a portion of every hotel stay is donated to a local charity the hotel designates, regardless of how and where the guest books their stay. Kind Traveler then verifies and tracks monthly donations to charities, which is then shared via the ESGB dashboards.
"The travel industry has a unique opportunity to mobilize travel dollars in a way that fights the climate crisis, reduces economic inequality, strengthens community leadership, conserves the environment, and preserves the heritage of destinations,” said Wesley Espinosa, Interim Executive Director of Center for Responsible Travel (CREST).
“Kind Traveler's new Every Stay Gives Back community impact program provides a valuable pathway for destinations and lodging partners to fund local charities, measure and report positive impact metrics, and promote the adoption of more responsible travel practices."
Live community impact reports show travelers, destinations and hotels their positive impacts through a digital dashboard. For example, the pilot program was able to fund the planting of 1,400 carbon-sequestering breadfruit trees in Hawaii with Hawaii Farm Trails; the provision of over 7,000 servings of fruits and vegetables to people facing food inequality with Farm to Pantry in Sonoma County, California; and the creation of over 5,500 square feet of wetlands by the Blue River Watershed Group in Silverthorne, Colorado.
"Coming out of a summer travel season marked by devastating wildfires, record-breaking heat across large parts of the globe, and ongoing social justice movements, travelers are more aware than ever of the need for travel that goes beyond doing no harm and gives back to support local communities and the environment," said Jessica Blotter, CEO and Co-Founder of Kind Traveler, who also serves as Board Member for the Center for Responsible Travel (CREST).
"Through the launch of Every Stay Gives Back, Kind Traveler has created a powerful program that makes it easy for every guest stay with participating hotel and destination partners to plant native trees in Hawaii, support wildlife rehabilitation efforts on Catalina Island, fund local schools in Belize, Dominican Republic, and Costa Rica, and much more,” continued Blotter.
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