Travel with Katie Butler: Sustainable holidays are the future

Jet2.com has ordered 35 A320neo aircraft as part of its sustainable approach. Photo: Getty Images

Last week was amazing, Leanne (our assistant manager) and I were in the Algarve on the Jet2holidays VIP Conference along with over 300 other independent top selling agents from across the whole of the UK.

Katie Butler writes: It is by far our favourite event of the year as we get to meet lots of suppliers and hotel chains from across Europe, and of course are privileged with fantastic entertainment courtesy of Jet2holidays.

This year did not disappoint with live performances from Boney M, along with guest speaker Craig MacLachlan, military veteran and star of Channel 4’s SAS: Who dares wins.

It is a privilege to be invited to such a prestigious event and to be once again named as one of Jet2holidays top selling agencies.

This is a a huge achievement and not bad at all for a small independent agency in our local town of Heckmondwike.

The theme of this year’s conference was “who dares wins”; aimed at independent agents just like us to face our fears and to have courage and audacity to confront challenges in order to succeed.

As an example our trade representatives completed a skydive earlier this year to face their fears!

While I certainly don’t see the team at Total Travel mirroring this challenge, I do understand the concept in taking on challenges in order to find ways to grow our business.

The CEO of Jet2holidays and Jet2.com, Steve Heapy, was also in attendance and told us of their acquisition of 35 new Airbus A320neo. These are currently being built and will join the fleet over the next few years.

Also discussed was sustainability, which is a hot topic for many industries now, as we attempt to become more environmentally friendly.

We learnt from Iberostar hotels about their “Wave of Change” strategy. Wave of change is Iberostar Hotels’ commitment to environmentally-friendly tourism and the company bases the movement on three lines of action – elimination of single use plastics, promotion of sustainable fishing and improvement of coastal health.

Iberostar has become the first hotel chain to eliminate and replace single-use plastic products with more environmentally-friendly materials in all of its hotels in Spain.

Of course hotels play a huge part in protecting the local environment, and by next year Jet2holiday will have their own sustainability charter covering hotel management and social impact, in addition to introducing a new labelling scheme which will help us and you to choose more environmentally-friendly hotels should you wish to do so.

That is our adventures and jet-setting completed for 2022! It has been a fabulous year for us in relation to “Fam Trips” (familiarisation trips), of course these type of trips have not been able to take place for the last couple of years and so suppliers have been keen to get agents back out in resorts visiting hotels.

I have to admit the Jet2 VIP conference is our favourite event, overseas conferences are fab to get to see some amazing hotels whilst getting updated on new things round the corner.