"Communities are the beating heart of travel, and we must do better by the people who are the custodians of the places we visit.”
When Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, makes the news, it isn’t typically for advocating for sustainable tourism.
But that’s exactly what the he was doing Tuesday when he joined the annual meeting of his not-for-profit sustainable travel firm Travalyst via video conference from his home in Montecito, California. The Duke notably did not travel to the event, held in the South of France at the site of Amadeus, a travel technology firm that is a major partner in Travalyst.
“Travel and tourism relies on destinations, held together by communities, without which we have nowhere to travel to. Communities are the beating heart of travel, and we must do better by the people who are the custodians of the places we visit,” said Harry.
He went on to cover some key achievements the organization had made.
“We’ve heard from some fantastic organizations like Invisible Cities who train people affected by homelessness to be tour guides in their own city, and Global Himalayan Expedition, whose programs have helped electrify over 200 Himalayan villages impacting over 60,000 lives for the better. More and more people are wanting to make informed travel choices so that the benefit of travel is felt by all.”
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It’s unclear what had thus far prevented the brands from working together on their own accord. Most of the organizations’ press releases involve announcing new members to join the coalition—most recently the financial services company Mastercard and travel technology provider Sabre. The group’s primary accomplishments also appear to have been the introduction of “unified frameworks driving consistent sustainability reporting in both accommodation and aviation.”
In plain English, that means standardizing how travel companies measure environmental impacts and how they talk about them with consumers.
The Duke founded Travalyst in 2019—while he and his wife, Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex were still working members of the British Royal Family. The group describes itself as an “independent entity” that “provides supportive and neutral governance to our coalition partners, empowering some of the biggest—and occasionally competing—travel and technology brands to work together to accelerate change.”
At the time, the Duke and Duchess were criticized for championing sustainable travel in a year when they had taken a significant number of private jet flights—four in an 11-day period from Britain to Ibiza, Spain, and Nice, France, before switching to commercial flights in the days immediately surrounding the initial launch of Travalyst.
In addition to Travalyst, the Duke has launched Sentebale, a charity focused on health, wealth inequity, and climate resilience in some African communities, Wellchild, a U.K. charity for children coping with illness, and sits on the board of the non-profit conservation organization African Parks.
Prior to acceding to the throne, the Duke’s father King Charles III was also a dedicated campaigner for environmental causes—something of a departure from traditional roles for a senior member of the Royal family whose work must remain apolitical and impartial.
The Duke and Duchess stepped down as senior members of the Royal Family in January 2020, although the Duke remains fifth in line to the throne of the United Kingdom, after his brother, William, the Prince of Wales, and his three children.
Some British and American media outlets have described the Sussexes as struggling to find footing after their move to California, noting that a $100 Million deal with Netflix provided little content. Some of the Duke’s wins prior to stepping down as a working royal were successful—like the Invictus Games—success was reported to have made William jealous of his younger brother, as the Duke recounted in his memoir.
Travel companies that have joined the Travalyst coalition include Amadeus, Booking.com, Expedia Group, Google, Mastercard, Sabre, Skyscanner, Travelport, Trip.com Group, Tripadvisor, and Visa.