With a powerful membership with a unique focus on the long-term sustainability of the industry- and a collective reach of over 22,000 properties, more than 3.1m rooms and nearly 1.5m employees in over 100 countries worldwide- the International Tourism Partnership has a unique leadership role within the hospitality sector to address the challenges of sustainability.
ITP provides its members with a non-competitive platform to share knowledge and resources, develop policy and actively implement programmes and initiatives that have a positive impact on economic, social and environmental issues.
ITP provides a pivotal interface to participate in policy development and influence the framework conditions under which companies operate, through engagement with organisations such as UNWTO, WTTC and GRI.
A current example of our industry leadership includes the ITP and WTTC working group on carbon measurement. This groundbreaking initiative aims to unite hotel industry efforts to calculate and communicate carbon impact by agreeing on a standardised methodology and metrics informed by the GHG Protocol standards. For the first time, leaders within the hotel industry are collaborating to reach a consensus on a single methodology for calculating carbon footprints and consistent metrics for communicating emissions.
The Carbon Measurement Working Group driven by hospitality members within ITP and WTTC includes leading international hotel companies such as Accor, Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, Hilton Worldwide, Hyatt Hotels & Resorts, InterContinental Hotels Group, Marriott International Inc., MGM Resorts International, Mövenpick Hotels & Resorts, Red Carnation Hotel Collection, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc., Premier Inn - Whitbread Group and Wyndham Worldwide. The Phase One methodology has had input from Greenview Consulting and has been reviewed by the World Resources Institute.
The Hotel Carbon Measurement Initiative has generated wide interest from other hotel companies who are not members of ITP or WTTC, as well as extensive media coverage. Phase Two will build on the draft methodology created in Phase One, and involve further refinement, targeted stakeholder engagement and testing, and industry-wide roll-out. ITP and WTTC will launch the final outcomes of the work at the Rio +20 Earth Summit in June 2012. The outcomes will not only benefit the entire hotel industry, but also have relevance for how other industries approach this issue.
Read more about the issue of carbon here
Read the press release here
