Last Updated on Friday, 8 July, 2022 at 1:26 pm by Andre Camilleri
The high sustainability commitment of the FTI Group’s own hotels is going to be signed and sealed. Travelife for Accommodation will certify around 50 of the Group’s hotels by the end of the fiscal year. Its signet stands for commitment to people and the environment.
Proven sustainable: The FTI GROUP’s own hotels are sustainable on a wide scale. This is reflected in the corporate strategy as well as in the individual commitment of the hoteliers and their employees. Numerous hands-on initiatives and creative efforts contribute to the environment and local communities and enrich both the working environment and the guest experience. Travelife for Accommodation now takes into account FTI’s profound sustainability conviction. By the end of the 2022 season, around 50 representatives of the LABRANDA Hotels & Resorts, KAIRABA Hotels & Resorts, Design Plus Hotels, Lemon & Soul brands as well as Meeting Point managed Hotels aim to achieve certification from the globally renowned and sophisticated certifier. “There is nothing good unless you do it,” says Sabine Dorn-Aglagul, CEO Hotels at FTI GROUP. “With our accommodations, we act in a socially responsible, ecologically and economically sustainable manner and meet the highest quality standards, for the benefit of our guests, our employees and the environment. The Travelife for Accommodation certification proves this and marks a milestone for us.”
Sustainability in action from the ESG Code to vegetable seedings
In the framework of MP Hotels’ repositioning, the group adopted an ESG code that anchors social values and establishes environmentally friendly guidelines. Dorn-Aglagul emphasizes: “Our properties are located in Spain, Egypt, Turkey, Greece, Italy, Malta, Croatia and Morocco. With all these different cultures, it is all the more important to establish common standards in order to be able to guarantee all our employees a safe workplace in all aspects, without exception. This in turn creates the basis for individual sustainability concepts in the single hotels, which the employees support with passion. After all, we are not only dealing with major hospitality issues such as the reduction of plastic waste, less food waste, lower water and energy consumption, or clean coasts. It is often the small projects which illustrate that sustainability goes right through us: There is the hotel management in Makadi Bay in Egypt, which grows its own plants for the restaurant in a vegetable garden in the desert. There is the ‘Plant a Tree’ mission in Croatia. There is the team in Marmaris in Turkey, which upcycles driftwood in the course of renovation and makes it part of the new room design – to name just a few projects. Our guests appreciate this commitment as well. We are therefore all the more pleased that all our efforts are now also receiving appreciation on the international stage with Travelife.”
Cooperation with Travelife for Accommodation launched in April 2022
Certification by Travelife, one of the world’s leading initiatives for effective and efficient sustainability principles in the accommodation sector, stands for particularly high standards in terms of the environment and social responsibility in the tourism and hospitality industry. For the certification, independent auditors from the organization check the relevant accommodations with a catalogue of requirements comprising 163 criteria.
The audit includes assessing how accommodations minimize their environmental impact, compliance with animal welfare guidelines and fair treatment of employees. ” With the certificate, guests who choose one of our houses will be shown and assured in the future: This hotel maintains a careful use of natural resources, bears responsibility for a low emissions budget and works closely with the local population,” says Dorn- Aglagul.
The cooperation between MP Hotels and Travelife for Accommodation was agreed back in April 2022 and all the groundwork was immediately laid for successful certification. Since then, the accommodations have undergone extensive documentation and optimization processes as well as individual audits. In addition, employees are provided with valuable information via workshops, training sessions and best practice examples in order to further deepen and continuously develop the sustainability criteria. “The audits will be completed at all our facilities in the course of September. A few weeks later, we expect to be granted Travelife Certified status. Once certified, the review process will be repeated every two years to renew the certification,” the hotel manager continues. The certified hotels will be allowed to adorn themselves with the Travelife signet on-site in the future, and corresponding notices will be deposited in the booking systems as well as on www.mphotels.com.
Embedding in the Sustainability Strategy of the FTI GROUP
The step towards certification with Travelife for Accommodation goes hand in hand with the new sustainability strategy of the FTI GROUP. With this strategy, the company fulfills its social responsibility and takes into account the climate and environmental goals of the European Union as well as the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations. The individual levels extend to all company areas of the Group, from tour operating to the company’s own hotels to the incoming agencies, and include both the respective offers and services as well as the personal working environment of the FTI GROUP employees and customer communication.
