2023-05-22 17:50:00
Freiburg enjoys a good reputation among climate activists; in the Baden-Württemberg city, the bicycle is already the dominant means of transport. The fact that the first “green travel agency” has officially opened there is no coincidence, “but is due to the city’s environmentally friendly customer structure,” says Andreas Kindlimann, who runs the company.
WELT: Your travel agency is decorated all over with flower pots, are they real or made of plastic?
Andreas Kindlimann: What a question, of course they are real! When choosing, I made sure that the plants tolerate low room temperatures of 18 to 19 degrees and a mixture of daylight and artificial light.
WELT: So no withered leaves in your decoration yet?
Kindlimann: Our decoration, as you say, consists of fiddlehead fig, osiera, Chinese mace, bow hemp, yucca, golden fruit palm, elephant ear, cobbler’s palm – and the plants are as green and fresh as they were on the day we opened a few weeks ago. The mix of green plants and used furniture makes it immediately clear to every visitor that we are not a normal travel agency. Consequently, we also do without printed catalogs and paper. Our customers like it, some even come from Switzerland because of our special offer.
WELT: Your special offer is sustainable travel, doesn’t that limit you a lot in terms of potential customers?
Kindlimann: No not at all. We have sustainable travel for almost every target group: for couples, for singles, for best agers, for families with children.
WELT: families with children? According to studies, this target group in particular shuns the topic of sustainability like the devil shuns holy water for cost reasons.
Kindlimann: We have a family with children here in the first few days since the opening of our Green travel agencies actually haven’t seen it yet. But that will surely change. Small and medium-sized tour operators in particular, of which we have many in our range, offer families sustainable and at the same time exciting offers that you would probably not come up with without advice from a travel agency or with internet research.
WELT: For example?
Kindlimann: I’m thinking of relaxed cycling along the Mur in Lungau, Austria, family sailing on Corfu, a family camp with water sports activities on the Loire, a family trip with outdoor adventures to the Finnish archipelago or – a little further away – a workshop in Ghana with dancing , drums, singing and xylophone.
WELT: Don’t you have to dig a lot deeper into your wallet for such trips, especially if they are sustainably compensated?
Kindlimann: No, you can’t say that in general. Green travel does not necessarily have to be more expensive, often the opposite is the case. Sustainably managed hotels, for example, use less electricity and water, so they have lower costs. I will now quote from the study “Green Travel Transformation” by the Leuphana University of Lüneburg, which states that sustainable hotel management usually goes hand in hand with better food, nicer gardens, friendlier staff and above-average service quality.
WELT: Could you open up a sample calculation? How much would a family of four who want to go on a two-week summer holiday in Crete have to pay a thumbs up if the holiday in Greece is to be sustainable?
Kindlimann: I can’t say that as a percentage because such a calculation has too many variables. However, I can guarantee that we would find a suitable hotel for the family that is cheaper than a comparable non-sustainable hotel. And if the flight should also be sustainable, we select the most climate-efficient airline for this route and calculate the compensation.
WELT: There are various CO₂ compensation programs, which ones do you offer?
Kindlimann: We offer Atmosfair’s offsetting projects. The work of the non-profit climate protection organization is transparent and regularly receives the highest ratings in tests and studies.
WELT: And if the compensation for the flight to Greece is too expensive for the example family with two children?
Kindlimann: Then we would recommend an airline that pays particular attention to climate efficiency. Factors such as aircraft type and age, seating, winglets, flight altitude and tailwind all influence climate efficiency. The Atmosfair Airline Index provides a well-founded overview.
Andreas Kindlimann runs the green travel agency in Freiburg
Source: Sebastian Gabsch
WELT: From 2024, new heating systems must run on 65 percent renewable energy. Will that also play a role in your offers in the future?
Kindlimann: If a guest values this, I can look for a type of accommodation that uses a high percentage of renewable energy for heating or summer cooling. We are the first green travel agency in the German-speaking area, we learn new things every day and we are close to the latest trends and opportunities. Our criteria for sustainable hotels also include the highest ecological requirements for heating and cooling systems according to the electricity mixes available in the respective countries.
WELT: Do you only list hotels that have heating certification?
Kindlimann: No. Despite the high standards we set for our partners and for ourselves, we don’t want to set ourselves up as green moralizers. Holidays should be fun for everyone.
WELT: Are there also self-confessed climate activists and climate stickers among your customers?
Kindlimann: None so far, no. But we also have interesting offers for climate activists. Holidays can be wonderfully combined with volunteer work, tailored to existing knowledge and skills. My favorite project is helping out at the penguin station near Cape Town. The social and economic added value in the country as a direct result of tourism has a significant impact on the sustainability balance sheet.
WELT: But Cape Town is not just around the corner.
Kindlimann: That’s right, the length of stay and the flight distance should be in a sustainable relationship to each other. That’s why we always suggest to our customers a travel duration that suits the flight route: If you want to travel to destinations that are less than 800 kilometers away from your home, you should travel by bus or train.
For destinations further afield, such as South Africa, we recommend at least two weeks, and for destinations less than 3,800 kilometers, travelers should allow at least seven vacation days. Because no matter how you look at it, on long-distance travel, the flight is the biggest CO₂ factor, it produces the highest proportion of climate emissions.
WELT: Wouldn’t it then be logical to do without air travel altogether or at least to tax it more heavily?
Kindlimann: Then we would indeed C02 reduce, but at the same time deprive many people of their livelihood. Sustainable tourism not only has an ecological, but also an economic and social component.
Let’s take Cape Verde as an example. The island state was one of the poorest countries in the world until around the beginning of the millennium. Young women and men left their country in their thousands to earn money elsewhere. Only the dynamically growing tourism has changed this situation. People have a perspective again.
WELT: Your travel agency is part of the Lufthansa City Center company. Do you prefer Lufthansa when booking flights?
Kindlimann: Lufthansa is one of the most important flight partners for the LCC and was also a shareholder until the year 2000. Therefore, as a large travel agency organization, we naturally maintain an intensive business relationship with Lufthansa.
When booking flights, we always advise our customers on the basis of the airline index Atmosfair. And Lufthansa doesn’t have to hide at all, because it has a modern fleet and invests a lot of money in future-oriented technologies and products such as the development of sustainable, CO₂-reduced aviation fuel.
WELT: How can travelers specifically save CO₂?
Kindlimann: If I fly in economy class, my ecological footprint is smaller than in business class. Because the less space I take up, the lower the calculated per capita consumption of kerosene. Environmentally friendly transport at the holiday destination does not have to be expensive either. Many regions are best explored by public transport or by bike.
WELT: Cycling, good cue. Shouldn’t anyone who books an e-bike holiday with you make sure that the electricity is green?
Kindlimann: That makes sense. For example, Norway would be a tourist destination where most of the electricity is generated from hydropower. In many other countries, it is not always clear to e-bike riders whether the charging current is actually green. If in doubt, you can ask us for advice when choosing the right holiday destination – or you can rely on muscle power as before.
WELT: You cooperate with different organizers, what exactly distinguishes them?
Kindlimann: All our cooperation partners, like fairweg.de, Chamäleon, Forum Anders Reisen, Studiosus, Gebeco, Olimar and ASI Reisen are certified, for example, by GSTC, the International Council for Sustainable Tourism, and other certification systems. They qualify for this voluntarily and have themselves checked regularly.
In addition, our partners have their own sustainability priorities. Studiosus, for example, is heavily involved in human rights. Our partner Chamäleon supports women in education and financial independence and is committed to ensuring that as much of the travel price as possible goes to the local economy in the travel destination. Our partner has a different focus fairweg.de; This portal analyzes its hotel portfolio very precisely so that you can choose the degree of sustainability of your accommodation that suits you.
Our range also includes sustainable tour operators who specialize in language trips, volunteer work, art and garden trips. By the way: The high standards that we set when selecting our partners also apply to us, of course. Our parent company LCC is a member of the industry initiatives Futouris and KlimaLink and carries out regular climate balancing.
WELT: The Berlin start-up gruener-fliegen.de has been offering its customers since 2021 the ability to compare flights on the website not only by price and flight time, but also by the environmental impact of each individual flight. Work with us gruener-fliegen.de together?
Kindlimann: No, but I wouldn’t rule out new partnerships that suit us well in the future.
Andreas Kindlimann is a native Swiss, teacher and trained journalist. To Freiburg and to his current appointment as a tourism specialist in Green travel agency The 56-year-old came via various detours and a long career as a travel agency owner and country manager at L’tur Lastminute AG.
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