We are beyond excited to share that our founder Zakia Moulaoui Guery joined Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex, as he addressed the Travalyst coalition at its annual convening and urged the industry to put sustainability at the heart of tourism bookings.
Travalyst is a not-for-profit organisation founded The Duke of Sussex, and the conversation brought together some of the biggest brands in travel and technology, as well as world-renowned experts to discuss sustainable and regenerative tourism.
A key part of this year’s event was the roundtable discussion focused on communities, speaking to a range of people including Zakia who spoke about the impact conscious travellers have on communities.
“We are increasingly seeing people making even more conscious decisions when they are travelling and visiting new places. People want to see the money they spend directly benefit communities” she added.
Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex, said: “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. We’ve heard from some fantastic organisations like Invisible Cities who train people affected by homelessness to be tour guides in their own city…”
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Travalyst, founded in 2019, is working with its partners to bring clear, consistent and credible sustainability information to the mainstream to help people make more informed travel choices. To date, Travalyst’s work has been focused on accommodation and aviation.
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More about Invisible Cities
We train people who have experienced homelessness to be tour guides of their own cities. We currently run tours in six cities, expanding to more this year and beyond. All of our guides are paid the living wage and employed to run their tours. Each of them carefully researches, plans and practices their tour, based on their own interests, observations and life stories, with our support. We also help many more people with valuable employability skills like confidence, public speaking and storytelling. And, we’re very proud to work really closely with many other community outreach support services who do brilliant work to be there for people who are struggling with homelessness.
Zakia Moulaoui Guery – Founder, Invisible Cities (Scotland)
Zakia Moulaoui Guery is a social entrepreneur, guest speaker and presenter in sustainable tourism. In 2016 she founded Invisible Cities, an award-winning social enterprise that trains people who have experienced homelessness to become tour guides of their own city across Scotland. In 2021 they were awarded Best Community Tour in the world by Lonely Planet.
About Travalyst
Founded in 2019 by Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex, Travalyst is a not-for-profit global coalition of some of the biggest brands in travel and technology: Amadeus, Booking.com, Expedia Group, Google, Mastercard, Sabre, Skyscanner, Travelport, Trip.com Group, Tripadvisor and Visa. Travalyst aims to bring sustainability information to the mainstream to help people make more informed travel choices.
Find out more at www.travalyst.org
