Prince Harry Heard Those Private Jet Concerns, Is Launching a Sustainable Travel Project

It's called Travalyst, and it's a great move by the Duke of Sussex

Prince Harry Sustainable Travel
(Photo by Chris Jackson/Getty Images)

A few weeks ago, we (and the rest of the internet) took Prince Harry and Meghan Markle to task for flying a private jet to their family vacation in Ibiza. We said it was a bad look, considering it’s the third time at least one of them had flown private this year, one of the instances Prince Harry had flown private to was for a climate summit, and the royal family has a history of flying commercial on British Airways.

Private air travel is unnecessary, and preposterously wasteful, but we might’ve all jumped the gun too soon. Earlier today, in Amsterdam, Prince Harry announced a sustainable travel project called Travalyst. The initiative, which has been in development for three years, involves a partnership between travel (or travel-adjacent) companies like Booking.com, Ctrip, Skyscanner, TripAdvisor and Visa, and aims to bring environmental concerns to the forefront of planning for travelers, while helping them manage their carbon footprints.

It’s unclear exactly how Travalyst plans to disseminate information, or encourage traveling that’s healthier for the planet, but many of the behemoths in partnership on this project have mountains of data on travel patterns and popular sites, plus the platform (email) to catalyze sustainable travel. At the announcement this morning, the Travalyst panel emphasized wildlife conservation, and reducing over-tourism, so we’d expect the project to address those areas in the months and years ahead.

As for Prince Harry’s minor private jet controversy, he flew commercial to Amsterdam and explained that he and his family fly commercial “99%” of the time, except for situations where security concerns arise.

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