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Sustainability is an increasingly important topic in these challenging times in the tourism industry. Together with TUI, we attach great importance to tourism professionals of the future. That is why we have set up the TUI-CELTH Sustainable Tourism Thesis Award 2020. By means of this challenge, we reward students who have chosen to write a thesis on a topic related to sustainable tourism.
Review
The assessment process was further professionalised in 2020. The award consists of 3 categories:
- Best for Social Sustainability
- Best for Environmental Sustainability
- Best for Economic Sustainability
Each category has its own topics. Theses that deal with or refer to one of these topics can be nominated. The “UN Sustainable Development Goals (“ SDGs ”) and the contribution of the thesis to these SDGs play an important role in the assessment by the professional jury. Theses with a final grade of 8 or higher can also be nominated. Quality, but also quantity play an important role in this.
Winner 2020: price elasticity CO2 compensation for holiday flights
Melise Rikels, graduate of Tourism Management course at NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences in Leeuwarden, won the TUI-CELTH Sustainable Tourism Thesis Award 2020. In her thesis, Melise investigated the extent to which Dutch holidaymakers are willing to pay for CO2 compensation for their holiday flight and what the optimal price for this would be. She did a random check among 503 Dutch holidaymakers. She discovered that a price increase of an airline ticket through CO2 compensation does not quickly lead to a decrease in holiday flights. She calculated the optimal price for CO2 compensation on the basis of € 10.00 for European and € 20.00 for intercontinental flights. At a higher price, the income decreases.
Impression TUI-CELTH Sustainable Tourism Thesis Award 2019
In 2019, Sophie van den Top of Saxion Hogeschool in Deventer was the winner of the TUI-CELTH Sustainable Tourism Thesis Award 2019. Sophie drew up guidelines in her thesis to make excursions at destinations more sustainable.
Developing a sustainable travel and tourism sector
The award is a cooperative initiative between TUI Nederland and the Centre of Expertise, Leisure, Tourism & Hospitality (CELTH). With this award they challenge students to help the sector with their thesis by means of research and good ideas for sustainability. After all, today's student is tomorrow's tourism professional. The jury consisted of Melvin Mak (Sustainability Manager at TUI and chairman of the jury), Flip van Woerkom (COO Change Inc.), Ewout Versloot (Strategist NBTC Holland Marketing), Brigitte Nitsch (Senior Lecturer NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences) and Ko Koens (Professor InHolland University of Applied Sciences).
