Green summer holidays

Here at Crystal Summer we are committed to sustainable tourism and are constantly assessing our responsibilities to society and the environment. Ecological, economic and social improvements are at the forefront of our minds, wherever we operate.

We want to protect resources everywhere we take our customers. It's simple, we're depending on these resources for the future of our business, so it's very much in our interest to do everything we can to keep them healthy and sustained.

Fundamentally we want to provide high quality holidays that cause minimal environmental impact. Respecting people and cultures is at the centre of this aim, as well as offering a real economic benefit to local communities.

So as a result we're working with hotels to reduce the effect we have on the environment. We're one of the first holiday companies to ask all of our hotels to sign up to Travelife.

Travelife is a system developed by UK holiday companies, ABTA and other experts to help measure and award hotels that do their bit for the environment and local communities. Things like reducing energy and water usage, buying local produce, having a recycling policy and ensuring employees have fair working conditions.

Travelife provide help and advice as to how businesses can improve themselves. Once they've implemented some changes they can then apply for an audit where they have the opportunity to gain bronze, silver or gold sustainability awards.

We're delighted that the Sunstar Hotel in Grindelwald is the first of our hotels to achieve a Travelife Award (Silver). Our vision for the future is that all our hotels will follow their lead.

Since 2003, Crystal Summer has been awarded the CarbonNeutral brandmark for our head office in Kingston. This was achieved by measuring and subsequently reducing carbon emission across all areas of our business. We also work with the CarbonNeutral Company to enable our customers to offset the emissions that are produced as a result of their holiday.