SustainableCities.Travel is a global storytelling platform to inspire travelers to (re)discover both famous and lesser-known cities, through the ideas and recommendations of travelers and those who call them home. 

In 2023, Booking.com released insights on sustainable travel gathered from 33,000 travelers across 35 countries. According to these insights:

  • 76% of travelers say they want to travel more sustainably over the coming 12 months
  • 75% seek authentic experiences that are representative of the local culture
  • 66% want to leave places they visit better than when they arrived
  • 53% have been influenced to make more sustainable travel choices due to recent news about climate change

Despite the right intentions however,

  • 44% of travelers don’t know where to find more sustainable options
  • 40% don’t know how or where to find tours and activities that will ensure they give back to the local community

Articles in publications like Skift and Business Insider too, confirm that many people find it incredibly challenging to actually figure out how to make sustainable choices when traveling. Where to stay without falling prey to greenwashing? Where to find local, seasonal, organic or plant-based food? How to respectfully immerse in the local culture, while positively benefiting local communities? How to find and support local businesses? How to have a transformative travel experience, while also being kind to the planet?

“Net-zero, carbon-neutrality, sustainable, offset — as popular as these words may be, do travelers really know what they mean?”

~ Skift, 2022

“A significant portion of people still seem unsure as to how to travel more sustainably, how to find sustainable stay options, and whether to trust the available information.”

~ Business Insider

At SustainableCities.Travel, we are therefore on a mission to:

  • Create perhaps the world’s first storytelling platform to showcase sustainable travel ideas and suggestions by locals and travelers in cities around the world
  • Inspire travelers from near and far, to experience their favorite cities more meaningfully, while creating a positive impact on the local community and the environment
  • Encourage residents of these cities to adopt sustainable alternatives in their everyday lives
  • Create an opportunity for DMOs to spotlight sustainable tourism and attract responsible travelers, while keeping their environmental footprint low
  • Foster a collaborative approach within the tourism industry by nurturing a community of Knowledge Partners and work towards a common goal of rethinking tourism as a force for good.

What we do

SustainableCities.Travel is a one-stop platform for travelers to find ideas and inspiration for immersive travel in cities around the world – while having a positive impact on the environment, the people who live there, and its intangible natural and cultural heritage. 

In order to achieve this, we bring together DMOs (Destination Management Organizations, including national, regional and city tourism boards, as well as city councils and other official entities) and local storytellers, to work collaboratively and showcase their cities through a conscious lens. 

Our storytellers typically reside in the city they’re writing about, or have spent a long period of time there in the recent past. Having a conscious bent of mind, they are knowledgeable about the city’s sustainability offerings – including accommodations with genuine green credentials across a range of budgets, community-owned tourism initiatives, zero waste shopping, organic and plant-based eateries, local farmers’ markets, minority-owned businesses, the city’s natural and cultural heritage, and lots more. They ideally have a strong online presence, and have been advocating for responsible travel. 

By working with a diverse group of local storytellers, we aim to amplify local voices, minimize the environmental footprint of flying in storytellers from other places, and most importantly, offer insider suggestions to travelers interested in meaningful exploration.

DMOs play a crucial role on this platform through hosting local storytellers, knowledge sharing, sponsorships, and spotlighting their city’s sustainable tourism offerings.

Whether you’re a DMO, tourism organisation/company or a storyteller, if you’d like to get involved in this initiative, we’d love to hear from you.

Who we are

SustainableCities.Travel is a collaborative effort between Climate Conscious Travel and iambassador

Climate Conscious Travel is a startup that works with tourism businesses, destinations and non-profits to integrate community-centric climate action in tourism offerings. Leveraging over a decade of award-winning impact storytelling experience, Climate Conscious Travel offers climate change communication through tourism, and designs creative storytelling projects that amplify local voices while helping tourism practitioners reach a conscious audience. 

iambassador is an award-winning boutique digital marketing agency and the world’s leading network of travel content creators. Established in 2011, iambassador specialises in digital marketing and content creation campaigns which leverage the skills and reach of professional content creators in the global travel industry. iambassador has been organising sustainable travel campaigns since 2018.

The team

Shivya Nath is an impact entrepreneur, award-winning travel writer, bestselling author, and passionate advocate for slow and meaningful travel. She is the founder of Climate Conscious Travel, an impact consultancy that is committed to accelerating community-centric climate action in tourism.

Shivya grew up in the Indian Himalayas, and began her career in the tourism industry over a decade ago, at the Singapore Tourism Board. She has traveled widely, pursuing storytelling at the intersection of travel, the environment and local communities. Her words have appeared in BBC Travel, National Geographic Traveler, The Washington Post, Travel + Leisure, Conde Nast Traveler and other leading publications. 

She is currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in Sustainability and Environmental Management at Harvard’s DCE, with a focus on regenerative tourism. She holds a professional certificate in Sustainable Tourism from the Global Sustainable Tourism Council.

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Keith Jenkins is the Founder and Publisher of the multiple award-winning Velvet Escape luxury travel blog. Based in Amsterdam, Keith is also the Founder and CEO of iambassador, a company he founded in 2011. He has traveled extensively around the world and often writes about slow, immersive travel. Keith’s work has been featured in amongst others, The New York Times, CNN, BBC Travel, Lonely Planet and National Geographic Traveler.

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Nicholas Montemaggi is the CMO at iambassador, a role he’s held since 2015. Prior to that, he spent five years (2010-2015) at the Emilia Romagna Tourist Board in Italy where he was responsible for Digital PR and International Online Media Relations. An avid triathlete, Nick is our resident IronMan who competes in races around the world.

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