As intermediaries between tourists and tourism service providers, tour operators bring together a variety of tourism-related services to form a complete holiday package which is then marketed to customers either directly or through travel agents. Each package generally consists of accommodation (often including some food provision), transport both to and from the destination, ground transport within the destination and events or activities such as excursions and social activities. Tour operators are not always in direct control of the environmental and social impacts of those products. Yet, consumers increasingly expect the tour operators they buy from to ensure that their products provide not just quality and value-for-money, but also safeguard environmental and social sustainability.

Example
The Green Travel Market
The Green Travel Market is a global facility to integrate sustainable products into the packages of European and Northern American tour operators. Green Travel Market - including hundreds of sustainable products - was launched on the internet as a "business to business" service.
Green Travel Market gives up-to-date and reliable information on existing sustainable tourism products. Different types of highly sustainable tourism products along the "tourism supply chain" participate in the Green Travel Market: destinations, protected areas, accommodation networks, individual accommodation, community based tourism networks, visitor attractions and activities, excursions or tours, incoming tour operators and transport services. The Green Travel Market offers a wide array of services to help local products, services to reach the European and US tour operators and media. Green Travel Marker is in contact with more than 1.500 touroperators.

www.greentravelmarket.info