IATA and WSHA Bring Airlines and Hotels Together for More Sustainable Hotel Buying

Signed at IATA’s World Sustainability Symposium, the agreement will help airlines bring clearer sustainability requirements into hotel selection and contracting.

An airline's sustainability responsibilities reach beyond the aircraft it flies, extending to the businesses it buys from and the accommodation it books. Hotel procurement is now the starting point for a new agreement between the International Air Transport Association (IATA) and the World Sustainable Hospitality Alliance (WSHA), bringing the two sectors closer on the environmental and social questions they share.

Signed at IATA's World Sustainability Symposium, the agreement will help airlines bring clearer sustainability requirements into hotel selection and contracting. The work will draw on airline procurement needs and the hospitality sector's experience to produce guidance that purchasing teams can use in everyday decisions.

Both industries face growing expectations around responsible sourcing, environmental management, social responsibility and supply chain performance. Measuring and reporting that work is becoming more complex, creating a shared need for consistent information and practical ways to assess suppliers.

Bringing Sustainability Into Hotel Selection

IATA and WSHA will jointly develop guidance for airlines procuring hotel accommodation, drawing on IATA's Integrated Sustainability Program (ISP) and WSHA's Universal Sustainability KPIs Programme.

The guidance will cover sustainability evaluation criteria for hotel tenders, environmental, social and governance considerations for contracts, and case studies showing good practice. For procurement teams, that means support at several points in the buying process, from deciding what to ask a prospective hotel supplier to addressing sustainability in the final agreement.

The focus gives the partnership a concrete place to begin. Hotel purchasing connects the two industries directly, making it an opportunity to turn shared sustainability concerns into requirements that airlines can communicate and hotels can respond to.

Connecting Airline Needs With Hotel Experience

Marie Owens Thomsen, IATA's Senior Vice President Sustainability and Chief Economist, said the collaboration reflects the role suppliers play in an airline's wider performance.

"Airlines' sustainability performance includes many partners that support their operations," she said.

She explained that connecting airline procurement priorities with hospitality expertise will strengthen the ISP, support stronger supplier engagement and help airlines make better-informed purchasing decisions across the travel value chain.

For hotels, the collaboration offers a way to bring sector-specific knowledge into the criteria airlines use to assess accommodation providers. Its practical value will depend on guidance that makes those expectations easier to understand and apply.

A Shared Approach to Measurement

Glenn Mandziuk, WSHA President & CEO, described the agreement as a step towards more connected working across travel.

"Sustainability across the travel ecosystem cannot be achieved in silos," he said.

Mandziuk said the partnership would bring aviation and hospitality together around unified, practical standards for hotel procurement, helping both industries move beyond fragmented reporting and pursue measurable environmental and social improvements.

That emphasis addresses a concern shared by airlines and hotels: sustainability information needs to be useful for purchasing decisions as well as reporting. The planned guidance will connect those expectations with the questions buyers ask and the commitments suppliers make.

Cooperation Beyond Hotel Contracts

The initial work centres on hotel procurement, with several other areas identified for possible longer-term cooperation. These include sustainability performance measurement and reporting, plastic and waste reduction, community engagement, human rights, climate resilience and resource efficiency.

IATA and WSHA may also explore how closer cooperation between airlines and hotels could support sustainability at destinations and across corporate and leisure travel.

Those areas remain possibilities for future work. The immediate commitment is to develop practical procurement guidance, giving airlines and hotels a clearer foundation for addressing sustainability together through their business relationships.