Leading ski holiday company Inghams, which started operating 91 years ago with Walter Ingham offering ski holiday by rail, is going back to its roots as part of an ambitious effort to cut its CO2 impact.
The company has just published it First Impact Report which has seen it cut its emissions intensity reduction by 16% since baseline and achieve a 12% year on year decrease in its absolute emissions.
Inghams' fresh focus on trains saw the company launch 'Project Flight Free' internally in 2023. Inghams Ski partnered with Eurostar Snow train for ski packages to Tignes, Val d'Isère and Les Arcs, and additionally, Inghams launched online rail packages to ski and walking resorts across Austria, Switzerland, and France, covering over 25% of its total resorts by the end of the year. Over 130,000kg of CO2e has now been saved across all Inghams' programmes from guests making the switch to rail.
Aviation contributes 83% of Inghams and Santa's Lapland's total footprint. As the majority of the brands' guests travel from the UK, and a high proportion of Inghams' ski and walking holidays operate in mainland Europe, the operator said in a statement that it has an opportunity, and it believes, a responsibility, to make it as easy as possible for customers (and employees) to switch from plane to train.
"In 2022, we completed our first carbon audit and since then we've made great efforts in our people and planet goals. I'm incredibly proud of all the progress we've made so far, and the work we are doing to ensure our brands are better for people and planet long into the future," said John Mansell, Managing Director of Inghams and Santa's Lapland, adding, "We've been open and honest in our report about the challenges we face as tour operators, particularly around aviation decarbonisation, one of our industry's biggest challenges. The whole travel industry will need to work together if we are going to achieve the scale of change required."