How Smart Planner Classifies the Eco-Friendliness of Activities and Tours

Travelling more responsibly starts with having better information.

Smart Planner is an AI-powered regenerative tourism platform designed to help travellers and travel agencies plan and experience more personalised and meaningful journeys while making informed choices about the places they visit and the tourism businesses they support.

Across the Smart Planner platform, travellers can discover accommodation, places to eat, activities and tours, transport services, attractions, and other tourism experiences. Alongside information about what each experience offers, Smart Planner provides additional information designed to help travellers understand its environmental, cultural and community considerations.

One of the ways we do this is through the Smart Planner Eco-Friendly Classification Badge.

The badge provides travellers with a simple indication of the observable eco-friendly practices associated with an activity or tour operator. Behind that simple badge is a structured classification framework designed to assess businesses consistently while avoiding reliance on vague or unsupported sustainability claims.

Building a Framework for Activities and Tours

Different areas of tourism have different environmental and social impacts.

The sustainability considerations associated with a hotel, for example, can be very different from those of a wildlife cruise, guided hike, cultural experience, cycling tour or adventure activity.

For this reason, Smart Planner commissioned a dedicated report to establish a Guest-Observable Eco-Friendliness Classification Framework specifically for tourism activities and tour operators.

The framework was designed for a wide range of experiences, including cultural tours, sightseeing, adventure activities, wildlife experiences, marine activities, attractions, excursions and day tours.

Importantly, the framework considers not only environmental practices, but also how tourism activities interact with local communities, culture and the places in which they operate.

A Guest-Observable Approach

Smart Planner's approach is based on an important principle: classification should be supported by evidence that travellers can reasonably observe or verify.

The framework is therefore not intended to be a complete environmental audit of a tourism business.

Instead, it considers information that can reasonably be identified before booking, during the booking process, while participating in an activity, through recent guest information, through recognised certification directories, or through information provided by the operator or its guides.

This distinction is important.

Many environmental claims involve complex operational information that travellers cannot independently verify. Rather than assuming that every sustainability claim represents proven environmental performance, the Smart Planner approach favours visible practices, transparent information and credible evidence.

Examples might include the transport used during a tour, refill facilities, reusable equipment, wildlife interaction rules, group-size controls, conservation practices, local suppliers, cultural protocols, guide briefings and recognised environmental certifications.

The underlying framework deliberately takes a conservative approach to unsupported claims so that an operator is not awarded a high classification simply because it uses terms such as "eco", "green" or "sustainable" in its marketing.

The Six Core Classification Criteria

The complete research framework identifies 12 potential assessment criteria for tourism activities and tours.

However, for the first version of the Smart Planner platform, the Eco-Friendly Classification is based on six core classification areas identified by the framework as particularly important and broadly observable across tourism activity types.

These core areas are:

1. Verification and Truthful Communication

We consider how clearly an operator communicates its sustainability practices and whether those claims can be supported by credible evidence.

An operator providing detailed, activity-specific information about its environmental and community practices demonstrates a stronger level of transparency than one simply describing itself as "eco-friendly".

Recognised certifications, dated sustainability information, published performance data and independently verified information can provide stronger evidence.

The principle is simple: the stronger the sustainability claim, the stronger the supporting evidence should be.

2. Transport, Energy and Climate Impact

Transport can represent one of the most significant environmental impacts associated with tours and activities.

Smart Planner therefore considers whether operators demonstrate efforts to reduce transport-related impacts where practical.

This could include walking or cycling experiences, use of public transport, shared transfers, efficient route planning, lower-emission vehicles or other approaches designed to reduce unnecessary travel and emissions.

Higher levels of performance may be associated with operators that actively prioritise lower-carbon transport and can demonstrate that they measure, manage or reduce emissions associated with their activities.

The assessment also recognises context. A walking tour through a city and an expedition into a remote area have very different transport requirements and should not be assessed as though their operating environments were identical.

3. Waste, Plastics and Circularity

Activities and tours can generate waste through bottled water, food packaging, disposable equipment, takeaway products and other single-use materials.

The classification considers what an operator does to prevent this waste from being created in the first place.

Observable practices might include encouraging guests to bring reusable bottles, providing refill facilities, using reusable containers and equipment, avoiding unnecessary disposable products, and following appropriate waste pack-out and separation practices.

Operators demonstrating systematic reuse and significant reductions in single-use plastics can achieve stronger performance within this area.

4. Nature, Wildlife and Site Stewardship

Tourism activities often take place in environmentally sensitive locations, making responsible interaction with nature particularly important.

Smart Planner considers whether the activity demonstrates practices designed to protect the natural environment and minimise disturbance.

Examples can include staying on approved tracks, protecting sensitive areas, preventing wildlife feeding or disturbance, following appropriate wildlife viewing distances, respecting protected-area requirements and providing clear conservation guidance to guests.

Operators may demonstrate stronger performance when they actively contribute to conservation, restoration, citizen science or other credible nature-positive initiatives.

For wildlife and nature-based experiences, these considerations become particularly important. Activities involving inappropriate wildlife feeding, chasing, touching or manipulation may significantly restrict the classification an experience can achieve.

5. Local Benefit and Cultural Respect

Eco-friendly and responsible tourism is about more than environmental impact.

Tourism should also respect the people, communities and cultures connected with a destination.

Smart Planner therefore considers whether activities create visible benefits for local communities and whether cultural experiences are presented respectfully and accurately.

This can include employing local guides, working with local suppliers, incorporating locally produced food or products, supporting community enterprises and ensuring local stories are appropriately attributed.

For cultural and Indigenous experiences, consideration may also be given to whether appropriate permissions and cultural protocols are followed and whether local or Indigenous people are meaningfully involved in developing, approving or delivering the experience.

Smart Planner does not assume that something is culturally responsible simply because it is marketed as "authentic". Evidence of appropriate local involvement, attribution and respect matters.

6. Guide Interpretation and Visitor Management

Tour guides can have an enormous influence on how visitors interact with a destination.

A knowledgeable guide does more than provide information about what travellers are seeing. They can help visitors understand why a place matters and how they can experience it responsibly.

Smart Planner therefore considers the quality of environmental and cultural guidance provided to guests, including information about site rules, appropriate behaviour, sustainability practices, local context and responsible interactions with nature and communities.

Strong interpretation can help transform an activity from simply visiting a place into understanding and respecting it.

Higher classifications may reflect place-specific interpretation, strong visitor-management practices, trained or appropriately qualified guides and evidence that interpretation has been developed or reviewed with relevant experts or communities.

What Do the Eco-Friendly Classification Levels Mean?

Smart Planner translates the assessment into an easy-to-understand 1-to-5 Eco-Friendly Classification.

The distinction between the levels is important. Smart Planner does not intend the highest classification simply to mean that an operator says more about sustainability. Higher classifications require progressively stronger practices and evidence.

Evidence Matters

An important part of the Smart Planner classification methodology is considering the quality of the available evidence.

The underlying framework identifies different types of evidence, ranging from independent verification and recognised certification through to operator documentation, direct guest-observable practices and unsupported marketing statements.

Independent certification, official permits, public impact reporting or verified environmental performance information provide stronger evidence than a general sustainability statement.

Operator information can also provide useful evidence when it is sufficiently specific—for example, published policies, codes of conduct, guide information, supplier information or clearly documented operating practices.

Traveller-observable evidence is particularly relevant to the Smart Planner approach. Guests may be able to see the transport being used, hear the environmental briefing provided by a guide, observe refill systems, understand group-size limits, see how wildlife encounters are managed or identify whether local suppliers are incorporated into an experience.

Unsupported marketing language alone provides much weaker evidence.

This evidence-based approach is intended to help reduce the risk of greenwashing and provide travellers with a more meaningful classification.

Different Activities Require Different Considerations

A fundamental principle behind the framework is that context matters.

A city walking tour, reef snorkelling experience, Indigenous cultural tour and remote adventure expedition should not be judged according to identical operational details.

Instead, Smart Planner applies common principles while considering the nature of the activity.

For example, wildlife experiences require particular attention to wildlife interaction and animal welfare. Marine activities may require greater consideration of water pollution, reef-safe practices, vessel behaviour and plastics. Cultural experiences require particular attention to cultural protocols, permissions, attribution and community involvement.

Adventure activities may place greater emphasis on route selection, group size, erosion, noise, visitor behaviour and waste in remote environments.

Urban sightseeing experiences may place comparatively greater emphasis on low-impact transportation, local economic benefit, cultural accuracy, waste avoidance and responsible visitor management.

The objective is not to make every tourism activity operate in exactly the same way. It is to apply consistent principles in ways that make sense for different experiences.

A Classification, Not a Full Sustainability Audit

It is important for travellers and operators to understand what the Smart Planner badge represents.

The Eco-Friendly Classification is a guest-observable classification tool, not a comprehensive environmental or sustainability audit.

There are aspects of a tourism business that Smart Planner cannot independently determine from publicly available or guest-observable information.

For example, accurately calculating total greenhouse gas emissions, verifying every supplier's labour practices, measuring biodiversity outcomes or auditing internal environmental management systems requires significantly more information and specialist assessment.

Where credible public information or independent certification is available, this can strengthen an operator's classification.

The approach may also mean that some genuinely responsible small operators receive a lower initial classification simply because there is limited information available about their practices.

This is intentional. The methodology is designed to avoid awarding high classifications based on assumptions.

The good news is that responsible operators do not necessarily need complicated sustainability reports to demonstrate good practices. Clear information about low-impact transport, waste reduction, responsible visitor behaviour, local sourcing, conservation practices, cultural protocols and honest communication can provide meaningful evidence.

Helping Travellers Make More Informed Choices

Smart Planner's Eco-Friendly Classification Badge is ultimately designed to make sustainability information easier to understand and use.

Rather than expecting travellers to investigate dozens of environmental claims every time they book an experience, Smart Planner provides a consistent classification that can become one of the factors travellers consider alongside location, price, interests, accessibility and the type of experience they are looking for.

The badge is not intended to tell travellers which activity they must choose.

It is intended to provide better information so travellers can make their own informed choices.

Over time, we also hope this approach encourages tourism businesses to communicate their environmental, cultural and community practices more clearly, helping responsible operators receive greater recognition for the work they are already doing.

Are You an Activity or Tour Operator? Talk to us

Smart Planner recognises that tourism businesses continually evolve.

New environmental initiatives may be introduced, certifications may be achieved, transport fleets may change, conservation partnerships may be established, or information available to travellers may be improved.

If you are an activity or tour operator listed on Smart Planner and believe that your Eco-Friendly Classification does not accurately reflect your current practices, you can contact the Smart Planner team and request a review of your classification.

Providing clear and current evidence about your practices will help our team review the information available and ensure the classification reflects the strongest credible evidence available.

Our objective is to make the process transparent, practical and fair - helping travellers make better-informed decisions while recognising tourism operators that are taking meaningful steps to protect nature, respect culture, support local communities and improve the way tourism contributes to the places we visit.