Julie Cheetham is ten months into her role as CEO of Travalyst, the not-for-profit coalition of travel and technology companies founded by Prince Harry. In this conversation with PhocusWire’s Linda Fox, recorded in the PhocusWire Studio at Phocuswright Europe 2026, Cheetham argues that sustainability has not slipped down the corporate agenda despite global conflict and economic pressure. Instead, senior leaders now frame it around revenue, risk and efficiency. Hotels are already seeing climate change hit the bottom line.

Cheetham explains why credible data changes traveler behavior. The Travel Impact Model, built by the Travalyst coalition with Google, has surfaced aviation emissions data in more than 160 billion searches, and travelers pick the lower-impact option when price and routing are close. She also covers the rise in bookings at third-party certified properties, AI’s role in spreading tourists to lesser-known destinations and multimodal planning, and the push to consolidate competing certification schemes.

Julie Cheetham is ten months into her role as CEO of Travalyst, the not-for-profit coalition of travel and technology companies founded by Prince Harry. In this conversation with PhocusWire&rsquo;s Linda Fox, recorded in the PhocusWire Studio at Phocuswright Europe 2026, Cheetham argues that sustainability has not slipped down the corporate agenda despite global conflict and economic pressure. Instead, senior leaders now frame it around revenue, risk and efficiency. Hotels are already seeing climate change hit the bottom line.
Cheetham explains why credible data changes traveler behavior. The Travel Impact Model, built by the Travalyst coalition with Google, has surfaced aviation emissions data in more than 160 billion searches, and travelers pick the lower-impact option when price and routing are close. She also covers the rise in bookings at third-party certified properties, AI&rsquo;s role in spreading tourists to lesser-known destinations and multimodal planning, and the push to consolidate competing certification schemes.

A regular dissection of the news, issues and trends in travel and technology, featuring interviews with industry executives and entrepreneurs and hosted by PhocusWire editors.

A regular dissection of the news, issues and trends in travel and technology, featuring interviews with industry executives and entrepreneurs and hosted by PhocusWire editors.

In Phocus is a regular dissection of the news, issues and trends in travel and technology, featuring interviews with industry executives and entrepreneurs and hosted by PhocusWire editors.

In Phocus

Travalyst CEO Julie Cheetham explains how travel sustainability has become a conversation about revenue and risk, and why shared data is changing how travelers book.