Wayaj has been nominated for the 2026 World AI Awards in the AI in Sustainable Tourism category, recognising a travel technology company focused on giving hotels and travellers practical tools to measure environmental impact and make more sustainability-conscious decisions.
The nomination lands in an unusually complicated corner of travel technology. Sustainability claims are everywhere. Measuring them consistently is harder.
Wayaj has built its business around that gap, developing sustainability ratings, carbon-footprint calculation tools and a travel platform designed to make environmental information more visible during trip planning.
The World AI Awards recognises organisations, individuals, products and technologies contributing to the development and application of artificial intelligence across industries. In sustainable tourism, that wider technology story increasingly involves turning fragmented environmental and operational information into something travellers and hospitality businesses can actually use.
Wayaj puts hotel sustainability into a measurable framework
At the centre of Wayaj’s approach is its Hotel Sustainability Rating (HSR).
Rather than treating a hotel as simply “green” or “not green,” the rating examines sustainability across seven categories: community, water, energy, materials and resources, indoor quality, waste and management.
The framework looks at practical issues. Energy assessments can consider metering, efficiency measures and renewable-energy use. Waste criteria examine disposal and reduction practices. Community measures include employment, local involvement and access to public or greener transportation.
That creates a structured sustainability profile that hotels can use to identify areas for improvement while giving travellers more information about the properties they choose.
Wayaj says its network covers 487 hotels in 310 cities across 109 countries, giving the company a sizeable base of accommodation providers around which to build its sustainability tools.
Carbon calculations move closer to the booking decision
Wayaj has also developed its Carbon Footprint Calculating Engine, or CFC Engine, specifically for travel and hospitality.
For hotels, the system can use actual information such as property energy consumption and occupancy rates to calculate a daily carbon footprint for different room types. A traveller can then enter details including room type, length of stay and transportation to estimate emissions associated with the trip.
The calculation is not presented as the end of the process.
Wayaj connects travellers with carbon-offset and sustainability projects, allowing them to financially support selected initiatives after seeing an estimate of their travel footprint.
The company has extended the concept through its IMMPACT programme, which calculates emissions from different forms of transport and links users with carbon-offset projects and Sustainable Actions aligned with environmental and community objectives.
Sustainable tourism becomes a data problem
There is another side to Wayaj’s technology that matters just as much: helping hospitality businesses decide what to improve.
Its Sustainability Compliance Program uses a property’s Hotel Sustainability Rating to identify potential changes involving areas such as water consumption, energy efficiency, sustainable sourcing, waste management and community engagement.
That turns sustainability measurement into something closer to an operational roadmap.
The model has also moved into destination-level partnerships. The Saint Lucia Hotel and Tourism Association documented work with Wayaj and the Saint Lucia National Conservation Fund aimed at connecting travellers with locally relevant conservation and carbon-offset initiatives. Later reporting from the association identified projects involving coral-reef restoration and cocoa farming in Laborie.
This is where the AI in Sustainable Tourism category raises an important distinction. Wayaj’s public material clearly documents digital sustainability measurement, carbon calculations and data-driven tools. It does not, however, provide enough technical detail to independently establish which current products use artificial intelligence or machine learning internally.
The nomination should therefore not be read as evidence that every Wayaj sustainability product is AI-powered.
Graham Cooke, President of the World AI Awards, said:
“Wayaj’s nomination highlights an important opportunity for technology in sustainable tourism: making environmental information easier for travellers and hospitality businesses to understand and act upon.
“From hotel sustainability assessment to carbon-footprint calculations, Wayaj is addressing the practical challenge of turning sustainability data into decisions that can be made during both hotel operations and the travel journey. We congratulate the Wayaj team on its 2026 World AI Awards nomination in AI in Sustainable Tourism and look forward to following its continued development.”
Wayaj joins organisations, entrepreneurs, researchers and technology developers being recognised through the 2026 World AI Awards.
The programme recognises organisations, individuals and technologies contributing to the development and application of artificial intelligence across industries. Sustainable tourism presents a particularly interesting test: technology has to move beyond broad environmental promises and help businesses and travellers understand measurable choices.
Wayaj’s work sits directly inside that problem. Its sustainability rating gives hotels a framework for examining operations. Its carbon tools bring emissions estimates closer to individual trips. Its wider platform connects those measurements with accommodation choices and sustainability initiatives.
The bigger idea is straightforward. Travel will not become more sustainable because a website adds a green badge. Better information has to reach the people making the decisions.
Learn more about Wayaj and its sustainable tourism technology at wayaj.com.
Discover the World AI Awards 2026, explore the nominees and learn more about the awards at worldawards.ai.
