Prince Harry delivers speech at Travalyst working summit

The Duke held a global virtual summit in July last year in which he said he hoped to help the tourism industry “build back better” after a devastating few months amid the coronavirus pandemic. However, there has been little coming out of the venture since July and the website does not appear to have updated at all. Meanwhile, Covid-19 and the resulting restrictions around the world continues to devastate communities whose economy relies on the tourism industry.

While the Travalyst website boasts about partnering with big businesses like Skyscanner and Booking.com, it is quite vague about what the organisation will actually do and does not appear to feature any real projects.

One critic claimed the initiative lacks any “tangible, concrete details” and that press releases contained only “buzzwords” like “sustainable tourism”, “climate change” and “conservation”.

Journalist Helen Coffey said: “How are Prince Harry and several multi-million pound companies going to change travel ‘for good’?

“What is it they’re going to do, exactly?

“When and in fact where are these projects going to materialise?”

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What’s more, Travalyst is still not registered with the Charity Commission, nearly a year and a half after the project was launched and nine months after it was registered as a limited company on April 3 last year.

Travalyst has been given hundreds of thousands of pounds that originated in a royal charity and it is unclear what this money is being used for.

The Royal Foundation, which was jointly run by the Cambridges and Sussexes until Harry and his wife Meghan Markle split from it to set up their own charity Sussex Royal, funds a number of projects through generous donations.

The now-defunct Sussex Royal and Travalyst each received a huge payout from The Royal Foundation in 2019 when the couples split their charitable endeavours.

An “unrestricted grant” of £145,000 was given to Sussex Royal to facilitate the set-up of the new charity and £144,901 of grants were paid to Travalyst.

However, after Harry and Meghan stepped down as senior royals, they were instructed not to continue using the Sussex Royal brand and so the Sussex Royal Foundation was shut down to make way for Archewell.

A source told Express.co.uk last year that all Sussex Royal funds would be transferred to Travalyst which, as of today, is still a private company, not registered as a charity as Sussex Royal was.

According to Companies House, Harry holds at least 75 percent of the shares in Travalyst.

The source said: “During its 12 months, the sole programme in operation and development at the charity has been the sustainable travel and tourism initiative, Travalyst.

“Travalyst is now operating as an independent nonprofit based in the UK, and all assets from Sussex Royal will transfer over.

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“The travel and tourism sector has been one of the hardest hit in the coronavirus pandemic, with communities and people’s livelihoods impacted around the world.

“The Travalyst partnership is committed to playing an active role in helping communities that reply on tourism rebuild and recover in ways that support their long-term sustainability and resilience.”

The royal couple filed for solvent liquidation of Sussex Royal in July, and at the same time mysteriously changed the name of the organisation to MWX Foundation.

In the Declaration of Solvency published on July 28, Sussex Royal had £99,000 in the bank and were planning to spend another £35,000 before it closed.

This means they were due to spend over half of the £145,000 grant from the Royal Foundation without having produced any tangible projects to show for it, other than Travalyst.

Meghan Markle and Harry announce new brand name ‘Archewell’

This is on top of the £144,901 grant they were given ring-fenced for Travalyst itself, which was originally under the banner of Sussex Royal.

The Royal Foundation wrote in its annual financial report covering the calendar year 2019, published in June 2020, that grant-making decisions are made by the trustees and given on the basis that the projects demonstrate a public benefit.

The report read: “Decisions on grants are made by the Trustees.

“Trustees only approve grants or fund projects which demonstrate public benefit within the criteria of the Charity Commission’s guidance.”

Yet, there has been no demonstrable public benefit as of yet, and no indication of how the money will be spent to work towards Travalyst’s stated aim to help communities thrive, tourism grow, preserve the environment and protect wildlife.

What’s more, they were likely given money from other donors, with companies like Disney paying into the Travalyst scheme.

The Declaration of Solvency also declared that £200,000 was owed to Sussex Royal, which would usually only be the case when a regular payment is made, according to finance expert Robert Leach.

In recent weeks and months all the focus has been on Harry and Meghan’s new charitable endeavour, Archewell.

As well as the Archewell Foundation, which will focus on promoting compassion online and offline, they have also signed a deal with Netflix to produce TV programmes with Archewell Productions and a Spotify deal to create the Archewell Audio podcast.

With all the focus on Archewell, there has been almost no information or discussion about where Travalyst is going, and how they will be using it to promote sustainable tourism.

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