Why ‘Sustainable Tourism’ Falls Short in Today’s World

The travel sector, thankfully, typically follows a one-way path, even though fashion may occasionally go in roundabouts (hello, 90s grunge). Most of us have become more aware of our travel over the past few decades, whether it’s by shaming large game hunters and private jet users or through eating at local eateries and refusing plastic straws.

In the upcoming 12 months, 71% of interviewees indicated that they wanted to travel “more sustainably,” an increase of 10% from 2021, according to Booking.com’s 2022 sustainable travel survey. Furthermore, although the term “sustainable travel” may come to mind as a twenty-first-century fad, it is actually far older. The World Tourism Organisation defined it as “tourism that fully accounts for its current and future economic, social, and environmental impacts, addressing the needs of visitors, the industry, the environment, and host communities” back in 1988, which is 15 years before Greta Thunberg was born.

Beyond the fad

Since then, the idea has become widely accepted. And while it might have motivated some of us to do what we can to lessen our influence on the environment, like taking trains instead of flying, carrying a reusable water bottle, and leaving a place nearly as we found it, it’s also developed into a catchphrase that is frequently misused.

Tour companies and hotels are happy to plaster the hashtag #sustainabletravel across their Instagram feeds, as if the use of ‘natural’ materials, a vegetarian menu, and the choice to have your room cleaned every other day to save energy (and money for the business!) were a replacement for precise goals and plans to lessen their impact on the environment.

It’s time to advance. Maintaining the status quo is, after all, a rather low bar. Don’t you think we should strive much higher than merely preventing things from getting worse, whether we’re business insiders or tourists?

Travel expenses

One possibility is to choose not to travel at all. Speedy travel across great distances is intrinsically unsustainable, at least in terms of the environment. Climate-aware Swedes use the term “smygflyga” to describe flying shame.

Nearly 4% of human-caused global warming is attributable to aviation, which is more than most entire nations. Major airlines from 184 nations promised to attain net zero carbon emissions by 2050 at a United Nations convention last October, demonstrating the battle the aviation industry is making to at least appear to be cleaning up its act. However, the truth is that flying will continue to produce significant amounts of carbon emissions for the foreseeable future. Additionally, while “slow travel” options like trains and (some) boats have lower emissions, it would be better for the environment if we all joined the micro-travel movement, which encourages us to look for small experiences close to home.

Tourism’s benefits

The social impact of sustainability is, however, another aspect of it. For their survival, billions of people rely on tourism. According to the World Travel & Tourism Council, it supported one out of every ten employment globally in 2019. As the industry recovers from the pandemic, it is anticipated that this number will be matched by the end of 2023.

Numerous of these professions are found in fragile communities, especially Indigenous ones, that are located in remote areas and where traditional forms of employment are no longer feasible, frequently as a result of climate change. Consider the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, where the amount of grass available to feed cattle has decreased due to soil degradation, or the Peruvian Amazon, where erratic floods are endangering the Maijuna people’s traditional hunting and fishing food system. One of the only potential sources of revenue in places like this is tourism.

Numerous vulnerable ecosystems that are essential for sequestering carbon are also helped by travel. One instance is Costa Rica, which had the fastest rate of deforestation on the planet in the 1970s. Today, more than 30% of the nation is preserved by national parks, in great part because ecotourism has been shown to be more lucrative than logging.

One such country where travel and tourism are actively improving the environment is Costa Rica. Regenerative travel, on the other hand, is what we really need. It focuses on improving the environmental, economic, and social systems in a location so that tourism may actively contribute to positive change.

Travelling with awareness: the future

The pandemic was the tourist industry’s version of a vacation from hell, but many locations and travel agencies have taken advantage of the forced slowdown to prepare for a regenerative future. Consider the Future of Tourism organisation, which is made up of six NGOs and urges members of the sector to ratify 13 regenerative principles. Focusing on a circular economy (such as reusing and upcycling products rather than throwing them away) and expanding the definition of economic success to take into account factors like the improvement of sustainable local supply chains rather than depending exclusively on GDP are two examples of this. 23 companies have signed the pledge so far, including the adventure travel providers Intrepid and G Adventures.

A number of additional travel agencies and hotels are leading the drive for regeneration. While Lokal Travel is an internet platform that supports local, community-run projects throughout Latin America, The Ibiti Project in Brazil is trying to rewild 6,000 hectares of degraded farmland and revitalise two impoverished villages through ecotourism.

Ecosystem Restoration Camps gives low-cost travellers the chance to learn regenerative growing techniques while helping to restore fragile ecosystems, and hiking specialist Pura Aventura aims to mitigate 160 percent of each guest’s carbon footprint by supporting a rural development project in Nicaragua that is restoring a depleted ecosystem — and offering a generous financial incentive. The dreamy Fogo Island Inn in Canada invests 100 percent of its profits back into the community.

Additionally, some entire locations are embracing a top-down regeneration strategy. The Global Sustainable Tourism Council, which establishes industry-wide sustainability standards, hails the Azores, Kaikoura, New Zealand, Val Gardena, Italy’s Dolomites, and Nuuk, the capital of Greenland, as pioneers in the field.

Picking a location that is attempting to recover from a natural disaster is another option if you’re searching for a place where your travel could actually make a difference. Bonus points if you assist with relief efforts while you’re there.

Consumer influence

In the future, travelling mindfully should entail more than just walking lightly — it should entail leaving a location in better condition than when you arrived. And it doesn’t have to be a sanctimonious attitude. Cocktails by the pool are still very much in the cards, but they’ll be produced with grain from farms that practise sustainable agriculture and served in cups handcrafted by a regional craft cooperative.

It’s up to us travellers to demonstrate that there is a market for sustainable travel. The best thing we can do is vote with our money by patronising businesses who share our beliefs and challenging those that don’t. If a company claims to be sustainable but is unable to give concrete instances of how their activities improve local lives, their circular waste disposal method, or the source of their food, there are probably more deserving destinations where you might invest your hard-earned trip money.