Global awareness: tourism puts the spotlight on the state of the environment

24-09-22

A study in France revealed that 44% of people plan to change the way they spend their holidays by 2022 due to environmental concerns.

The tourism sector is becoming aware of environmental problems and is seeking to adapt to the situation, with initiatives ranging from avoiding short plane journeys and mass tourism to respecting protected areas, as reflected in the IFTM Top Résa trade fair organised in Paris.

In 2019, before the covid-19 pandemic, some 1.5 billion tourists travelled the globe, generating $1.5 trillion in revenue, according to the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO).

But the pandemic, which paralysed travel, coupled with climatic problems, have had a brutal impact on professionals in the tourism sector. A field that is "both highly vulnerable to climate change and a source of greenhouse gas emissions, one of the causes of global warming", the UNWTO acknowledged.

According to a UNWTO study published in December 2019 for COP25, the sector's CO2 emissions "should increase by at least 25% by 2030".

"There is an urgent need to increase climate action in tourism," the UNWTO said at the time, estimating that, in the end, "the cost of climate inaction would, in the long term, be higher than that of any other crisis".

At this week's IFTM Top Résa, these issues, which were rarely discussed a few years ago, are now at the centre of the debate.

At the Malaysian stand, its ambassador to France, Dato' Zamruni Khalid, explains to AFP that one of the main consequences of climate change for his country is the "abundance of rainfall that can cause flash floods".

And these rains also have an impact on the tourism economy, which accounted for 15.9% of Malaysia's GDP in 2019.

The government has launched an infrastructure modernisation plan and the country is protecting "some islands where the number of tourists is limited, especially on the Sabah coast" and several national parks, the diplomat said. But he acknowledges that "we cannot stop mass tourism".

"Travel, an exceptional thing".

Ecuador "has never been a mass tourism destination like other places in the world (...) and we want to preserve that", says Ecuador's Minister of Tourism, Niels Olsen.

In January, the country expanded its nature reserve in the Galapagos Islands, one of its main tourist attractions. But the minister went to the Paris fair to promote other more local, rural and family destinations, in search of "quality" travellers.

"It's more about increasing the quality of travellers than the volume," says Olsen, in a country where tourism accounts for only 1.5 per cent of GDP.

"Travel is not going to disappear, but it has to become more virtuous," says Eric La Bonnardière, founder of the Evaneos travel agency, which specialises in tailor-made breaks. "People will probably travel less in the future, they will take fewer planes and they will have to assume that travelling is something exceptional," he explains.

According to a study in France by the Protourisme agency, 44% of the people questioned were planning to change the way they spend their holidays in 2022, due to environmental concerns (+7 points compared to 2021 and +16 points compared to 2019).

The younger the traveller, the more they are concerned about these issues. 72% of 18-24 year olds are considering changing these practices, compared to only 34% of 50-64 year olds.

"We have a female traveller who went to Martinique and asked us to organise a trip for her where she didn't need to take a single car," recalls Eric La Bonnardière, a demand he didn't see a few years ago.

However, he notes, "there is heterogeneity in awareness (of the environment) in different parts of the world". In some places where "the number one issue is to get out of poverty, climate problems come later," he says.