Tourism is still riding the wave of people’s pent-up need to travel that intensified over the course of the pandemic. Many of us are now making it a point to take those trips that we had to put off. And who’s to say when another health contagion could shut things down again?
But if you’re worried about climate change, there is a lot at stake when it comes to travel and vacationing.
According to United Nations Tourism, the world’s destinations welcomed 22 percent more tourists in the third quarter of 2023 compared to the same time period in the previous year. And levels of travel reached 88 percent of pre-pandemic levels by the end of 2023.
While this is good news for tourist destinations and the countries that benefit from the revenue the business brings in, there is a dark cloud on the horizon. Climate change is having a noticeable impact on tourist destinations and the industry itself.
When we look at 2023, it was a hot year. The data record of Copernicus, the Earth observation component of the European Union’s space program, revealed it was the world’s warmest year. And it is likely that 2024 may break that record again by the time the year is done.
“The overall context hasn’t changed; our climate continues to warm. The devastating effects of climate change started well before 2023 and will continue until global greenhouse gas emissions reach net-zero,” Samantha Burgess, Deputy Director of Copernicus, said in a statement.
A University of Cambridge document titled Climate Change: Implications for Tourism noted that the tourism industry is exposed to indirect and direct impacts of climate change, including sea-level rise and an increase in acidic levels in the ocean that threaten coastal tourism—especially coral reefs.
Rising temperatures will also shorten winter sports seasons which will impact ski resorts. The author writes, “The tourism sector is operating in an environment of considerable uncertainty… Some parts of the world will be more sensitive to climate change than others. Climate change will also provide opportunities, with new regions and types of tourism becoming attractive to tourists. However, these opportunities may well be short-lived, and dwarfed by the negative impacts that the sector is already beginning to feel from climate change.”
Already, prime tourism season is moving from summer to spring and fall—and businesses reliant on the industry are feeling the flux.
As a case in point, some regions are seeing a positive uptick in number of tourists. As the temperatures rise ever higher in Mediterranean countries, Scandinavian ones like Norway and Sweden are seeing more travelers coming to escape the hot temperatures during the summer months. Northern countries like Canada may see a large increase in tourism dollars in the future. But for each winner, there will be many losers, and not only in tourism.
Beaches are particularly vulnerable to climate change, not only from more frequent and severe storms but also from rising water levels. The World Tourism and Travel Council found that an unusually strong hurricane season in 2017 cost the Caribbean 826,100 visitors who could have generated $741 million in revenue. The storms also had the add-on effect of increasing insurance premiums by 40 percent—all this in a region where tourism makes up 30 percent of GDP.
In Southeast Asia, some of the world’s most iconic coastlines are feeling the fallout of environmental damage. Thailand’s Maya Bay, Vietnam’s Hạ Long Bay, and Boracay in the Philippines are all being impacted. There has been notable damage to coral reefs, beaches strewn in garbage, and sewage-filled waters. And some countries are closing tourist destinations to give them time to recover.
In Africa, loss of biodiversity, which is linked to climate change and forecasted to impact over half of the continent’s species, would in turn trigger a huge loss in plant species. In Northern climates like the Alps, we have seen a drop in snow cover by 8.4 percent per decade in the last 50 years. Resorts like Whistler Mountain in Canada, famous for skiing, now actually make more money in the summer.
And the economic impact of all this could be very significant, because tourism is very big business. According to the research firm Statista, the market size of global tourism rose significantly in 2023 to $1.9 trillion, and it is expected to reach $2 trillion dollars in 2024.
But the industry itself is a contributor to environmental concerns, specifically the transportation aspects of it. An estimated 11 percent of the world’s greenhouse gases are linked to tourism, and that is predicted to double by 2050. Air travel is the biggest driver of this, particularly those long-haul roundtrip flights that are more than 9,941 miles (basically the distance between New York and Cairo, Egypt). A 2023 report, Envisioning Tourism in 2023 and Beyond – The Changing Shape of Tourism in a Decarbonising World, from the Travel Foundation states that these long flights need to stay static at 2019 levels for the next 27 years to curb damage. At the same time, alternative travel modes that use clearer fuel options like electric vehicles and highspeed trains need to increase to help offset the emissions that are already in the atmosphere.
As Jeremy Sampson, CEO of the Travel Foundation, told Bloomberg News about the intention behind the report: “Our hope is to spark further dialogue and to help destinations and businesses recognize that the business-as-usual scenario is not all that likely for the future.”
Beyond air travel, there are other considerable sources of emissions linked to the industry, like cruises and hotel construction.
So, for its own sake, how does the tourism industry help stop or at least slow down the impact it is having on the planet? The answer could be twofold. On one hand, it comes down to the people who are taking the trips and the countries and destinations that support tourism.
From a traveler point of view, understanding the impact of our travel plans on the planet may make some rethink how we should travel and where we should travel to. Companies like Booking.com are looking at how to display carbon emissions on flights and hotels. Others are taking a different approach to how they travel.
There’s a movement toward “slow travel,” a term to describe shorter, more immersive travel such as backroad backpacking or mindful, environmentally responsible modes of travel. It’s really the opposite of using the fastest way (with often the largest environmental impact) to get to a destination. The trend also ties into localism and the renewed interest in supporting our communities that came out of the COVID pandemic. In a Condé Nast Traveler article on slow travel in April 2023, Chyanne Trenholm, a member of the Homalco First Nation and assistant manager of Homalco Wildlife and Cultural Tours, talks about people looking for a different experience. The company organizes tours to local communities on Vancouver Island in a way that celebrates the Indigenous culture of stewardship of the land. “If slow travel is all about taking the time to properly connect with a place and its people, then yes, it’s something I’m all for,” Trenholm says. “It’s about taking time to make a connection to the land and each other.”
Governments and tourist boards also have a role in encouraging responsible tourism through developing policy. Many of the countries that benefit from the money tourism generates are in the Global South, but most of that money comes from people from wealthier northern countries who travel. So, if countries act to reduce or stop travel, it could have severe impacts to economies, industry experts say. “Do we need to cap the Global South, or do we need to cap some of the highest-volume airports in that long-haul aviation? This is exactly the discussion we need to have in this unprecedented, collaborative way,” Megan Morikawa, global director of sustainability for travel giant Iberostar Group, told Bloomberg News. “If we are making assumptions on who the winners and losers should be, we’re going to end up making decisions that might make equity issues even worse.”
Like governments, the industry itself will need to adapt to the changing climate and find ways to reduce the impact it has on the planet. But sustainability costs, and competition is fierce—will travelers be willing to pay more for a sustainable option? Booking.com’s 2023 Sustainable Travel Report says that 43 percent would, and that 50 percent of travelers generally choose sustainable travel options because they care about the impact of their travels.
The real test may come when we all must decide whether travel is worth the price to the planet.
