People all over the world travel for different reasons: adventure, leisure, visiting families/friends, etc. Hence, global travel as a system has seen huge growth in recent times, with the number of international tourist arrivals being said to have doubled over the past two decades, surpassing 1.4 billion in 2018. Also, it is said that after the pandemic, in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, people have been extending their travel time for at least two more days longer than before the pandemic.
The growth of the global travel system has a great effect on society. It has been recorded to have caused massive gas emissions. The Minister of Tourism, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, says in this report, “Travel & tourism has serious environmental impacts. It is responsible for 8% of carbon emissions globally. Travelers can consume two to three times more water than local residents.” This is to mention a few of the impacts of global tourism on the environment. This points out the need for sustainable travel practices.
Certain cities and countries have been putting sustainable travel initiatives into place, like Iceland’s measures of limiting the number of tourists to protect natural landscapes, Palau’s compulsory visitor pledge to protect the culture and environment, and Bhutan’s controlled tourism to preserve cultural heritage and natural resources.
What Is Sustainable Travel/Tourism?
While acknowledging the positive and negative impacts of tourism, sustainable travel is a system aimed at increasing the positive effects and reducing the negative consequences of global travel on the environment, economy, and culture of countries.
According to the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), the principles of sustainable travel are conserving natural heritage and protecting biodiversity, respecting and supporting the cultures of host communities while providing benefits for them, and meeting the needs of the tourists and tourism industry while creating socio-economic rewards for all stakeholders.
We will explain how sustainable travel benefits travelers, destinations, and the planet, and we expect you to see why you should follow the sustainable travel principles in your subsequent tours. Sustainable travel gives the visitor insights and educational experiences about the city or the country, it also benefits visitors in a way that it gives them a more meaningful connection with the communities they visit and advances their mental well-being.
On the side of the destinations, sustainability helps advance and maintain the culture of the destinations; it preserves and improves the greenness of the environment, and it is more so when visitors are eco-conscious. One big benefit is finance; a constantly visited environment gains huge financial benefits from tourists.
Lastly, on the side of our planet, sustainable travel generally makes the world a greener, better, and bonded place. It is reported that Travel & Tourism accounted for over 10% of global GDP and 1 in 10 jobs on the planet in 2019.
Benefits of Sustainable Travel
Sustainable travel helps preserve the environment; when measures are in place, and visitors are eco-conscious about their tourism/visit, natural resources are maintained. There is lower damage to the natural resources and substances around. Also, with visitors being sustainable in their travel, carbon emissions are reduced when they use greener modes of transport, the use of natural resources is minimized, minding the welfare of the natural substances, and more measures are monitored; therefore, pollution is reduced, and the travels are sustainable.
Sustainable travel also benefits localities when the visitors engage with local stores, restaurants, hotels, products, etc; this makes local economies progress and advance.
When we have sustainable travelers visiting, they visit with a sense of respect for their destinations’ culture, traditions, and customs, which preserves, maintains, and advances the customs, traditions, and culture of these destinations.
These and more show the need for us to push the concept of sustainable travel in our communities, localities, cities, states, regions, countries, continents, and consequently, the world.
Practical Tips for Traveling Sustainably
These are tips you can consider and follow on your next trip to make your travel experience an eco-friendly journey and make yourself a sustainable traveler/tourist. These are practical, proven tips that have been followed over time, and we have gathered them around for you to be a sustainable tourist/visitor/traveler.
1. Choose Eco-Friendly Accommodations
As a sustainable traveler, when you go on a tour, go for green accommodations. Choose hotels that pursue helping the environment, accommodations that use flow-restrictive shower heads, etc. Places with such measures are the best for you as a green traveler.
The Center for Responsible Travel’s Executive Directors Louise and Gregory Miller, advises that when looking for hotels, you should always find places that have written policies on how they work alongside local communities, take care of waste, and help green initiatives like reforestation.
2. Select Sustainable Transportation
How you get to your destination matters a lot, too. As a sustainable traveler, your mode of transportation should not heavily pollute the environment or damage it too much. You should go for modes of travel that emit very low amounts of carbon/other harmful gases.
Research tells us that air travel, driving, and other forms of transportation make up the largest part of tourism’s carbon footprint. So you should try as much as you can to use greener modes of transportation. If the distance requires you to fly, ensure you take direct flights to leave a smaller carbon footprint.
3. Try Unpopular Destinations
Some travel destinations are usually overhyped, which makes these places overcrowded. Overcrowding a place isn’t safe for the environment; it causes heat tension, more air combustion and pollution, more water usage and pollution, more noise pollution, and the use of substances that produce waste that pollute the environment.
As a green traveler and advocate for sustainable traveling, you can reduce over-tourism on your end by visiting less-visited destinations. With this, you not only have a better tour for yourself but also make our planet better. When you visit less crowded destinations, you put less strain on the natural resources of the destination.
4. Travel Slow, Stay a While
When traveling, you shouldn’t just be sight-seeing; you should be a ‘visitor.’ You should spend time at each destination you go to. The essence of real traveling and tourism is to get to know other cultures, peoples, and places, so you shouldn’t water down the essence of traveling in your tours.
When you travel slowly, you will experience the place you are visiting, you will get a better knowledge and understanding, and be part of their culture. You will connect better with the people and learn more. The benefits of traveling slowly aren’t limited to that; it also reduces your carbon footprint, making the world safer.
5. Avoid Single-Use Plastics
Your travel isn’t sustainable if it leaves a negative impact on your destination’s environment (consequently, on the world). One common material that pollutes our environment is plastic. It is said that 8 million metric tons of plastic end up in our oceans. International bodies are still looking to curtail the impact of this on the world. You shouldn’t add to this plastic pollution menace in your travel period.
From your next tour, use reusable bottles, a bag for shopping, and utensils to avoid plastic cutlery. Following these and more that you think and know would reduce your plastic use, aid the world, and make you a sustainable traveler.
6. Leave No Trace
Every destination has its cultural, historical, and traditional heritage that has been maintained for decades and even centuries. As a traveler, you must respect these heritages and anything related to them.
To maintain sustainability in your travel, you should just maintain a view of anything cultural or historic but try your best not to tamper with them at all as it could be disregarding and overstepping bounds. Anything marked as out of bounds should be avoided solely. It’s best to leave natural objects as you find them; be it a rock, a plant, or anything else. Avoid bringing non-native species and building structures, furniture, or even digging trenches.
7. Dispose of Garbage Wisely
Travelers and tourists are fond of being reluctant to the welfare of their destinations, so one of the results is polluting the environment with garbage from things they eat and use. You shouldn’t be so; you should follow local recycling and waste disposal guidelines the same way you would in your home and vicinity.
When you practice this, you make the world better, leave your destination better than you met it, and contribute to society’s advancement. Your garbage and waste can be used for something better, and you can use it for positivity. Would you rather damage the planet with your waste when it can make it better?
8. Support Local Communities
The local communities you visit have residents and citizens who are native to the place and have more knowledge of their culture. They have local creativity and can portray their local culture more to you locally, and typically, these are the people you should patronize. For instance, if you’re visiting Dhaka the locals can find the best way to offer you a real Dhaka experience. This makes your visit fulfilling.
Doing this not only gives you a real experience of the destination but also promotes the economy of the community you visit.
9. Conserve Natural Resources
Tourism puts a lot more pressure on the water and energy demand in destinations, and this harms communities that can’t keep up with the struggle. It makes them opt for non-sustainable measures to satisfy everyone (residents and tourists/visitors) and this affects our planet.
Adopt green measures in your usage of water and energy. Minimize your use of water and energy, and go for green energy options, if available. When you do this, you conserve natural resources, do not cause inconvenience to the residents of the places you visit, and minimize the pressure on the city to satisfy everyone with green measures.
10. Respect Wildlife and Natural Habitats
When you go for wildlife tourism, it is a sustainable practice to maintain a distance from wild animals. You must give animals room; it is beneficial to you and the animals. There have been many reports of human and animal casualties during wildlife visits. Many parks require you to stay a minimum distance of 25 yards from most wildlife and 100 yards from predators like bears and wolves.
When you visit wildlife, you should follow the guidelines given by the parks. Avoid any kind of disruption and overstepping of bounds. With this, you keep yourself, animals, parks, and the world sustainable.
Case Studies and Examples
The tourism/travel sector is advancing, and travelers/tourists along with hosts are following innovative measures to make the sector more sustainable.
When travelers stay longer in their destinations, rather than going from one place to another to another, they are immersed in the culture of the destination, as said earlier, and it reduces their carbon footprint. This approach to travel, called slow travel, is one that sustains the environment and makes the environment greener and the travel sector sustainable.
The pursuit of making the travel sector sustainable has brought innovations such as solar-powered transportation. Airbus is looking to develop an efficient and sustainable solar-powered aircraft. The company currently has Zephyr, a non-passenger vehicle that can fly for months at a time.
Virgin Atlantic, for example, did a test with a Boeing 787 powered only by sustainable aviation fuel. This fuel was made using sugars and waste fats.
These examples showcase the efforts to advance the travel sector to become more sustainable.
Closing Thoughts
As sustainable travel is all about leaving a positive impact on the environment globally, your travel experiences can be better for yourself and the planet when it’s sustainable. You need to understand that your little actions matter a lot to the collective impact of travel on the planet.
You should be mindful and intentional about your actions when you travel, as they can make or mar the ecology of the earth. Would you rather leave a negative impact on our planet when your little deeds can make it better? Let’s stay conscious of our little impacts, ensuring that the world gets better in our hands.
