‘Things have to change’: tourism businesses look
to a greener future
While the pandemic has dealt travel a severe blow,
some hope it can be an opportunity to introduce slower, fairer, more
sustainable holidays
Jane
Dunford
Published
onThu 28 May 2020 06.20 BST
No planes
in the sky, empty hotels and deserted attractions: with the world at a
standstill, tourism has been one of the industries worst-hit by the Covid-19
pandemic. International arrivals this year could be down by 80% compared with
2019, according to the World Tourism Organization, and more than 100 million
jobs are under threat.
But as
destinations slowly start to emerge from lockdown and borders tentatively
reopen, many in the sector are wondering if this is a chance for tourism to
rebuild in a greener, more sustainable way.
“Of course,
it’s completely devastating – but it’s also provided a much-needed chance for
introspection,” said Sam Bruce of Much Better Adventures, who is a co-founder
of campaigning group Tourism Declares a Climate Emergency. “Things needed to
change. It’s an opportunity for everyone from tourist boards to tour operators
to reset and to look at how things can be better – for the planet, for local
communities and for travellers.”
In Venice – one of the most overtouristed cities, with
an estimated 25 million foreign visitors a year – officials are using the pause
to rethink “an entire Venice system”, with sustainability and quality tourism
at its core, said Paola Mar, the city’s councillor for tourism. Part of the
plan is to lure locals back to live permanently in the city. The mayor is in
discussions with universities, aiming to offer tourist rentals to students, and
old buildings are being restored for social housing. Measures to control
visitor numbers – including a tax on day trippers, which was due to be
introduced in July – will go ahead next year, while the debate around cruise
ships continues.
“Our goal
is to trigger a renaissance of the city,” said Mar. “We want to attract
visitors for longer stays and encourage a ‘slower’ type of tourism. Things
can’t go back to how they were.”
City
authorities in Amsterdam – which was struggling to cope with an estimated 18.3
million overnight tourist stays in 2019 – are also quietly hopeful that the
pandemic will be a catalyst for change. Last week the mayor urged extreme
caution in reopening to tourists, while nonprofit group Amsterdam&Partners
believes the tourist hiatus pushes to the top of the agenda plans to cut
numbers, give Amsterdam back to locals and attract the “right” kind of visitor,
and has launched a sustainability taskforce to map the way forward.
“We are
working with partners to discuss how we can restart in a more sustainable and
responsible way,” said Amsterdam&Partners spokeswoman Heleen Jansen. “The
main focus is that we want a sustainable visitor economy that doesn’t harm the
livability of our city. If you have the right balance between living, working
and visiting, you can have the right visitor economy. That’s what went wrong in
the last years in the old city centre, and we have to entice locals to discover
their city centre again.”
Meanwhile,
the suddenly empty streets of Barcelona have made local businesses and the
tourist board re-evaluate their priorities too. “While we couldn’t continue at
the speed things were, this is showing us that no tourists is no good either –
there needs to be a more moderate way,” said Mateo Asensioof the Barcelona
tourist board. “Our first task is getting locals back out into the city, then
the domestic market and our neighbours. When the international market returns,
we’ll focus more on specific sectors. It’s an opportunity to change the rules.”
With the
world’s “new normal” including social distancing, an increased fear of crowds
and busy places – and the future of airlines in the balance – over-tourism may
not be a pressing issue for some time.
Other
changes in cities around the world include reshaping in favour of cyclists and
pedestrians: Athens is accelerating plans for a car-free historic centre,
Berlin is introducing 14 miles of new bike lanes, and Paris is also
significantly increasing its bike lanes, to ease potential overcrowding.
Destinations
likely to see the first surge in visitor numbers are remote coastal and rural
areas, places seen as “safe”, said Patricia Yates, acting CEO of Visit
Britain/Visit England. It will be longer before cities bounce back.
“Our weekly
consumer sentiment surveys show that the domestic market is very nervous – so
we will be focusing initially on reassurance,” she said. “But beyond that we
will be looking at promoting areas outside the honeypots. What is needed is
destination management to rebuild tourism more slowly and keep residents,
visitors and businesses that depend on tourists happy – it’s quite a balancing
act.”
Some of the
progress made on sustainable tourism is likely to go into reverse at first, she
added – with people eschewing public transport in favour of car travel and
infection control measures leading to more single-use plastic.
Many tour
operators, however, believe the pandemic could engender a positive change in
client behaviour. Intrepid Travel CEO James Thornton said: “During this
hibernation period we’ve seen the benefit to nature and the climate – fish
spotted in Venice’s clearer canal water, the Himalayas visible in India – and
people have had time to reflect. I think customers will be more aware of the
impact of travel on the environment and the communities they visit, and make
more considered choices.”
A renewed
focus on slower travel, including train journeys and cycling, as well as
keeping experiences as local as possible and offering more off-season
departures are part of Intrepid’s post-Covid plans, with wilderness and
wellness trips tipped to be of most interest.
Launching
new adventures in even more remote destinations to assist with economic
recovery is on the agenda for Much Better Adventures when tourism opens up
again. “The crisis has shown just how much communities in less-developed parts
of the world rely on tourism,” said Sam Bruce. “We will look to spread tourism
to areas that would genuinely benefit. But it has to be done in the right way.
We risk a flood to remote places that aren’t prepared and could be taken
advantage of.
“I’m
hopeful that a new, slower tourism will emerge – but the recovery needs to be
slow enough for the industry to make the right decisions as it rises from the
ashes.”
G
Adventures founder Bruce Poon Tip – who has just published Unlearn: The Year
the Earth Stood Still, an e-book looking at the impact of the pandemic on
tourism – believes the industry can emerge as a stronger force for good.
“People
will travel again. We don’t yet know when, but we know that they will. I want
to challenge everyone who travels to ‘unlearn’ what they think they know. We
have the opportunity to use this reset to be more conscious about how we can
improve, as individuals and as a wider travel community.”
The biggest
issue in the move to a more sustainable tourist industry, though, is air travel
– aviation accounted for 2% of global carbon emissions in 2019 and was one of
the fastest-growing polluters. With airlines grounded, emissions from aviation
declined by about 60% in early April compared with 2019, according to the
journal Nature Climate Change.
With the
pause likely to be temporary, campaigners from Greenpeace to Flight Free are
demanding that airline bailouts come with strict conditions on their future
climate impact and say Covid should be the catalyst for greening the world’s
airlines.
But in a
race for economic recovery, rebuilding the industry quickly could sideline
climate change and aviation issues, said Justin Francis of Responsible Travel,
who is calling for a “green flying duty”, with more regulation and tax revenues
invested in renewable fuels.
The cost of
flights is likely to rise in the long term, he added. “Short term, the where
and how we travel has had to change. But new, more entrenched, norms could form
from that. Many people were hooked on frequent short breaks, but key to more
sustainable tourism is taking far fewer flights – we may now see a return to
longer, less frequent holidays, with more time spent getting to know a place,
and a rise in slower forms of travel.”
Whatever
happens, it’s unlikely travel will ever be the same as in pre-Covid days. An
industry known for its resilience will find a new way forward, adapting to an
unknown global market, but whether sustainability can be at the heart of a new
model of tourism is hard to predict.
“Tourism
will be smaller, and so more sustainable per se. Fewer flights means less C02,
fewer guests means less waste, and there will be much more focus on localism, at
least initially,” said Graham Miller, professor of sustainability in business
at the University of Surrey.
“How the
nature of the product changes, however, remains to be seen. There are huge
vested interests to contend with – like the cruise industry in Venice and big
businesses – but it feels like the moment we have been waiting for. If we are
going to redesign tourism, this is about the best chance we can wish for.”
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