Green Travel Reality Check for Tourist Destinations Actually Deliver on Sustainability

Abstract

The explosive growth of tourism has gone from 100 million international arrivals in 1950 to 1.442 billion in 2018. Even as green travel has become more and more common because of this growth, there is a sobering environmental cost to this. Transportation accounts for 70 per cent of a holiday’s carbon emissions and the average hotel stay in the UK alone creates 31.1 kg of CO2 per night.Marketing promises that sustainable travel is a reality are often missed. With tourism accounting for an increase in more than 10 percent of global GDP, various destinations are increasingly promoting eco friendly initiatives for tourism but studies reveal that tourism development leads to its direct degradation. In reality, tourism’s growth has a variance of 4.1 % in natural resource depletion and 3.9 % in pollution levels. In this article, we will tackle which of those tourist destinations actually do deliver on the sustainable promise, so you know where your euros are going when you visit next.