Overtourism 'a bigger sustainability challenge than decarbonising aviation'
Ilaria Grasso MacolaDecarbonising aviation has given way to overtourism as the biggest barrier to travel and tourism becoming a truly sustainable industry, former Abta chair Martin Brackenbury has said.
Speaking at WTM London on Wednesday (8 November), Brackenbury said he was nonetheless confident the aviation sector would achieve its net-zero goals sooner than currently expected owing to the huge technological advances the industry has made in recent years.
“I think we will get there and, in many ways, more quickly than we had anticipated,” he said, speaking as part of WTM London’s Sustainability Summit. “However, the same cannot be said for overtourism as, at the global level, there’s no blueprint for tackling the issue.”
Brackenbury said the industry was not at a stage where partners from all sides can engage in dialogue to make sure destinations are not overwhelmed by hordes of tourists. “I still see that as a very large barrier,” he added. “We haven’t found a way of doing it – both politically and practically – that actually works all over the world.”
Meanwhile, South African Tourism acting chief executive Nombulelo Guliwe was another to address the panel discussion, titled “Breaking Barriers: Travellers demand better, more sustainable holidays, how can we deliver?”. Guliwe said customers currently lacked the knowledge to define what constitutes sustainable tourism.
“Our data shows consumers haven’t clearly defined what responsible tourism or sustainable tourism is for them,” she said. “Part of doing our work is making sure we feed the information and educate [travellers] about what responsible tourism is.”
Visit Flanders chief strategist Vincent Nijs said that if tourism wants to become sustainable, it needs to measure profit not only in economic terms, but also in social terms.
“You can’t only look at the tourists and businesses, you have to involve your residents too,” Nijs said. “We want to strengthen [tourism] as a positive driver for the benefit of inhabitants, entrepreneurs and visitors.”
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