Chapter 12: Travel

What is Travel?

Sustainable travel can mean something different for each one of us. Typically, travel is considered to be going from one place to another over an extended period of time. It can be for leisure, business, or personal reasons and can be carried out with various modes of transportation such as cars, trains, boats, and planes. Travel plays an important role in society as it moves people and goods and enables trade between communities. Travel provides access to essential services and opportunities to connect with friends, family, and colleagues.

In this chapter, we will refine the lens to discuss destination travel. Destination travel is when a person travels to a location outside of their local community for a duration of longer than a day. Local travel is on the rise. While it is outside the scope of this chapter, many of the topics would also apply to how you explore your local area.

People, Economies, and Environment

Travelling opens our eyes to new cultures, traditions, people, and environments. It can lead us to develop deeper connections with ourselves, the people around us, and the world we live in. Travel lets us experience new cultures and people, frees us from our daily routines, and makes us more open to new things. We get to celebrate diversity when travelling and experience new cultures and people.

In terms of the economy, the first stop is the tourism sector. The tourism sector includes the individuals and/or businesses who collectively provide goods and services to travellers. This sector is complex and contributes to many countries’ economies. It includes accommodations, transportation, entertainment, food services, attractions, trade associations, and regulators. When you travel individually or in a group, you contribute to some of these elements that make up the tourism sector. But economics also comes into play when we think about who gets to travel, to where, and how.

The environment can be the subject of travel, such as in places like national parks. But, it can also be impacted by travel. Where does the waste from the visitors go? What amenities need to be developed to support tourism? How do those amenities impact the local environment?

Society and culture are also impacted by travel. As we’ve said, travel can introduce you to new cultures and build openness and bonds. However, travel can also negatively impact culture and society, such as when tourism commodifies local culture.

While travel can connect us to people and places, we also need to consider the full range of economic, social, and environmental impacts that can occur when we travel.

Connecting Travel With the Sustainable Development Goals

In Chapter 2, we learned how wicked problems are difficult to solve. They can’t be solved with a single solution; they are complex, and they often require a culture shift to be addressed. In Chapter 7, we learned about how the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) outline a plan to tackle these wicked problems and transform our world.

Travel requires infrastructure and services. The level of this might vary, but they all have the potential to reduce or enforce inequalities (SDG 10). Further, with more and more people living in urban areas, how we plan and operate our cities and communities (SDG 11) can have a big impact on how we travel to our destinations and once we get there. We can make choices in how we travel that contribute to responsible consumption and production (SDG 12), but we have to have access to sustainable choices to make sustainable choices. We’ll discuss this further a little later. Finally, this contributes to climate action (SDG 13), or lack thereof. We could connect travel to all 17 SDGs if we had the time. See how you can connect travel to one of the SDGs you are passionate about.

Being a More Sustainable Traveler

Sustainable travel is about making choices that support local communities and minimize our individual and collective environmental impacts. There are many ways to consider sustainability as a traveller, especially because sustainable travel isn’t just about getting from one place to another; it is the entire journey.

Getting to Your Destination

You are probably familiar with the main transportation options for getting around, but did you know they are all making changes to contribute to sustainability? Watch the video (2:13) to learn more about some of the work being done to adapt our transportation options.

Aside from the technology, you can also make personal choices in getting to your destination. If you have to fly, choosing economy seats where there is less space, which means there are also fewer emissions per seat, and avoiding short-haul flights can both reduce the impacts of your travel. Choosing to carpool or take options like the train or bus can also reduce your impact. As mentioned in the video, you can also engage in slow travel like walking or paddling.

Accommodation

The most sustainable places to stay tend to be small and locally run. While mountain refuges, youth hostels, bothies, and campsites naturally fall into this category, going green doesn’t have to mean sacrificing luxury. Some of the world’s most exclusive lodges and properties take sustainability seriously. After all, these places often have the means to invest in cutting-edge green technology, wildlife, and local communities (Tuppen, 2021). You can also look for places that have used low-impact construction techniques that are sensitive to the environment, landscape, and surrounding community.

Food and Drink

A lot of the same ideas apply to food and drink when you are travelling as when you are at home. You need to watch for things like meat consumption, out-of-season offerings, and food waste. Where possible, try to enjoy meals from locally owned businesses, which can also help you experience the authentic flavours of the area. Although buffets seem like a great option, they can potentially increase food waste (Juvan, Grün, & Dolnicar, 2018). Checking out the destination in advance can help you prepare for a sustainable and tasty experience.

Exploration

Exploring can be a great way to experience new places, but if you’re looking for guided experiences, make sure that you choose ones that are operated by members of the local community. Responsible travel improves lives in the long term by supporting enterprise initiatives and funding the development and continuation of sustainable projects. Remember, you don’t want to rely on handouts or fall into the us and them mentality (Tuppen, 2021).

Souvenirs

Souvenirs can support meaningful memories of a trip, but it is important to consider their impacts on sustainability. Qiu, Rahman, and Dolah (2024) found that souvenirs can contribute to cultural identity expression. They also have economic and community impact. When considering purchasing souvenirs, make sure that you, like with explorations, choose ones that are locally meaningful and contribute directly to the local community. It is important to also keep in mind how you can respect the culture the souvenir represents when you are back at home.

Why is Sustainable Travel a Challenge?

So far, we’ve discussed some of the interconnections between travel and the SDGs, and we’ve looked at a few tips on planning our sustainable travel. Unfortunately, it isn’t always easy to travel sustainably.

Innovation is Required

The reality is that flights just aren’t sustainable. And flights aren’t the only challenge. We need more innovation in travel from our means of getting there to the infrastructure at the destination to how local populations work with and in the travel industry. But, as we know, innovation often requires funding, and it’s hard to overlook the goal of making a profit or spending as little as possible while getting unique experiences.

Behaviour Change is Hard

Changing our behaviour and our priorities is challenging. Unfortunately, there are many reasons why we might not even recognize that behaviour change is necessary or possible. One way to think about this is through the discourses of climate delay (Lamb et al., 2020). These discourses accept that climate change exists but justify inaction. The four discourses are:

Emphasizing the downsides. This occurs when we focus on the disruptions that climate action will cause. For example, it emphasizes that vulnerable members of society will be burdened by the change or that “hard-working people cannot enjoy their holidays” (Lamb et al, 2020, p. 2).

Redirect responsibility. In this discourse, it is more important that someone else changes their behaviour first.

Surrender to climate change. In this response, behaviour change is seen as irrelevant because it it will not make a difference to whether or not climate change occurs.

Push non-transformative solutions. This occurs when we engage in activities like setting targets but not acting to achieve those targets, or through over-reliance on technologies that can supposedly allow us to maintain current behaviours and systems.

In the next activity, see if you can match each discourse with an example statement.

Overtourism has Consequences

We live in a world where an individual can travel anywhere depending on their means. However, this freedom can lead to overtourism. Overtourism is the presence of too many people in one place at a time. The accumulation of economic, social, and environmental impacts determines how many are too many. One way you can contribute to stopping overtourism is by picking destinations that are less well-known or popular.

Encouraging Systemic Change

Up until now, we have primarily focused on individual choices. These are important, but systemic action is what truly drives change. In travel, this includes changes that impact the entire tourism sector. This includes governments and large organizations like airlines and hotel chains. Change at this level can include innovation, policies, and initiatives. You can encourage systemic change by supporting businesses and governments that follow sustainable practices and are transparent about their efforts, not just the goals they’ve set.

The Hawaii Tourism Authority’s locals-first approach is one example of where this systemic change is happening. As overtourism on the islands increased the struggle for locals to access basic goods and services at reasonable prices, the tourism authority has pivoted away from mass tourism marketing. They are working to empower locals to be responsible for destination management (Habtemariam, 2023).

While the sustainability implications of travel are significant, the solution isn’t to shut down travel. There are many economic benefits from the travel industry. In addition, being able to learn and connect with others is essential. In addition, shutting down travel could separate families and communities as so many people now live away from their original homes. Systemic change has the potential to make travel more sustainable for all.

References

Habtemariam, D. (May 5, 2023). Hawaii tourism’s future will have much less marketing [blog post].  Skift. https://skift.com/blog/hawaii-tourisms-future-will-have-much-less-marketing/ 

Juvan, E., Grun, B., & Dolnicar, S. (2018). Biting off more than they can chew: Food waste at hotel breakfast buffets. Journal of Travel Research, 57(2), 232-242. https://doi.org/10.1177/0047287516688321

Lamb, W. F., Mattioli, G., Levi, S., Roberts, J. T., Capstick, S., Creutzig, F., Minx, J. C., Müller-Hansen, F., Culhane, T., & Steinberger, J. (2020). Discourses of climate delay. Global Sustainability, 3, e17. https://doi.org/10.1017/sus.2020.13

Qiu, L., Rahman, A. R. A., & Dolah, M. S. b. (2024). The role of souvenirs in enhancing local cultural sustainability: A systematic literature review. Sustainability, 16(10), 3893. https://doi.org/10.3390/su16103893

Tuppen, H. (2021). Sustainable travel: The essential guide to positive impact adventures. White Lion Publishing.