Who benefits from the gazetting of land for protection? Obviously, the wildlife and its habitat and tourists who travel to the national parks and reserves. Others are disadvantaged. The ecotourism slogan, “leave only footprints, take only photographs”, reveals the problem. The gazetting of land to conserve wildlife generally requires the removal and exclusion of those who previously lived in or had access to the reserve area for grazing, fodder, thatching grass, honey, fishing and meat.

People in the buffer zone pay the cost of conservation and suffer raids on their crops by wildlife. The IUCN defines ‘human-wildlife conflict’, the ‘struggles that emerge when the presence or behaviour of wildlife poses an actual or perceived, direct and recurring threat to human interests or needs, leading to disagreements between groups of people and negative impacts on people and/or wildlife’. According to the IUCN, human-wildlife conflict is becoming more frequent, widespread, and serious.

“Every year, hundreds of humans and thousands of animals die due to human-wildlife conflicts. Habitat loss and, in some instances, conservation successes, combined with an ever-increasing human population, have resulted in humans and wild animals living in closer proximity and sharing the same scarce resources. The conservation of animals is an important global good, but the reality is that those living with wildlife usually carry the cost associated with this conservation imperative, including loss of income, essential crops to support their livelihoods, and tragically sometimes also loss of human life.”  CITES 2023

This issue is rarely addressed. The managers of protected land generally seek to maximise tourism revenues, although there are exceptions, while local communities in the buffer zones see the tourists as they pass through. We shall be exploring the challenge of enabling local communities to benefit from nature-based tourism at WTM Africa in April, the second of three panels discussing the Wildlife Economy in Africa, the White Paper discussed last year along with a report of the panel discussion can be found online. In the 2027 Responsible Tourism Awards, we are looking for tourism businesses, conservation organisations which are making a real contribution to the livelihoods of local communities in and around wildlife and nature destinations.

In too many buffer zones around, protected areas globally not only do the communities bear the cost of living with often dangerous wildlife they also never see what the tourists come to see. Since Responsible Travel launched Trip for a Trip nine years ago they have funded 9,000 trips providing enriching experiences for children in countries from Laos to Pakistan, India, Uganda, Zimbabwe, the UK and beyond.

Their first Trip for a Trip was in Eswatini, where children from the local Neighbourhood Care Points (NCPs) visited Mlilwane Wildlife Sanctuary to see zebras, crocodiles and hippos for the first time. Responsible Travel believes that “travel can open up horizons, broaden perspectives and ultimately be an unforgettably enjoyable experience. We believe in one for one – for every trip you go on, a child also benefits from a day trip.” More than three quarters of their travellers choose it as their booking

This is not just an issue in Africa. As Tim points out, Brighton draws in around 12 million tourists a year, but not all children living there get to experience its attractions, its coastline, the pebble beach or the rolling South Downs. You don’t have to travel with Responsible Travel to fund a Trip for a Trip.

This is a great way of enabling your clients to do good. Think about it.

L’article Nature tourism: Who benefits and who bears the cost? est apparu en premier sur Travel Tomorrow.

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The area attracts the rich and famous.

The area also attracts millions of tourists and day trippers, including domestic day trippers from the Midlands and international visitors looking for a day out in the country from London. The Cotswolds are recognised as ‘one of England’s long-established and world-renowned “attract” brands’, and in 2014 recorded 100% visitor satisfaction. With visitors arriving by car, coach and rail, many of them day trippers or visiting friends and relatives (VFR), it is difficult to obtain reliable estimates of visitor numbers across a landscape surrounded by cities and composed of villages and small towns.

The best data available are from 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic. The Cotswolds Tourism Destination Management Plan 2022–25 reports 2.4 million domestic tourists spending at least one night, while overseas visitors spent approximately €221 million (£189 million) on 371,500 trips, alongside 23 million day trips. Despite the high visibility of visitors in the honeypots, tourism in the Cotswolds supported only 31,000 jobs, representing 8% of the total.

Villagers may have Parish Councils, but these bodies have limited powers to address overtourism and generally have toseek action from higher authorities.

Bibury, with 600 residents, attracts up to 50 coaches daily and 20,000 weekend visitors. Gloucestershire County Council (GCC) significantly increased parking enforcement in the village, which has been experiencing a “nightmare”, issuing 651 penalty charge notices in 2025, a sharp rise from 28 in 2019. The fines generated approximately €53,000 (£45,570), not enough to cover the approximately €4,700 (£4,000) monthly cost of enforcement. Pay and display parking will be introduced for 24 on-street spaces, projected to generate up to approximately €256,000 (£218,880) annually. The fines accrue to GCC and may or may not be invested in managing overtourism in Bibury. GCC is developing a broader traffic management scheme.

Local government can cease marketing villages suffering from overtourism, but influencers on social media are now driving much of the demand.

Bourton-on-the-Water’s beautiful river attracts millions of tourists in the hot weather (Charlotte Joynes)

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Residents describe Bourton-on-the-Water, population 4,000, as “Blackpool-on-the-Water” due to the sheer volume of visitors, estimated at 5,000–10,000 daily. Day trippers bring their own picnics, although they may purchase ice cream. Residents’ concerns include tourists using hedges as toilets, leaving litter, damaging property, and coaches illegally parking in residential areas. In a recent survey of 202 residents, 94.6% said they felt visitor numbers were excessive. Charlotte Joynes, chair of Bourton Residents Voice, explains: “We would like enforcement,” says Joynes. “The coaches coming in are doing it illegally because of traffic regulations. But we don’t have police to stop them. We want people to visit but respect where they’re coming to.”

The tensions in Bourton-on-the-Water also raise a broader question: to what extent should residents of popular destinations be able to demand restrictions on visitors? The debate is particularly sensitive in picturesque villages where high property prices and second-home ownership can create perceptions that measures against overtourism are designed to protect privileged residents rather than local communities.

That argument emerged strongly among readers responding to The Independent’s coverage of the situation in Bourton-on-the-Water. One reader, Isthatso, questioned whether people who choose to live in one of the country’s most beautiful and expensive villages should expect protection from large numbers of visitors:

“Sorry, if you choose, and can afford, to live in one of the most beautiful villages in the country then you must expect a lot of tourists. What do these privileged residents want – government intervention to protect their peaceful lifestyle from interference by the common herd? If they don’t like it they can move, like anyone else who doesn’t like where they live. With prices in that village, they’ll have choices if they sell up. It’s no different to people who buy a house next to a long-established pub then complain about the noise. I’m sick of wealthy, privileged people complaining that they need exclusive access to everything that is good.”

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Another reader, Nigel Fromage, similarly argued that popular beauty spots should not become accessible primarily to those wealthy enough to live there:

“Sheer unadulterated snobbery. Firstly, what is wrong with Blackpool? It’s a brilliant destination suitable for all families, especially if you’re on a limited budget. Secondly, how many of the ‘residents’ in Bourton are genuine locals? Many of them are rich newcomers who buy up the expensive, picturesque cottages, forcing young people and locals out of the area – and then have the audacity to complain about the crowds spoiling their personal space. I’ve been visiting Bourton since I was a child, and yes, it has become more crowded in recent years, but why should the beautiful places in Britain become the domain of the rich?”

These reactions highlight one of the difficulties of tackling overtourism in villages: measures intended to protect residents and local infrastructure can also be perceived as attempts to restrict public access to places that belong to everyone.

Managing day trippers is particularly challenging, and exceptionally so where there is attractive public space for picnicking beside a stream, as there is in Bourton-on-the-Water. Enforcement is expensive. Restricting vehicle access and providing parking some distance from the village may therefore be among the only effective ways of reducing the pressures of overtourism.

L’article Overtourism is a bigger problem in villages est apparu en premier sur Travel Tomorrow.

And yet the research shows that tourism-based aviation is growing rapidly and we are not acting to achieve the required technological change.  The prospects for the adoption of alternative fuels with zero or very low greenhouse gas emissions are unlikely before 2050, as insufficient investment is being made in the development of new technology. Planes being constructed and purchased now will still be operational in forty years’ time. Given developments in other sectors and without further intense remedial action, aviation’s share of global emissions is projected to rise to about 20% of the global total by 2050, with some sources indicating significantly higher proportions.

Primo Levi echoed Hillel the Elder in his 1986 novel asking, “If not now, when?” For sure, the longer we leave mitigation and adaptation, the harder it will be. Mitigation is difficult because if I act to cut my greenhouse gas emissions, I bear the cost while others will go on with business as usual and profit from my efforts. As Garrett Hardin pointed out in 1968 in “The Tragedy of the Commons”, “Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons. Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all.”

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Adaptation is a different matter; it may be difficult and expensive, but the benefit accrues to those who adapt. Adapt or die. In the spirit of Darwin, “the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals because they succeed in adapting themselves best to their environment.” Primo Levi’s question is to the point: “If not now, when?”

I wrote last week about wildfires, the damage to infrastructure and the environment, and the lost revenue. There has been very limited research revealing the costs of climate change to the tourism industry in destinations and in the source markets.

Since the beginning of the year, there have been 1407 fires across Europe, with 434,796 hectares burnt, close to 100,000 more than in 2025,17.98 million tonnes (Mt) of CO₂ have been emitted since the start of the year, further accelerating climate change. The Europe Wildfire Map reveals wildfires across the continent, no longer dominating the headlines, the new normal. In Italy, all 27 major cities are on red alert; prolonged spells of extreme heat are expected to pose a health risk to the entire population, raising the likelihood of heat-related emergencies rather than solely affecting vulnerable groups.

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The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) reports that it “is likely that 2026 could see the highest number of heat-associated deaths on record”. An estimated 753 deaths were associated with the heatwave in May, with a further 2,124 deaths linked to the heatwave in June. The total of 2,877 deaths is almost double the 1,504 across the UK heatwaves in June to August last year.

I am grateful to travel writer Shivya Nath, whose “work focuses on the intersection of meaningful travel, climate action and social impact”, for this list of cities. Read her posts about travel and life on a changing planet; she takes her readers “to a different corner of the globe, on a journey rooted in conscious travel, community resilience and climate action.”

In this year’s Responsible Tourism Awards, we sought applications from those actively taking measures to reduce the risks posed by climate change and/or destinations working to create more climate change resilience in the travel and tourism sector. While there have been a few worthy winners, the response has been disappointing; for example, the judges were unable to make an award in Africa.

Places adapting to climate change

Source: Shivya Nath

If you know of initiatives to increase resilience to climate change and adapt to face the growing crisis in Europe or further afield, please let us know; we need good practices to adopt.

L’article Adapting to climate change: if not now, when? est apparu en premier sur Travel Tomorrow.

The existence of the greenhouse effect, although not yet known by that name, was first proposed as early as 1824 by Joseph Fourier. In 1856, Eunice Newton Foote demonstrated that the warming effect of the sun is greater in air containing water vapour than in dry air, and even greater in air with higher concentrations of carbon dioxide. We have therefore understood the basic science behind the greenhouse effect for around 170 years.

The oil and gas industries have worked hard to deny the human contribution to global warming. Published in 2010, Merchants of Doubt, by historians of science Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, documented how lobbyists deliberately generated doubt about the scientific evidence behind acid rain, the ozone hole, the dangers of tobacco, climate change denial, and the attacks on Rachel Carson. Those same tactics continue today, with lobbyists undermining science on behalf of those who benefit from business as usual.

As you read this, you may be thinking, “Tell me something new.”

That is precisely the point. Climate change, drought, wildfires, storm-driven flooding and sea-level rise have become the new normal. It is so much easier to “…put off till tomorrow what may be done the day after tomorrow just as well”, to blame others and deny responsibility.

The global tourism industry both contributes to and suffers from climate change through its greenhouse gas emissions.

According to research published in Nature Communications:

“Global tourism emissions grew by 3.5% per year between 2009 and 2019, double the growth rate of the worldwide economy, reaching 5.2 Gt CO₂-e, or 8.8% of total global greenhouse gas emissions in 2019. The primary drivers of emissions growth are slow technology efficiency gains (0.3% per year), combined with sustained high growth in tourism demand (3.8% per year in constant 2009 prices).”

Fear of wildfires, destroyed or empty accommodation, damaged destination brands, severe economic losses, and scarred landscapes are all consequences of this growing crisis. Yet there has been surprisingly little research into the economic impact of wildfires on the tourism industry.

Luís Catela Nunes, Professor of Applied Econometrics at Nova School of Business and Economics, analysed data from 278 Portuguese municipalities covering the period from 2000 to 2016. He concluded:

“The estimated annual costs to the Portuguese economy due to the impact of burned areas in 2030 range between €17.03 million and €24.18 million for domestic tourist arrivals, and between €18.26 million and €38.08 million for inbound tourism. By 2050, those costs will increase at least fourfold.”

Back in 2023, the US Congress Joint Economic Committee reported that:

“…wildfires in the United States cause between $394 billion and $893 billion in damages annually, equivalent to between 2% and 4% of US GDP.”

Wildfires impose substantial costs on both the supply and demand sides of tourism. More research is needed, but above all, the tourism industry must play a far greater role in addressing the human-induced climate change to which it contributes.

L’article Never put off till tomorrow: tourism can no longer delay climate action  est apparu en premier sur Travel Tomorrow.

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Hannah’s Mallorca SUP is a small business with a big positive impact on nature. As we wrote in the citation for her award: “The Mallorca SUP Company embraces all aspects of paddle boarding, offering lessons, guided experiences, equipment rental and board repairs AND creates experiences designed to connect people with the sea in a deeper, more conscious ‘Blue Mind’ way.”

Hannah is planning an “Oceans Connected – Winter Summit” initiative: “a community-led and community-driven gathering that brings together people, ideas and creativity around the shared theme of connection to the ocean.” The Responsible Tourism Awards judges hope to hear more of it.

Guests are given the opportunity to experience the Bay of Pollença with zero environmental impact and engage and connect with the natural world around them. Guests learn about the delicate balance of the marine ecosystem, including the vital role of Mediterranean seagrass (Posidonia), and witness first-hand the richness of local wildlife, from stingrays and dolphins to diverse fish and coastal fauna.

Hannah draws on her own experience of ADHD, her “superpower”, and anxiety to explain why paddle boarding can be brilliant for neurodivergent minds: “It is the rhythm of the paddle. The sound of the water. The simple focus of balance, breath and movement. The freedom to release a little restless energy – or slow everything down when life feels too loud.”

Paddle boarding offers “a positive environment for neurodivergent minds”.

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“At the heart of it, paddle boarding offers something wonderfully simple: a board, a paddle, a patch of blue space and the freedom to move through the world in your own way.” Hannah has a different take on “all-inclusive”. Writing about her experience a few days ago: “This was my version of all-inclusive.”

“There were children, mums, dads, friends and couples. There were English voices, Spanish voices and plenty of laughter in between. There were people with different levels of experience, different reasons for being there and different ways of enjoying the water.

“Not everyone being offered exactly the same experience, but everyone being made to feel that the experience could belong to them.”

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From the very start, setting up the business was not only about teaching people to paddle. Paddle boarding is secondary to the nature and mental health reasons. Very few people can get out on the water unless they have deep pockets and can hire a boat. Paddle boarding enables people to be out on the water, seeing things they would never normally experience.

“It’s a thing of wonder when you’re paddling and a stingray passes under your paddle board. It’s a thing of wonder when people pass over the seagrass fields with fish entwined.”

I asked Hannah how she had come to apply for a Responsible Tourism Award. The answer was a surprise: “I asked my friend ChatGPT, as a business that does this, what can you recommend? Is there anything that I can apply for to further what I’m doing? And the first thing that came up was you guys. So I applied and then I got the application form back. I looked at the detail in the application form and I took it as a real challenge. What it did for me was really focus my attention on what we do, why we do it and what we could be doing.”

Hannah has developed a really interesting way of engaging people through a leisure activity. Clearly, most people paddle board for fun, and yet behind it lies this notion of building some kind of relationship with the sea for people who would otherwise not have that.

Hannah is doing something very special:

“I can, hand on heart, say I think we are about as zero impact as you can be. We are zero impact. We don’t create noise. We don’t create rubbish. We don’t use fuel. We use humans to power the craft. Our business is a tiny little garage that we’ve converted, and it’s been converted using reclaimed materials.

“But most importantly, we make people think about their choices. When people are stuck with me for an hour or two hours, they can’t get away from me. And it gives me an opportunity to tell people about the impact that boats have, the impact that sun cream has, the impact of plastic pollution.

“In those two hours, I make them think about their choices, not just on the water, but also about buying local. So, as well as offering a nature-positive experience, we also offer an opportunity for people to think about their choices a little bit more. And this is a good thing.”

L’article So much more than paddle boarding est apparu en premier sur Travel Tomorrow.

As the graphic shows, these are leisure or “soft” skills. This provides strong evidence of Jost Krippendorf’s forecast in The Holiday Makers, published in 1987, almost 40 years ago. Drawing on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, Krippendorf wrote: “…we shall increasingly see emancipated tourists, tourists who have, so to speak, come of age. Their need for physical recreation (sleeping, eating, drinking) will decline in favour of the need for ’emotional recreation’ through activities and experiences which are not possible in everyday life. Many tourists are becoming more demanding. They take the satisfaction of their elementary needs, for instance, good food and comfortable lodging, more or less for granted. What they want to find now, in addition to this, is the satisfaction of social needs: contact with other people and self-realisation through creative activities, knowledge and exploration.”

As Krippendorf anticipated nearly four decades ago, tourists are increasingly seeking meaningful travel experiences. Mastercard’s survey found that 51% of travellers said holidays feel more meaningful when they learn something new, while 48% believe new skills are now “a more valued memento than souvenirs.”

VisitEngland research published last year also investigated what encourages people to book sustainable holiday accommodation. The factor mentioned most frequently was the opportunity to enjoy “authentic experiences.”

Attractions can also provide opportunities for learning and skill development. The Scottish Crannog Centre, on the banks of Loch Tay, is a reconstructed Iron Age defensive dwelling built on stilts. Responsible tourism lies at the heart of the centre’s work, earning it Gold and Global Finalist recognition in the 2024 Responsible Tourism Awards.

“People come to learn about the past and find out what role it can play in our future. Aside from the crannog itself, we have a number of thatched buildings in which our team demonstrates traditional skills, such as weaving, blacksmithing and woodworking, to our visitors, keeping these crafts alive and introducing them to new generations,” explains Mike Benson, director of the Scottish Crannog Centre.

Emily Downes, a sustainable tourism consultant and former tour operator specialising in responsible tourism, argues that travellers are increasingly seeking “experience for money” rather than simply “value for money”. As she puts it, “Local knowledge, creativity and authentic experiences are often what create the greatest value for travellers – and these are precisely the areas where DMCs play a critical role.”

The focus is shifting from volume to value, from selling as many trips as possible to delivering the most meaningful experiences possible. In her ethical partnership guidelines, Downes argues that tour operators should recognise that destination management companies (DMCs) possess deep knowledge of logistics and the local landscape, acknowledge that itineraries are co-developed with local expertise, respect their intellectual property, and treat them as genuine partners.

For destinations, the challenge is no longer simply to attract more visitors, but to create the conditions for meaningful encounters that benefit both travellers and host communities. As Manisha Pande, Board Director of ICRT.global and Co-founder and Managing Director of Village Ways, argues, “a responsible tourism initiative is all about a community and the people with whom tourists will interact; the immersive experiences they will facilitate; and the memories they will help to create.” Ultimately, she concludes, “being able to instil trust, transparency, a sense of pride in local cultural practices, quiet confidence, and ensuring overall well-being are the building blocks that lay the foundation of any successful community-based responsible tourism ecosystem.”

L’article Holidays and the pursuit of self-actualisation est apparu en premier sur Travel Tomorrow.

Transport & Environment commissioned the New Economics Foundation (NEF) to report on aviation’s contribution to fuelling unaffordable housing across Europe. NEF’s research “reveals that the average annual rents in five of Europe’s largest tourism-dependent economies are projected to rise by up to €250 per year over the next five years (2026-2031) as a consequence of incoming air tourism. These rises will primarily affect lower-income households, as income fails to keep pace with rental costs.” In short, more air tourism results in housing cost inflation. “In Europe, emissions from international tourist arrivals by air are projected to rise over 60% between 2016 and 2030.” As Transport & Environment point out, despite the growing concern over the impacts of tourism on local communities and the growing climate risks to the region, European governments continue to double down on aviation and tourism-driven growth – Spain has committed €12.9bn to airport investment, Athens is spending €1.3bn to boost capacity by 25%, and terminal expansions are underway in Lisbon.

Data Journalist, Thomas Hinton, has been looking at the evidence on the impact of tourism on rising rents and housing shortages. As he points out “when housing shortages, rising rents, and tourism accommodation are treated as one and the same problem, the policy discussion can quickly become blurred.” As so often when addressing overtourism, the local details matter. As Hinton points out “STRs may affect housing availability in specific neighbourhoods, but they are only one piece of a broader puzzle that includes zoning laws, construction permits, demographic shifts, urban concentration, and wider cost pressures.”

The issue is not whether STRs have an impact on housing for local people; they do. The challenge is to determine the scale of the tourism impact and whether or not “policies aimed at short-term rentals are proportionate, non-discriminatory, and aligned with EU-level rules designed to protect fair access to services across the internal market.” Research conducted by  Eurocities Monitor in 2025 found  76% of mayors identify demand outpacing supply as the main driver of housing unaffordability in European cities; only 25% cited STRs as a cause. According to the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, STRs represent around 1.2% of total housing. In Barcelona, short-term rentals make up 7.1% of local housing stock, compared to 2.8% in Paris and 1.9% in New York.

And we should remember that a quarter of Europeans cannot afford a week-long holiday.

L’article Short-term rental challenge est apparu en premier sur Travel Tomorrow.

Within the Responsible Tourism Movement, we have not talked much about taxation. One of the most extractive forms of tourism is short-term rentals, where the owner rents a home out as a holiday let and does not reside and pay tax locally. If a Londoner owns a second home in Wales or Portugal and banks the rent in London, the local economic benefit will be limited to payments to the cleaner and a little maintenance. If renting out a property in Wales, there is a good chance that UK tax will be taken. If the rental property is in Portugal, there is a good chance that the UK taxman will not take a cut and Portugal certainly won’t.

When we applied the ICRT Global’s “economic benefit” methodology to Piggs Peak Hotel in Eswatini, formerly Swaziland, we were able to report that it paid 5,242,525 Emalangeni, 281,000 Euro, in taxes and levies to government, most of which would amount to a local economic benefit.

Ewan Cluckie of Tripseed and ICRT Thailand has gone further. Ewan analysed a sample of 17 well-known destination management companies and tour operators in Thailand, revealing significant variation in tax practices.

As Ewan points out:

“This data reveals a troubling paradox warranting further research: companies without sustainability certifications are, on average, contributing a higher amount to Thailand’s public finances (proportionally to their revenue share within our anonymised sample – 1.13% Tax-to-Revenue Ratio) than those with prestigious international sustainability certifications. In this sample, certification status shows a negative association with tax-to-revenue ratios. We do not infer causation and note potential confounders such as credits, loss carry-forwards, consolidation, or timing.”

Ewan rightly points out that Thailand’s ability to invest in managing tourism impacts and build resilience requires funding from taxation or levies.

A couple of weeks ago, Tripseed became the first company in the world to be accredited under the Fair Tax Foundation’s new National Business Standard for the Fair Tax Mark. An independent accreditation that recognises businesses paying the right amount of corporation tax, in the right place, at the right time, and being transparent about how they do it. It isn’t a logo you can buy or a pledge you can sign. It’s an assessment of how a business is structured, governed and taxed, checked against a published standard.

Will other businesses follow?

L’article Taxation matters est apparu en premier sur Travel Tomorrow.

The Normandy example was highly extractive, the economic value stripped out to UK bank accounts. The Ireland example was quite the opposite, a form of community-based tourism with the economic value captured locally. In neither case did this form of tourism accommodation have a big impact on property prices and rental values. This all changed with the internet.

Airbnb is not the only short-term rental facilitator, but it is the biggest, and it has driven change. It’s called Airbnb because the company’s founders started renting out air mattresses in their living room in San Francisco in 2007, creating an “Airbedandbreakfast.” In a B&B, the guest shares the owner’s accommodation and is served breakfast by the host. The economic benefit stays local.

As AIRDNA reports, “Airbnb works by empowering anyone (well, so long as they adhere to local regulations) to rent out a room or an entire property. …  the platform has captured the attention of real estate investors who have made Airbnb-ing their full-time job.”

The conjunction of the emergence of internet facilitators like Airbnb, increasing demand and changes in a now largely unregulated housing market has led to rapid growth in short-term rentals. Airbnb alone reached one million booked nights in 2011.

Jaume Collbon, Barcelona’s mayor in November 2024, identified housing as the city’s number one problem, reporting that in the past 10 years, rental prices in the city had soared by 68% while the cost of buying a house had climbed 38%. The 10,101 short-term rental licences became the target with announcements that the licences would not be renewed from 2018. It is a problem in Cape Town, too, with over 23,000 properties currently available according to Inside Airbnb. In Belgium, research by ING found that in 2024, around 1.23 million stays were booked via short-term rental platforms in Belgium, accounting for 12.3 million overnight stays.

Short-term rental platforms create value, but it is most often captured outside of the local economy by second and multiple homeowners, creating employment only for cleaners and maintenance workers. The local community are priced out of housing, suffers inflation in bars, cafes and restaurants, overcrowding, noise and partying.  Local authorities are increasingly being pressured by the electors to act.

The European Parliament, back in 2024, adopted plans (2024/1028) to increase transparency in the short-term rentals sector. The new regulations are designed to support better policymaking, improve transparency in the sector and encourage the sustainable development of tourism. According to Eurostat, guests spent 951.6 million nights in short-term rental accommodation booked through online platforms in 2025.

• When Member States opt for the new rules, registration procedures introduced by national authorities must be fully online and user-friendly. Hosts will receive a unique registration number for their property.
• Online platforms will be required to display and verify registration numbers and carry out random checks to help identify illegal listings. Public authorities will also be able to request the removal of non-compliant listings.
• Platforms will share monthly data on guest stays and nights booked with public authorities through a Single Digital Entry Point established by each Member State. Simpler reporting obligations will apply to small and micro platforms.
• Aggregated data collected under the Regulation will contribute to tourism statistics produced by Eurostat and support the development of innovative tourism-related services, while ensuring the protection of personal data.

Unfortunately, “The Regulation has been adopted in an “opt-in/opt-out” mode, meaning that Member States are not obliged to apply it.”

L’article EU acts on short-term rentals est apparu en premier sur Travel Tomorrow.

Businesses that are taking responsibility need to be able to secure differentiation in the marketplace, use their positive impacts in their PR to secure market advantage from their efforts and enable consumers to make sustainable choices. Concern in the parliament about the impact of the Green Claims Directive on small businesses was one of the major reasons that it was abandoned.

Green hushing won’t help us travel more responsibly – and neither will certification.

If you are being told that you must certify to protect your business from mis-selling, reflect on the fact that certification has been remarkably unsuccessful across Europe. Recent research by Xavier Font and colleagues reveals that only 9.3% of European hotels in a sample of 82,301 properties on the Booking.com platform were certified in 2024. Certification is highly concentrated among chain-affiliated, large, high-end hotels.

The Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition Directive (ECD) will apply across the EU from September 2026 and will address further areas of mis-selling. The changes most likely to impact tourism businesses are:

1. making an environmental claim that is unsubstantiated, or not based on a product’s entire life cycle
2. making an environmental claim without “clear, objective, publicly available and verifiable commitments.”

It is no longer acceptable to claim that a product is green without considering how it is dealt with as waste. Obviously, this would make it impossible to suggest that potable water in a plastic bottle was “green” or that potatoes sold in non-biodegradable bags were “environmentally friendly.”

I am deeply sceptical of the value of certification schemes, most of which are based on tick boxes.  Having a certificate will not provide “clear, objective, publicly available and verifiable commitments.” Nor will a certificate carry any meaning or make any connection with your potential guest. From the beginning of the Responsible Tourism  Movement in the 2002 Cape Town Declaration on Responsible Tourism  in Destinations, we have recognised the importance of “more enjoyable experiences for tourists through more meaningful connections with local people, and a greater understanding of local cultural, social and environmental issues.”

I cannot be sure from a certificate that a hotel composts food waste or pays above the minimum wage. Certification is opaque; the consumer cannot find out what specifically the business does. An issue hammered home to me during the drought in Cape Town in 2018. It was impossible to find out which hotels used the least water per bednight and make an appropriately informed choice about where to stay.

Worse when, as requested, you place your used towels back on the rail to reuse them, the room attendant replaces them with freshly laundered towels you cannot seek redress. The consumer who finds that the hotel fails to deliver on sustainability has little chance of securing redress; the guest cannot find out what the hotel has been certified for and has no contract with the certifying agency from which they might otherwise secure compensation for mis-selling.

Way back in 2017, I posted on the WTM Global Hub Certification: what comes next?

“Certificates are awarded for effort rather than achievement. I am less concerned about how a hotel reduces its energy consumption per bed night than that it reduces the consumption. Wouldn’t it be amazing if certificates were awarded for achieving an acceptable level of water and energy consumption per bed night, for paying wages above minimum wage levels, and meeting a minimum set of labour standards?

Wouldn’t it be even more amazing if hotels and operators published their operational performance against the standard, and the certifiers audited that performance and signed off on the evidence, thereby taking real responsibility for their certificates? Metered electricity consumption would quickly reveal the real performance of the hotel – and whether or not the room key light switches were being overridden. We need to know what the business has achieved that makes them worthy of the certification, and we need to know how they compare with others. Then, when travelling to a water-scarce region, I could choose to stay in one of the hotels with the lowest water usage per bed night or the one with the best employment conditions. Then certification would carry real meaning.

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Responsible Tourism takes a much more transparent approach:

1. Consider what issues arise in or from the impacts of your operations and affect your neighbours.
2. Which of these issues could you address through your business, alone or working with others?
3. Decide what you can afford to do without bankrupting your business and destroying jobs.
4. Tell you suppliers, customers, neighbours and other businesses what you are doing and how?
5. Report your impact using verifiable evidence.

Booking.com has annually reported for some time that large majorities of tourists want to travel more sustainably, but the same consumers say that there are few sustainable options available.

“Our research indicates that as many as 68% of travelers want to travel more sustainably in the coming year. However, the supply of options meeting credible sustainability criteria remains limited, and standards are often inconsistent or difficult to assess. As a result, travelers face uncertainty and lack clear, trusted information to guide their choices.” Booking.com stated in its 2025 Sustainability Report.

It just may be the case that certificates are opaque and fail to meaningfully communicate what responsible travellers are looking for. If you want to see examples of effective Responsible Tourism marketing, take a look at Responsible Travel with user content collateral.

Professor Xavier Font wrote a series of guides for tourism businesses more than a decade ago. The one produced for Failte Ireland using local examples opens with a quote from Simon Ashe of Ballynahinch Castle:” Your customers will only value your sustainability efforts if you make it fun and you communicate it with passion but without making them feel guilty.”

It is important to make your messages meaningful for your target customers – you can’t do everything, as we have seen, you need to choose. Consider your market, amongst other things, when you choose what to take responsibility for.

The Failte Ireland “Green Marketing Toolkit” was published back in 2011, and VisitWales published “Keep it real” in 2012.

In February 2025 Accor, Booking.com and the University of Surrey published cutting edge research on how to engage travellers and “deliver effective and engaging sustainability communications to guests.”

• Highlight sustainability practices – including for less sustainable amenities – and show how guests can easily contribute
• Balance appeals to pleasure and comfort for optimal results
• Empower guests, don’t constrain or dictate to them
• Help guests act as responsibly as they do at home

Follow the link for really helpful guidance.

The most recent research by Booking.com reveals that 85% of travellers say that more sustainable travel is important or very important to them. Older generations demonstrate greater commitment to specific, more sustainable behaviours than their younger counterparts. Less than half (47%) of the Boomer survey respondents (61+) say they want to travel more sustainably in the coming 12 months, compared to 60% of Gen Xers (45-60), 71% of Millennials (29-44) and 75% of Gen Z (18-28). Research shows that perhaps their actions speak louder than words.

• Of those who intend to travel more sustainably over the next year, two thirds of Boomers (67%) say they will reduce general waste when travelling compared to 56% of Gen X, 52% of Millennials and less than half of Gen Z (48%).
• 60% of Boomers intend to reduce energy consumption (such as turning off air conditioning and lights in their room when they aren’t there), compared to 51% of Gen X, 46% of Millennials and 42% of Gen Z.
• 59% of Boomers say they will shop more at local, independent stores on their trips compared to 50% of Gen X, 44% of Millennials, and 42% of Gen Z.
• And perhaps, unsurprisingly, older generations were much more likely to report plans to travel outside of peak season: Boomers (63%), Gen X (48%), Millennials (41%) and Gen Z (36%).

The market is increasingly complex, requiring businesses to carefully evaluate what truly matters to their clients and target audiences. Success depends on identifying and building meaningful connections that drive sustainable growth and long-term value.

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