As is the case for many communities with travel times of under an hour into central London, commuting has increased, and property prices have risen. Traditional terraced houses near the station, which were starter homes for local people wanting to start a family, are now being purchased by DFLs (Down From Londoners), and the houses are now beyond the reach of many of the children of those extended families. They are moving away to start their families, often expensive travel distances from parents/grandparents, aunts and uncles. My town is being gentrified as many of the traditional industries offering manual employment cease.

This gentrification is changing the nature of the place. At the heart of Responsible Tourism is the idea that great places to live are great places to visit, and inherent in that idea is the principle of putting local people and their interests first.

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In my town, gentrification has had two impacts on housing and retail. There is a serious shortage of affordable housing, for purchase or rent, for the children of local people, many from families who have lived here for generations. Tourism contributes to this as people discover the town as tourists who then look to live here. Some buy a second home for their retirement, renting it out through Airbnb in the meantime.

The impact on retail in the town centre is also serious. The town centre in a small town is an important focal point where the communities can come together for the switching on of the Christmas lights and other events through the year. When I leaflet in the town centre on a Saturday morning, more than half of those I accost are not from the town; they are irregular day visitors attracted by our street market, which prospers. Great news for those of us who can afford to pay premium prices, but for many local people they cannot afford to purchase, and they feel excluded from the heart of their town, alienated.

Gentrification is one of the major causes of the community’s feeling that their place has been spoilt by tourism, that tourism and tourists exclude them. In the debates about overtourism, there has been a major focus on second homes and short-term rentals. Less attention has been paid to the impact on the High Street and the retail offer, as those that serve local needs are squeezed out by rising rental costs.

Cheung & Yiu’s research in Hong Kong suggests that touristification is not merely a subset of gentrification. Their research evidence suggests that shops oriented to serve tourists can pay higher rents and that areas with more tourists will make the retail rent gaps of small shops higher, resulting in the closing of traditional retailers.

In Barcelona, the city’s sustainable-tourism commissioner José Antonio Donaire is working to restore resident-oriented retail and neighbourhood life. Donaire frames the goal as ensuring that “any resident can buy a loaf of bread, a book or a screw in their neighbourhood.” The city is considering using part of its tourist tax to support local commerce rather than gift shops, building on restrictions on new tourist shops in sensitive zones such as Park Güell and Sagrada Família, plus rent support for commercial premises serving mainly local residents.

In Barcelona, La Rambla and its Mercat de la Boqueria are among the clearest examples of overtourism: a historic everyday public market and street have been reshaped by visitor volumes, tourist-oriented retail, crowding, and pressure on local life. La Boqueria attracts ±23 million visits a year, and many residents avoid it because of crowds and the shift from fresh-food shopping toward takeaway, fruit cups, juices, and other visitor purchases. Over the last 15 years, the balance of local to tourist has shifted from 50/50 to 20/80. On La Rambla itself, residents and local associations speak of it as a “tourist trap”, crowded, with fast-food outlets and souvenir shops displacing other uses.

La Boqueria and La Rambla are among the 16 areas which have been identified as oversaturated. Measures are being taken to redress the balance, including crowd monitoring, cleaning, civic-agent patrols, tourist-bus rerouting, and support for businesses serving residents.  Tour groups in La Boqueria are limited to fewer than 15 people, and the city is also using sensors on La Rambla to measure pedestrian flows and identify saturation points. La  Boqueria never ceased to prosper. Its function and its clientele changed.

The city is working to boost trade aimed at residents and to offer more community, neighbourhood, cultural, and family activities in spaces traditionally occupied by tourism. For La Boqueria, a major new regulation is planned but not yet fully in force: it would require the market overall to limit prepared foods to 50% and reserve at least 50% for traditional products. For individual stalls, reports indicate a proposed limit of up to 60% elaborated/prepared products and a minimum of 40% traditional products, with approval expected in late 2026 or early 2027. The aim is to restore La Boqueria’s function as a fresh-food market rather than a primarily tourist food court.

Barcelona’s deputy mayor for economic promotion, Jordi Valls,  admitted that the city is “reaching the limit” in terms of the number of tourists, but he has admitted it is very difficult to prohibit the arrival of visitors. For this reason, authorities want to regulate the city’s offering and, instead of “enhancing” the Barcelona brand, he wants to “defend” it. “Tourism adds value, but after a certain limit, it no longer does,” he added, explaining that he wants above all to manage public space because this is what can help build a city for all.

L’article Tourism and gentrification est apparu en premier sur Travel Tomorrow.

I was delighted to see easyJet holidays launch its holiday campaign “One Street Over”, designed to inspire travellers to discover the lesser-known areas of Europe’s most beloved destinations. Matt Callaghan, chief operating officer, explains:

“We believe travel can be a force for good, and One Street Over is based on a really simple idea: sometimes the best part of a holiday is just around the corner from the places everyone already knows.

“We want to encourage our customers to explore a little further, discover more of the neighbourhoods, people and businesses that make a destination special, and hopefully find something they weren’t expecting.”

As described in Travel Bulletin: “The video series is designed to show both first-time visitors and returning holidaymakers a different side to Paris, helping them to discover new experiences and reasons to explore the world-famous destination.”

The first episode features Jade and Ryan from @LiveTheDash, whose channel carries the message: “Be a positive impact & Live The Dash, Small Budgets Can Stretch Many Miles”.

In the episode, which is now live, Ryan and Jade discover museums, galleries, parks and markets beyond the city’s busiest areas. 

I discussed One Street Over with Scott Lawson, senior ESG manager at easyJet holidays. 

The first episode was released on 17 September and has been viewed more than 10,000 times.

In my August article, I wrote about the distinction social anthropologists make between backstage and frontstage places, and the trend towards repeat visits. As I noted then: “We may become repeat visitors or even temporary residents, but we remain guests, and good guests respect the places where people live.”

L’article Getting off the tourist track – One Street Over est apparu en premier sur Travel Tomorrow.

The Brundtland Commission defined sustainable development as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”.

It is easy and convenient to assume that future generations will be able to clean up our oceans and reclaim raw materials from landfill while continuing with business as usual.

Sustainable perfectly fits the definition of a weasel word: “a word or phrase aimed at creating an impression that something specific and meaningful has been said, when in fact only a vague, ambiguous, or irrelevant claim has been communicated”.

Weasels are small, active predators. There “has long been a widespread belief that weasels suck the yolks from birds’ eggs, leaving only the empty shell. This belief is the basis of the term ‘weasel words’, used to describe statements that have had the life sucked out of them.”

Unfortunately, weasel words are no less effective for all that.

The phrase “to weasel out”, meaning “to squeeze one’s way out of something” or “to evade responsibility”, explains why regulators must take action to avoid mis-selling.

Mis-selling has to be regulated because it is effective and undermines those retailers that are taking responsibility, investing and working to produce goods and services that cause less pollution, benefit local communities, are nature-positive and, in a host of ways, are making tourism better.

With clever use of weasel words, the bad guys can, and do, undermine the good guys.

Five years ago, the European Parliament and the Council recognised that: “In order for consumers to be empowered to take better-informed decisions and thus stimulate the demand for, and the supply of, more sustainable goods, they should not be misled about a product’s environmental or social characteristics or circularity aspects, such as durability, reparability or recyclability, through the overall presentation of a product.”

The new EU Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition Directive (EU) 2024/825, commonly referred to as EmpCo, takes effect across the EU this week and significantly increases the legal scrutiny of marketing and branding.

For those who are mis-selling, the risk of being called out and fined has increased. But for those who are taking responsibility and making tourism better, the opportunity to be recognised for their efforts has improved.

Take the opportunity. Make specific claims where you have the evidence to back them.

As I have previously argued in Travel Tomorrow, we need to go beyond the badge and rethink certification in responsible tourism.

Greenhushing is an understandable response to the risk of being accused of mis-selling, but it is a mistake. Those who are actively making tourism better deserve to profit from it and to have their efforts recognised and rewarded.

Certification is expensive, and it does not substantiate the specific claims that carry weight with consumers.

In next year’s Responsible Tourism Awards, which have just opened, we are seeking to recognise businesses and destinations that are “Communicating Responsible Tourism”. We want to share good practice and encourage those taking responsibility to get the credit for it.

The Global Destination Sustainability Movement, the European Travel Commission and NECSTouR have produced an excellent guide to EmpCo, “Proof, Not Promises”, with valuable advice about how to make credible sustainability claims.

The advice on how to safely claim credit for your efforts in the marketplace is clearly presented.

As they point out, EmpCo redefines how sustainability ambition is “expressed, evidenced, and trusted”.

Take the opportunity. Claim the credit you deserve.

L’article Weasels, mis-selling and ‘Proof, Not Promises’ est apparu en premier sur Travel Tomorrow.

Tourism places additional pressure on local services, from transport and public facilities to sewage treatment and waste management. This raises a broader question about who should bear these costs and whether visitors, alongside residents, should contribute through taxes or levies to help fund the services and facilities needed to accommodate them.

There is an obvious link between tourism numbers and volumes of sewage produced, and where combined sewer systems carry both rainwater and sewage, there is an inevitable risk of stormwater discharge, including sewage, when there is heavy rainfall. Without stormwater discharge, sewage would likely back up and flood people’s homes, better that the sewage is dumped into lakes, rivers, and the sea than that it bubbles and spills out of the water closets.

Lake Windermere is England’s largest lake, just over 18 km long. It is a long and narrow ribbon lake, carved by glaciers, and it is up to 64 metres deep. It is a World Heritage Site within the Lake District National Park, an area of 2,362 square kilometres, attracting around 18 million tourists every year, 80% of the day-trippers, but roughly 29.15 million tourist days are spent in the park annually, counting anyone who spends more than three hours in the park. The resident population, according to the 2021 census, is a mere 38,993, in 17,800 households.

There has been mounting concern about the pollution of Lake Windermere. Algal blooms turn Lake Windermere green and starve the wildlife in the lake of oxygen.

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A study funded by the UK Space Agency found a direct correlation between visitor numbers and algal blooms in Windermere. In the UK, water companies are legally permitted to discharge untreated sewage during periods of heavy pressure on the sewer network to prevent it from backing up into homes.

Research company Map Impact analysed mobile phone data to estimate the number of people in the Windermere area and compared it with levels of chlorophyll-a, an indicator of algal growth detected through satellite data. Researchers identified individual days when more than 300,000 people were present in the area, compared with a resident population of around 35,000, according to Map Impact’s research, highlighting the intense pressure tourism can place on the lake and its surrounding infrastructure.

However, visitor numbers are only part of the problem. Rising average temperatures linked to climate change create conditions that can encourage algal blooms, while fertiliser runoff from agriculture provides additional nutrients that support algae growth.

Sewage pollution has added to concerns over the lake’s water quality. Map Impact reported that raw sewage was discharged into Windermere for around 5,904 hours in 2022 — equivalent to 246 days, or roughly 67% of the year if the hours were counted continuously.

The Big Windermere Survey, published in August 2025, involved 350 citizen scientists taking more than 1,000 samples over two and a half years and revealed High levels of bacteria found in human faeces – Escherichia coli (E coli) and intestinal enterococci (IE) – indicating sewage pollution. They were highest in the summer months, but the analysis showed high levels throughout the year.

In October 2024, the BBC reported that United Utilities “repeatedly dumped millions of litres of raw sewage illegally into one of England’s most famous lakes over a three-year period. “Permit breaches should be reported to the Environment Agency, but United Utilities failed to do this for most of the discharges identified by the BBC between the start of 2021 and the end of 2023. … United Utilities failed to report at least 102 million litres of that pollution.”

Surfers Against Sewage has developed a Sewage Alert App which pulls together the UK’s live sewage discharge data from over 18,000 overflows. Their sewage alert app issues warnings specifically for designated bathing waters to inform water users when water quality is compromised and it may be unsafe to enter the water. We had heavy rain in Faversham, where I live, on Tuesday 8^th September; untreated sewage was discharged for 5 hours and 16 minutes.

Stok Kangri, located just 15 km from Leh in the Ladakh region of northern India, is closed to tourist and military expeditions. The closure is an extreme example of the consequences of overtourism, after years of trekking placed growing pressure on the mountain’s fragile ecosystem and local water resources.

Abdul Qayoom, writing about the reasons behind the closure, describes how temporary bathrooms and toilet facilities near the base camp affected streams used by surrounding communities. “Urine and human waste often ended up mixing directly with the nearby streams,” he wrote, including waterways relied upon by villagers for drinking and irrigation.

Climate change added to the pressure. As water flows declined, the impact of waste became more severe, with Qayoom noting that “the same amount of toilet waste and pollution became far more concentrated in a smaller volume of water.” At the same time, climate-driven changes were placing additional stress on the glacier and its watershed.

Ultimately, it was the local community that pushed for action. The Stok village committee, working with the All Ladakh Tour Operators Association (ALTOA), supported stopping expeditions to give the mountain, its water resources and wildlife time to recover.

The decision was therefore not simply imposed by authorities, but driven by those living with the effects of growing tourism. As Qayoom writes, “It came from local people actively protecting their own home, their environment, and their future water supply” — making Stok Kangri a striking example of a community responding directly to the pressures of overtourism.

L’article Overtourism and sewage: How visitor numbers put pressure on local infrastructure est apparu en premier sur Travel Tomorrow.

I used this example when I was teaching the social anthropology of tourism at Greenwich University. One of my students recounted how she and her husband had driven a few minutes down the road to their local town for lunch. Finding all the restaurants, cafés and bars on the main street full, they walked 100 metres up a side street. As they entered the bar, it fell silent. They realised that they too were unwelcome, would not be served and left.

There are more extreme cases of the same phenomenon. Social anthropologists describe the difference between the public “front stage” and the more private “backstage”, culturally private rather than necessarily legally private. There had been growing disquiet about overtourism for a while before an incident in the fishers’ neighbourhood of La Barceloneta sparked demonstrations and overtourism became a prominent political issue in Barcelona.

“Here tourists do whatever they want,” Vicens Forner told El País. A local photographer, he was the one snapping photos of the Italian tourists as they wandered his neighbourhood for three hours in the nude, even popping into a local shop, while horrified residents looked on.

Fifty years ago, Doxey published his Irritation Index, the Irridex, which recognised that local residents often initially experience euphoria at living in a place worthy of visiting, followed by apathy, annoyance and then antagonism. Of course, local people will move along the Irridex curve at different rates, but as the current issues around overtourism have demonstrated, the negative impacts can be cumulative.

We talk about mass tourism in the same way that we talk about traffic. The “mass” and “traffic” are, of course, other people. We forget that we are as much part of the traffic and the mass as all the others on the motorway or in the Louvre. The tourists and the locals are heterogeneous, and our antagonism is caused, in part, by the behaviour of tourists and day excursionists. As part of tackling overtourism, local authorities are increasingly seeking to regulate visitor behaviour and encourage visitors to show respect for the place and its people, in other words, to behave as guests.

Spreading tourism can spread the problem

One response to overtourism has been to spread tourists temporally or spatially. The downside of this approach is that you may simply expand the area impacted by overtourism and visitors invade the “backstage” and deny locals an “off season”, an often vital breathing space for a more normal life.

Tiny Tourism is emerging as an alternative way to travel described by Laura Hall as the “counter-trend snubs overcrowded hotspots and “bucket lists” in favour of seeking out small, hyper-local experiences. The principle boils down to one little rule: if it feels like a tourist would do it, don’t.”

Two problems arise. First this is most likely an additional activity if you are in Barcelona you are still likely to visit the Sagrada Familia to get your trophy selfie. Worse you will want your selfie in the supermarket. If you don’t recognize the issue ask Mrs Google for a “selfie in the supermarket.”

I, for one, don’t want visitors lining up their “perfect shot” while I am shopping and I don’t want to see tourists invading the privacy of my neighbours poking their cameras into their windows. Some Bibury residents claim that “… oblivious pic hunters have also knocked down walls in their cars, blocked their driveways and several of the endless stream of coaches even run people over.” In August last year, The Sun carried a series of photographs with a report about this invasion of the backstage.

‘Tiny Tourism’ is no antidote to mass tourism, rather it spreads the impact backstage likely increasing irritation and antagonism.

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What if we returned instead?

There is an alternative. I am a repeat visitor to Ludlow for the Food and Drink Festival. We have been every year but five over the last twenty-five years. We now ‘know’ people there; we have become temporary residents.

Annabel Grossman has written about her repeat visits to a corner of Wales, where she has travelled 35 times. Despite Pembrokeshire being relatively close to her home in London, she returns to do much the same things each time: swimming at the same beach, running the same coastal paths, visiting the same coves, climbing the same mountain, eating at the same pubs and kayaking along the same stretch of coastline. For her, this familiarity and repetition have become a form of rest and relaxation.

As Jeff Bogle writes, this is a trend “According to Priceline’s 2026 Where to Next? report, 73% of travellers surveyed said that they are drawn back to the places and experiences that shaped them, from family beaches to amusement parks. Hilton’s latest global travel report echoes the trend: 58% of travellers with children plan to revisit destinations from their own childhood, while 52% of Brazilian travellers return to the same destinations year after year.”

Perhaps there is something important here for the overtourism debate. Rather than constantly seeking somewhere new and pushing tourism further into the “backstage”, there is value in returning to places we already know. We may become repeat visitors or even temporary residents, but we remain guests, and good guests respect the places where people live.

L’article When tourism invades the backstage, overtourism becomes a bigger problem est apparu en premier sur Travel Tomorrow.

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.