Abstract
Leisure travel within the European Union (EU) contributes significantly to the carbon footprint of global tourism. Distance travelled is a main factor in this impact, but some of its determinants remain unexplored. We examined the role of tourists' holiday preferences in shaping the carbon footprint of leisure travel within the EU by calculating demand and impact indicators associated with eight holiday styles. We find a substantial and equivalent carbon footprint for visiting relatives, nature tourism and sea, sun and sand tourism, but a higher carbon intensity of travel per trip for the latter. This is due to widespread demand for sea, sun, and sand tourism despite the concentration of destinations in Southern Europe. Furthermore, international travel within the EU is on average three times more carbon intensive than domestic travel. Our insights suggest that tourists’ holiday preferences can be leveraged for the sustainable development of leisure travel within the EU.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 104630 |
| Pages (from-to) | 1-14 |
| Number of pages | 14 |
| Journal | Tourism Management |
| Volume | 94 |
| Early online date | 27 Aug 2022 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Feb 2023 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This research was funded by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions (MSCA) grant agreement No 765408 from the European Commission: COUPLED ‘Operationalising Telecouplings for Solving Sustainability Challenges for Land Use’, and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Reuter Foundation) project No. KA 4815/1-1 . Authors are grateful to Franziska Komossa for providing methodological insights, to Anne-Elise Stratton for proofreading the manuscript, and to three anonymous reviewers for their valuable suggestions.
Funding Information:
A first avenue is to promote domestic travel. Domestic tourism is associated with shorter distance per trip than international travel (Table 3) and is proven to have economic benefits and to enhance cohesion among a country's regions (Llorca-Rodríguez, Chica-Olmo, & Casas-Jurado, 2020). Moreover, domestic tourism has been more resilient to the downturn imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic (European Commission, 2022), arguably due to a shift in tourism strategies since the beginning of the pandemic (UNWTO, 2020). In this regard, the EU could enhance the attractiveness of regional territories for locals by funding the development of tourist attractions in areas where tourist activity is not yet developed (European Commission, 2017). Such investment should be particularly targeted at assets related to wellness tourism (e.g. health-tourism package within national parks), nature tourism (e.g. agri-tourism activities on farms), and active outdoors tourism (e.g. hiking and biking trails); preferences for these forms of leisure travel may have increased during the pandemic as they could be enjoyed outdoors and away from congested areas. Promoting regional cultures through territorial branding (e.g., Atout France, 2021) could revive Europeans' sense of discovery and have the adverse long-term effect of increasing demand for international travel once all travel restrictions have been lifted and travellers' confidence in the sanitary conditions of other countries has been restored. In contrast, stressing the value of time spent with loved ones may foster domestic travel, given that family and friendship networks are primarily domestic.This research was funded by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions (MSCA) grant agreement No 765408 from the European Commission: COUPLED ‘Operationalising Telecouplings for Solving Sustainability Challenges for Land Use’, and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Reuter Foundation) project No. KA 4815/1-1. Authors are grateful to Franziska Komossa for providing methodological insights, to Anne-Elise Stratton for proofreading the manuscript, and to three anonymous reviewers for their valuable suggestions.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Authors
Funding
This research was funded by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions (MSCA) grant agreement No 765408 from the European Commission: COUPLED ‘Operationalising Telecouplings for Solving Sustainability Challenges for Land Use’, and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Reuter Foundation) project No. KA 4815/1-1 . Authors are grateful to Franziska Komossa for providing methodological insights, to Anne-Elise Stratton for proofreading the manuscript, and to three anonymous reviewers for their valuable suggestions. A first avenue is to promote domestic travel. Domestic tourism is associated with shorter distance per trip than international travel (Table 3) and is proven to have economic benefits and to enhance cohesion among a country's regions (Llorca-Rodríguez, Chica-Olmo, & Casas-Jurado, 2020). Moreover, domestic tourism has been more resilient to the downturn imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic (European Commission, 2022), arguably due to a shift in tourism strategies since the beginning of the pandemic (UNWTO, 2020). In this regard, the EU could enhance the attractiveness of regional territories for locals by funding the development of tourist attractions in areas where tourist activity is not yet developed (European Commission, 2017). Such investment should be particularly targeted at assets related to wellness tourism (e.g. health-tourism package within national parks), nature tourism (e.g. agri-tourism activities on farms), and active outdoors tourism (e.g. hiking and biking trails); preferences for these forms of leisure travel may have increased during the pandemic as they could be enjoyed outdoors and away from congested areas. Promoting regional cultures through territorial branding (e.g., Atout France, 2021) could revive Europeans' sense of discovery and have the adverse long-term effect of increasing demand for international travel once all travel restrictions have been lifted and travellers' confidence in the sanitary conditions of other countries has been restored. In contrast, stressing the value of time spent with loved ones may foster domestic travel, given that family and friendship networks are primarily domestic.This research was funded by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions (MSCA) grant agreement No 765408 from the European Commission: COUPLED ‘Operationalising Telecouplings for Solving Sustainability Challenges for Land Use’, and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Reuter Foundation) project No. KA 4815/1-1. Authors are grateful to Franziska Komossa for providing methodological insights, to Anne-Elise Stratton for proofreading the manuscript, and to three anonymous reviewers for their valuable suggestions.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| UNWTO | |
| Horizon 2020 Framework Programme | |
| Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft | |
| H2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions | 765408 |
| German Reuter Foundation | KA 4815/1-1 |
| European Commission | 2022 |
Keywords
- Carbon footprint
- Distance
- Ecosystem services demand
- European union
- Leisure travel
- Preferences
- Tourism
- Transport
