A research by TUI Group reveals, sustainable tourism faces major challenges even though eco-friendly travel is becoming popular among holidaymakers in Europe.
Eco-friendly travel is already very popular among many European holidaymakers – however, sustainable tourism also entails major challenges.
The representative survey among more than 3,000 respondents examined people’s attitude to sustainable travel in Germany, the UK, France, Sweden, Belgium and the Netherlands. They were people who had travelled in the past two years.
Only one in ten European holidaymakers (11%) book eco-friendly hotels, according to the poll of more than 3,000 respondents in Germany, the UK, France, Sweden, Belgium and the Netherlands.
And just 9% of travellers in the UK and Belgium prefer sustainable holidays.
This compares with German and French tourists who show an above-average tendency to book sustainable accommodation, with 17% of all German respondents and 18% of all French Tui customers preferring eco-friendly hotels.
Thomas Ellerbeck, member of TUI/s Group Executive Committee and responsible for sustainability said that, the survey shows that sustainable travel is in vogue among holidaymakers. This trend relates both to ecological and social sustainability. Sustainability factors that are becoming increasingly popular in the tourism sector include environmental protection, biodiversity, and better social standards for the local population in the destination. Two thirds of the respondents surveyed say that tour operators are responsible for offering sustainable holidays and should provide better information. This confirms TUI’s sustainability strategy, aimed at delivering 10 million greener and fairer holidays per year from 2020. The results of the survey should encourage the entire tourism sector to drive joint sustainability standards further ahead, based, among other factors, on sustainability certification for hotels such as the schemes recognised by the Global Sustainable Tourism Council.
Based on a broad range of questions related to sustainable behaviour such as recycling or energy saving, the study established a Sustainability Index measuring the commitment to sustainable behaviour.
