Tourism

2 Challenges and opportunities for tourism in a green economy

2.1 Challenges

The tourism industry faces a multitude of significant sustainability-related challenges. Challenges that need to be resolved through the greening of the industry include (1) energy and GHG emissions; (2) water consumption; (3) waste management; (4) loss of biological diversity; and (5) effective management of cultural heritage.

Energy and GHG emissions The tourism sector’s growing consumption of energy, especially

in travel and accommodation, and its

dependence on fossil fuels has important implications for global GHG emissions and climate change as well as for future business growth. Several elements contribute to tourism’s increasing energy consumption, including growth rates in international tourist arrivals and domestic travel; trends to travel further and over shorter periods of time; as well as preference given to energy-intense transportation (e.g. aircraft and car travel over train and bus, and flying first and business class instead of economy (Peeters et al. 2010). The sustainability and competitiveness of tourism depends in part on energy efficiency (reductions in overall energy use) and a more intensive use of renewable resources.

After transport, accommodation is the most energy- intensive component of the tourism industry, through its demand for heating or cooling, lighting, cooking (in restaurants), cleaning, pools and, in tropical or arid regions, the desalination of seawater. A general rule is that the more luxurious the accommodation, the more energy will be used. In a wide review of studies, energy- use in hotels range between 25 and 284 MJ/guest- night (Peeters et al. 2010). Tourism-related transport consumption of energy is related to travel mode. Coach and rail transport, cars and buses, aircraft and cruise ships have diverse energy intensities.4

There is no systematic international country dataset on energy consumption from tourism activities. The UNWTO and UNEP (2008) estimate 250 MJ per person is consumed through activities not related to travel

to the destination or accommodation on an average international tourist trip, 50 MJ per person is expended on shorter and less activity-oriented business trips and 100 MJ per person for Visiting Friends and Relatives (VFR) trips. The weighted global average of energy consumption for activities of international tourists is estimated at 170 MJ per trip, excluding transport and accommodation. As a comparison, world daily energy consumption per capita is estimated at 135 MJ (a value that includes energy generation and industry).5

Given the rising global trend for travel and the growing energy intensity of most trips, future emissions from the tourism sector are expected to increase substantially, even considering current trends in technological energy-efficiency gains in transport (air and ground) and accommodation. Tourism is estimated to create about 5 per cent of total GHG emissions (1,302 Mt CO2

), primarily

from tourist transport (75 per cent) and accommodation (21 per cent, mainly from air-conditioning and heating systems). A globally-averaged tourist journey is estimated to generate 0.25 tonnes of CO2

(UNWTO and UNEP 2008).

The World Economic Forum (WEF 2009b), using a different set of sub-sectors, estimated global GHG emissions from tourism to be 13 per cent higher (1,476 Mt CO2

The report distinguishes direct and indirect emissions from tourism, with direct emissions being defined as

“carbon emissions from sources that are directly engaged in the economic activity of the tourism and travel sector.” While these are included in the WEF estimate, indirect emissions are excluded, i.e. emissions from electricity usage in airline or travel agent offices, and emissions from transportation of hotel consumables, such as food or toiletries (Peeters et al. 2010). Scott et al. (2010) estimate the sector contributed between 5.2 per cent and 12.5 per cent of all anthropogenic radiative forcing in 2005.

Over the next 30-50 years, GHG emissions from the tourism sector are projected to grow substantially in a business-as-usual scenario, in large part because emissions from aviation, the most important emitter in the industry, are expected to grow by at least a factor of 2 to 3 (UNWTO and UNEP 2008, WEF 2009b). Aviation

4. For instance, in New Zealand, the total energy consumed for tourism transport and accommodation is distributed by 43 per cent for road transport, 42 per cent for air travel, 2 per cent for sea transport and 1 per cent for rail transport, with accommodation comprising the remaining 12 per cent. For local travel, coach tourism consumes the greatest energy per day, followed by camper tourists, soft comfort and auto tourists (Becken et al. 2003).

5. Own estimation with data from the International Energy Agency, available at http://data.iea.org/ieastore/default.asp. 421 in 2005).