\n<\/p>\n
I<\/span>t was a prediction nobody wanted to hear. On the main stage of the world\u2019s biggest tourism fair, Stefan G\u00f6ssling, a leading researcher in sustainable transport, had just calmly announced the looming death of the holiday industry.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have already entered the beginning of the age of non-tourism,\u201d said G\u00f6ssling, to an uneasy audience of travel agencies, car rental companies, cruise operators and hoteliers.<\/p>\n That prophecy may sound fanciful to holidaymakers in Europe and North America who have been jetting off this summer \u2013 as well as to industry executives delighted to see international tourism return to pre-pandemic highs last year \u2013 but G\u00f6ssling argues that as carbon pollution stokes heatwaves, fuels wildfires and ruins harvests, the cost of foreign travel will soar, and fewer people will be able to afford it.<\/p>\n \u201cEighty years ago, mass tourism started in Europe,\u201d said G\u00f6ssling, a professor at the business and economics school at Linnaeus University in Sweden, who has consulted for the UN and the World Bank. \u201cEighty years from now, I\u2019m doubtful there will be much tourism left in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n G\u00f6ssling is not short of examples of destinations already feeling the squeeze. Warm weather is melting snow that keeps Alpine ski resorts alive. Coastal erosion is stripping sand from southern European beaches. Droughts are forcing Spanish hotels to ship in fresh water as swimming pools lie empty, while wildfires are setting scenic Greek islands ablaze.<\/p>\n Chart<\/p>\n The South Aegean islands in Greece, which include the tourist favourites Kos, Rhodes and Mykonos, are the \u201csingle most critical\u201d hotspot on the continent, according to a study G\u00f6ssling co-authored last month combining exposure to climate hazards with dependence on tourism. Next are the Ionian islands, which include Corfu.<\/p>\n The financial strain caused by these issues, which travel companies will probably pass on to customers, will be compounded by the rising cost of food \u2013 from coffee to chocolate to olive oil \u2013 and the increasing need for insurance against extreme weather.<\/p>\n \u201cAt the moment, it\u2019s locally concentrated,\u201d said G\u00f6ssling, speaking to the Guardian earlier this year at the ITB Berlin, the world\u2019s largest gathering of tourism companies. \u201cBut in the future, it will become more frequent, cover more places, and turn into something disruptive.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>Tourists shelter in the shade at the Parthenon, Athens, during a heatwave in June. <\/span> Photograph: Stelios Misinas\/Reuters<\/p>\n Whether this rise in costs could outpace expected growth in global incomes is up for debate \u2013 some damages can be avoided through adaptation, though this, too, comes at a price \u2013 but tourists may feel the pinch even in scenarios that keep volatile weather under control. If carbon pollution does fall sharply \u2013 necessary to stop global heating \u2013 it will cost the most in sectors such as aviation, which is limited by physical constraints.<\/p>\n Some governments hope to slap carbon taxes on flights to help finance the energy transition and compensate poor countries for damage caused by fossil fuels, and green groups are pushing for a frequent flier levy, which would increase duties for each extra flight in a year.<\/p>\n Despite G\u00f6ssling\u2019s blunt assessment of the tourism industry\u2019s efforts to decarbonise \u2013 \u201cwhat the whole sector is doing is greenwashing\u201d \u2013 he is seen as a crucial voice in the industry, with the conference billing his speech a \u201cmust-hear session for anyone who cares about the future of travel and our planet\u201d.<\/p>\n Some things are moving in the right direction, he added, such as hotels putting solar panels on their roofs and people beginning to acknowledge the problem.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have a huge difficulty making the step from there to action,\u201d said G\u00f6ssling. \u201cBut people have realised they are running into risks, and want to understand business risks. The message is not welcome, but it certainly makes people think.\u201d<\/p>\n Chart<\/p>\n In academic circles, G\u00f6ssling is best-known for studies that put numbers on the growing carbon footprint of tourism (8.8% of planet-heating pollution) and the inequality in aviation emissions (only 2-4% of people fly abroad in a given year). His finding that 1% of the world population are responsible for half the emissions from air transport has underlined activists\u2019 calls for governments to make premium and business travel a priority.<\/p>\n \u201cIf that group travelled half as much \u2013 which still is a lot, it probably would still be sufficient even for business travellers \u2013 we could cut [aviation] emissions by 25%,\u201d he said. \u201cJust by making a very tiny group travel a little less.\u201d<\/p>\n But he is also quick to counter arguments that ordinary people in rich countries can keep flying to far-flung places and justify it by pointing to even more polluting demographics. \u201cOur headache is long-haul travel,\u201d he said, mentioning gap years and Gen Z influencers who sell travel as an aspirational lifestyle.<\/p>\n \u201cEveryone sees tourism as a system, where governments and companies are responsible,\u201d said G\u00f6ssling. \u201cBut we are the system. It\u2019s our individual actions that accumulate to global problems.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It was a prediction nobody wanted to hear. On the main stage of the world\u2019s biggest tourism fair, Stefan G\u00f6ssling, a leading researcher in sustainable transport, had just calmly announced the looming death of the holiday industry. \u201cWe have already entered the beginning of the age of non-tourism,\u201d said G\u00f6ssling, to an uneasy audience of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17352,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[305,5117,1993,8205,9418,2460,2627],"class_list":{"0":"post-17351","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-costs","9":"tag-heatwaves","10":"tag-holiday","11":"tag-leisure","12":"tag-signal","13":"tag-travel","14":"tag-wildfires"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17351\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}