Where green travel is going
Not so very long ago, being green was deeply in the closet. If you were a luxury property, especially, you hid your greenness. It was unbridled excess and unbounded pampering you wanted to promote, not … ugh … sustainability. Green was for granola-grazing New Agers and less-is-more ascetics. Travel was FUN. Travel was CAREFREE. Who invited that pecksniffian party pooper, Mr. Green?
Now, of course, Mr. Green is on everybody’s A-list. This has happened very quickly. You can’t pick up a newspaper travel section or travel magazine without seeing the “G” word scattered everywhere, like droplets of holy water. Independent online booking agents such as Rezhub and Whole Travel jumped in early to point to green options for travelers (and are still doing an excellent job). These days the Big Players want a piece of Mr Green. By the beginning of 2009, mega-reservationist Travelocity had added green travel booking tools, never mind that these tools were so buried on its site that a green blogger complained you had to belong to a “super-secret club” to find them. Today we’re all in the club—there’s a link on Travelocity’s home page. Expedia is hurrying to catch up.
At the same time, the world has realized that the world is in deep, deep trouble—the Inconvenient Truth, as it were. Where does that leave green travel? Do we just stay at home and watch polar bears drown on television? No. That would be too depressing. We humans need interaction with other humans, and with the world’s magnificent diversity of human and natural environments. So travel we must, and travel we should. So we go green.
Green travel today
But what should traveling green mean, really—beyond the pro forma reminder to reuse bath towels and switch off the lights when you go. What should we expect from a green venue? What is the state of the green travel segment today, and where is it heading? In short, where is green travel going?
A few statistics would be good here.
44% of U.S. travelers now consider environmental impact to be important to them when planning travel.
46% of European business travelers say their company’s environmental policies have a direct impact on their travel.
Nearly 1/3 of U.S. travelers are willing to pay a premium for green travel.
56% of U.S. travelers are skeptical about what hotels and other travel destinations are telling them about their green practices. In the UK, the skeptics climb to 63%—yet the green travel market in England projects robust growth of 25% per year.
Only 8% of U.S. travelers think it’s easy to find green travel options.
Green travel tomorrow
Where does this leave us? Our conclusions … and a few predictions:
Green travel is here to stay, and it’s growing. Likewise, greenwashing. People are right in their skepticism, but we must not let ourselves stray into cynicism. Being green or not being green does matter. And you can tell the difference.
Green travel should be transparent in its greenness. Increasingly, it isn’t enough for a hotel or tour company to claim it’s green because of this, that and the other thing—being green is certifiable, and ensures a continual upgrading of green practices. Short of 3rd-party certification, look for detailed information about green practices on a property’s Website and onsite. The good ones are proud to do show and tell.
Expect to be delighted
To thrive, green travel has to be great travel. You may have heard this from us before. It’s our own little mantra. In other words, don’t lower your standards to travel green. Expect to be delighted. Be willing to pay a bit more if necessary—because the experience is worth it. The mediocre players will fall away, the best will be recognized and thrive.
As with green living in general, innovation will make green travel more commonplace, more widespread. The cost of alternative energies like solar and wind is coming down. Passive energy systems like geothermal are proving both reliable and cost-effective. Alternative fuels like algae- or jatropha oil-based biofuels have been tested successfully by several airlines. (The Air Transport Association, which represents 230 airlines, wants 10% of aviation fuel to come from biofuels by 2017.) We can’t innovate ourselves out of global climate crisis—only much greener government policies and radical retooling of our industrial and agricultural sectors might have a chance of doing that. But if airlines successfully reduce their carbon wingprint (air travel is approaching 4% of all greenhouse gas emissions), that will be huge … and will ease our collective consciences about continuing to fly.
And finally … the more things change, the more they stay the same: it comes down to personal responsibility. For your own green travel practices. For the travel choices you make. Your support of local green businesses and indigenous communities working to preserve native culture and eco-sensitive traditions has ripple effects—with travelers and locals alike—who might choose to do the same. Your individual impact might be small but the cumulative impact is great.
Supporting the best in green travel, now and into the future—that’s where we hope you’ll go. We’ll see you there.
