What is Sustainable Travel?
“Sustainable travel” has become a topic of discussion in the travel industry as awareness has increased about the environmental damage and negative social consequences caused by explosive growth in international travel. Much to their credit, many ethical travel service providers are examining their operations to reduce the negative effects of the travel they promote. Like any hot trend though, there are others who just short-cut to marketing slogans. Touting that they offer “sustainable travel” is as close as they ever get to offering a responsible travel experience.
What is Sustainable Travel?
What does “sustainable travel” mean anyway? Not using single-use plastics for water? Choosing slow travel rather than moving around every day in energy-consuming vehicles? Going to less-traveled places to hike on less-trampled trails? Planting trees to reforest a landscape rather than riding a zip line in a forest? There are many actions, from small to large, that contribute to “sustainable travel”.
When people plan a trip, they have to choose where to go, when to go, how long the trip will be, how to get there, how much to spend and what to do on the trip. If choosing “Sustainable Travel” is on their list, it probably won’t be at the top of the list. Even when it is an important concern for travelers, they seldom have a lot of time to devote to ensuring their travel is sustainable. Nor is it easy to evaluate. How can travelers choose sustainable travel? Will they weary of the effort and just choose the company with the biggest “Sustainable Travel” sign on their website?
As CEO of Conservation Volunteers International Program, I have been thinking a lot about the sustainable travel discussions, because our conservation trips rely on people who travel. ConservationVIP® organizes conservation trips to public lands around the world to help sustain some of the world’s greatest landscapes, cultural heritage sites and biodiversity. The people who travel with us have a special combination of traits: they care about the environment, they enjoy the sense of accomplishment that comes from volunteering on meaningful projects, and they like to travel.
Travel Activities are key to Sustainable Travel
I applaud the current focus on sustainability in the travel industry. But it concerns me that despite all the interest in sustainable travel, one key element of sustainability is often overlooked. Most tour operators do not discuss the importance of the trip activities which people engage in during their travels. Traveling on one of ConservationVIP’s conservation trips is a great way to choose sustainable travel, because our activities are focused on protecting and preserving landscapes, habitats, biodiversity, and cultural heritage sites which are threatened by the travel explosion. But I do not want to simply post a “sustainable” label on our trips, like so many others do, hoping that consumers will make a decision based on marketing hype. I want to engage in more meaningful discussion.
Sustainability is not a new concept for ConservationVIP. It has been in our mission statement since 2012. Our nonprofit mission is to help sustain some of the world’s greatest landscapes, cultural heritage sites, and biodiversity. We use the term “sustain” to acknowledge the importance of the needs and concerns of the local constituencies in the destinations we help. Working with them, we truly help the special places we love.
Many good questions can be raised about sustainability and sustainable travel. What is it? What are we doing about it? How do we reconcile our travel with the concerns about overtourism and climate change? I hope you will take a few minutes to read through our page on sustainable travel and sustainability to read our thoughts on these and other questions. We don’t pretend to have all the answers, but with the support and help of our volunteers, we expect to continue to learn and improve.
