Sustainable travel should be the only way we travel. From excessive air travel that causes harmful CO2 emissions to package holiday resorts that are built on natural areas, international travel and tourism are far from sustainable.
Our world has finite resources. There are only so many beautiful, natural, untouched places on our planet and mass tourism threatens their existence. Nature, culture and history should be preserved, not commodified.
Unfortunately, many travelers and travel industry operators remain in denial about how limited our world’s resources are and how tourism is negatively affecting the environment, local cultures and communities. That’s where sustainable travel comes in.
Sustainable travel means finding a way that tourism can be maintained long-term without harming natural and cultural environments. Sustainable travel should minimise the negative impacts of tourism and ideally be beneficial to the area in which it takes place.
The World Tourism Organization defines sustainable tourism as “development [which] meets the needs of present tourists and host regions while protecting and enhancing opportunity for the future. It is envisaged as leading to management of all resources in such a way that economic, social, and aesthetic needs can be fulfilled while maintaining cultural integrity, essential ecological processes, biological diversity, and life support system.”
Sustainable travel is about valuing the environment, looking after our natural resources and respecting local communities and cultures. As travelers, we need to be more aware of pollution levels caused by travel and how that affects the environment and local wildlife. Social awareness a part of sustainable travel too and as travelers we also need to be mindful of how tourism affects local people, businesses and native cultures.
There is crossover in definition between sustainable travel, responsible travel, eco tourism and green travel. These terms encompass the idea of being more conscious of how we travel. They seek to minimize negative impacts on the environment and aim to have a positive impact for local communities and economies.
The vendors that we work with share our commitment to making travel a force for good. A commitment that is more than just words on a website — it’s in everything we do. Our efforts to preserve and conserve our world fall under two approaches: Acting Responsibly, which is our commitment to improve the sustainability of our own operations, and Creating Positive Impact, which focuses on leaving the right impact in the places we visit.