Sustainable travel at a glance: Background, Facts and Tips
If you’re like us, then you know that we can’t travel the way we did a few years ago. Maybe you’ve even changed the way you travel and are now looking for more sustainable options. Or maybe you want to learn more about the relationship between sustainability and tourism.
Here, you will find both. Together, we will take an in-depth look at sustainable travel, explore its background, and establish connections. You will also find useful tips in the article. But enough preface. Let’s get started!
Table of Contents: Sustainable Travel
A Look at Tourism
How does sustainable travel work?
What is sustainability and what does it have to do with our travels?
Sustainability today: Comprehensive and blurry
Environmental protection while traveling
Water consumption as a traveler
Sustainability meets animal welfare
Climate protection while traveling: Do you still fly??
Let’s talk about money – What our money does when we travel
Questions you can ask yourself before you spend your money
Excursus: The Green Pearls® network
Often overlooked: Social sustainability when it comes to travel
An alternative to traditional tourism: Slow Travel
Small steps also make a difference
Sustainable Travel – Different Experience
If you landed on our website, it’s likely that you’re someone who likes to travel themselves, right? Think back, where have you been? It varies greatly among members of the editorial team. Some of us have experienced distant parts of the world. Literally. Some people prefer to stay in Germany and Europe. What we all have in common is that we love discovering new places.
A Look at Tourism
When we’re traveling, and I’m sure you feel the same way, we’ve noticed that we can’t continue like before. It has been evident for some time that tourism is not the white, unsullied industry that it likes to be portrayed as. Mass tourism, short-haul flights, and water scarcity are just a few of the keywords associated with this context.
But, how can we improve? What are some ways we can discover other countries and regions without leaving a damaging imprint on the ground? In summary, how can we travel responsibly?
How does sustainable travel work?
This is the very question we want to explore in this blog article. We will do it in as much detail as we can. That is why we will begin by explaining what sustainability is and how it relates to our travel behavior. Of course, the topic of climate protection and air travel has its place as well. Lastly, we’ll introduce you to an alternative to classic tourism, and in part two of this series of articles, we’ll share with you tangible, tried-and-tested tips on how you might make your trip more sustainable.
Despite all the tips we’ve given you, there is one thing we don’t want you to forget: As a traveler, you will always have higher CO2e emissions and consume more resources than you would if you didn’t travel. Most cases, at least. The most sustainable way to travel would be not to travel at all. But sustainability has now taken on a greater meaning than just environmental protection.
What is sustainability and what does it have to do with our travels?
To answer this question, we must travel back to the Middle Ages. At that time, the term ‘sustainable’ first appeared and meant something like ‘lasting.’ The first proper definition of sustainability in today’s sense came from Hans Carl von Carlowitz. The chief miner faced numerous challenges, such as extreme deforestation, droughts, and bark beetle infestations, in his forests in the 18th century. Does this sound familiar to you?
Perhaps we should take another look at the 300-year-old textbook published by von Carlowitz. In it, he introduced the principle of sustainable forestry, which states that only as many trees should be cut down as can grow back. Von Carlowitz developed this method to ensure that future generations would still have access to wood.
Sustainability today: Comprehensive and blurry
Our approach to sustainability has evolved and changed since then. Forestry’ is a term you probably don’t associate with it anymore, but maybe your cell phone case, clothing, or food. And yes, travel is also part of the equation.
There are many perspectives on what sustainable travel looks like. One definition does not exist. You won’t find one here either. Instead, we want to introduce you to the different aspects of sustainable travel and explain how they work. We’ll start with the most obvious aspect: the environment.
Environmental protection while traveling
As travelers, we should be aware that we can harm the environment. Otherwise, you probably wouldn’t be reading this article. However, our environmental impact isn’t only made up of flights and travel-related exhaust fumes. For example, many people don’t realize that building a hotel can significantly disrupt the natural environment. This environmental damage forces plants and animals to look for new habitats. Therefore, renovating existing buildings is the best solution.
Monastery hotels are a good example of this, such as the Hotel Klosterbräu in Seefeld, Klosterhof – Alpine Hideaway & Spa in Bavaria, and Hotel Le Pavilion in Paris. By utilizing old monastery walls, abandoned buildings are given a new lease on life while preserving the culture and history of the community. If you want to learn more about this trend, you can find out more in our article on monastery hotels.
Water consumption as a traveler
At this point, there’s no reason to sugarcoat things. As frequent travelers, we use a lot of water.
- According to the German Hotel and Restaurant Association (DEHOGA), a tourist consumes approximately 350 liters per night in a hotel (compared to around 130 liters at home).
- The 2030 Report even estimates up to 2,425 liters per night for a tourist. This includes personal water consumption (showers, toilets) as well as swimming pools, golf courses, green spaces, etc.
Even if sustainable and environmentally friendly hotels and accommodations use water-saving faucets and use rainwater and gray water for garden irrigation, every guest still uses more water on vacation than they would at home. Not just for brushing teeth. That accounts for the least amount. Indirectly, we also use the water that is consumed in the restaurant, for the pool and for cleaning.
It’s cool when the hotel uses a natural bathing pond instead of a classic chlorinated pool, as the STURM in Mellrichstadt, Germany, does, for example. Furthermore, it provides a habitat for numerous animals. If flowering meadows with bee- and insect-friendly flowers are also planted, the hotel garden becomes a small, biodiverse paradise.
Sustainability meets animal welfare
Traveling and experiencing animals in their natural environment is one of the top experiences, especially for children. Whether they are wild animals on safari or domestic animals, seeing them in their natural habitat is incredible. However, travel can have a negative impact on animal protection. Visits to national parks ensure that they can continue operating. Our visits also demonstrate to the local population that protecting animals can be financially worthwhile. On the other hand, tourism can encourage practices that are not in the animals’ best interest, such as elephant riding or lion petting.
If you are interested in learning more about animal welfare while traveling and how you can make
your trip animal-friendly, you may want to check out this blog article. We’ve covered the topic in
detail here.Furthermore, our article on wildlife on vacation provides specific vacation offers where you can experience safaris, diving, or national park animals in a sustainable way.
Climate protection while traveling: Do you still fly?
Travel and accommodation have been found to be the areas with the greatest environmental impact when it comes to tourism. That means that adjusting these adjustment screws has the biggest effect. You can find a selection of sustainable hotels and vacation rentals on our website. We not only present each hotel with its rooms and offers, but also with its sustainable initiatives and measures. This will give you an opportunity to get an overview in advance and actively contribute to protecting the climate by making environmentally friendly choices when it comes to accommodation.
By now, we are all aware that flying, especially short-haul flights, is immensely detrimental to the climate. Flight shame has become a term for when you get on a plane even though you feel bad about it.
How you can deal with flight shame, we have already discussed in tis blog article.
Other alternatives to flying are driving a car, taking a bus or train, cycling, and wearing walking shoes. Yes, we count the car as well. Although we wholeheartedly agree that car traffic must be reduced, if you look only at carbon dioxide emissions, then a fully occupied car with four or five people can sometimes even have the better balance than an empty train. However, the train still runs, and in addition, it offers the opportunity to spend time together with family or friends without having to concentrate on road traffic.
An alternative that many people are unaware of is the long-distance bus. In recent years, companies such as Flixbus have established a huge network across Europe, and their environmental friendliness is on par with that of trains! Find out more about sustainable vacations by long-distance coach here.
It is even more environmentally friendly to travel by foot or by bicycle rather than by car. The journey itself will become an adventure, and you will develop an entirely new perspective. By the way, this principle is the foundation of the Slow Travel movement. You can read more about it in the article below.
Let’s talk about money – What our money does when we travel
When we travel, we incur expenses. On accommodation, food, souvenirs, activities, and events. It is not without reason that tourism is one of the most important, sometimes even the most important, industry in many countries. It offers a lot of potential, if done right.
“Right” in this case means that our money benefits the country and the local population, and does not flow back abroad or to large, international companies. Experts here speak of the percolation rate, which indicates how much of the profits from the respective destination seep back out again. This happens, for example, through staying in international hotel chains, buying imported goods and eating at global franchises.
Another aspect is that we determine what we support through our purchasing or consumption behavior. What practices and behaviors do we support with the money we spend while traveling? Keywords here are production conditions, supply chains, payment of employees, exploitation of nature, and child labor, just to name a few.
Questions you can ask youself before you spend your money:
- Who owns the hotel or lodging I want to stay at? Is it family run? Locally owned?
- Who owns the restaurant? Who does the cooking? How are the employees treated?
- Where does the food come from? Was it grown locally? Or imported?
- Where do the souvenirs come from? What material are they made of?
- Does the event benefit the local population? Or is it cultural appropriation and exploitation?
Additionally, a sustainable economy also refers to the entrepreneurs in tourism. They should take care not to work only for short-term profit, but to think in the long term. That means taking into consideration the impact and responsibility of their own company, hiring local employees, and investing in environmental and social measures.
Excursus: The Green Pearls® network
At Green Pearls®, we want to advocate for more sustainability in tourism and help you do the same. That’s why we work with various partners around the world who offer sustainable hotels and vacation rentals. After prior verification and only if they meet certain sustainable criteria, which concern environmental protection as well as economy and social issues, they are allowed to be part of the Green Pearls® partner network.
This means that when you choose a Green Pearls® hotel or vacation home, you can be confident that your accommodations are sustainable. You can read exactly what makes each hotel or vacation home sustainable on its respective Green Pearls® page. For example, you can learn how the five-star Der Birkenhof Spa & Genussresort hotel in Bavaria is a pioneer in sustainable hospitality despite its luxury orientation; how the Aparthotel OLM Nature Escape in South Tyrol generates all of its energy from its own sources; how 50 percent of the employees at the Green City Hotel Vauban are disabled; and how the Hotel Luise in Erlangen makes its hotel rooms entirely from recyclable materials.
Often overlooked: Social sustainability when traveling
Both the economic and environmental aspects of sustainability are socially oriented. At first, this may sound very abstract, but imagine the following: You travel to any country, or even just another city. You arrive there, stay in a hotel, eat in a restaurant, and walk through the streets. You can also buy some souvenirs. Likewise, you drink water, swim in the pool, throw away your garbage, drive boat, cab, car. Then you leave again. If you tried to spend the money locally, then the money you spent stays there. What also stays there is your environmental impact, the missing water and the garbage.
And now imagine thousands, in some places even millions, doing the same. What do you think the effects will be on the local people?
Let’s take a look at the social impact of man-made climate change, which is not entirely innocent when it comes to tourism. The people who are affected by it are the ones who don’t contribute to it. People who don’t travel around the world three times a year.
Furthermore, there are also clear abuses in tourism, such as the exploitation of seasonal workers. You can find out more about this in this article on social sustainability in tourism.
An alternative to traditional tourism: Slow Travel
You might have heard of Slow Travel before, right? Over the last few years, countless books, articles, and podcasts have been published about it. The idea behind it is simple: Slow travel. The journey should be made to the destination. Putting achieving your goal above arriving at your goal. In this way, Slow Travelers are returning to the old definition of travel: being on the way from A to B.
Slow Travel grew out of the Slow Food Movement, which promotes the conscious cultivation, handling, and enjoyment of food. It was founded as an alternative to fast food. Slow Travel can be similarly compared with conventional travel.
Instead of considering the journey as a mere tool to reach the destination, Slow Travel considers it an essential part of the trip. On foot, by bike or by train, you experience the first adventures already before your destination.
The main thing, when you’re walking, is to stay in one place for longer. Because the longer we stay, the greater the benefit to the local economy. You’ll also get to know the local people in an entirely different way and discover places that other tourists miss. Perhaps the locals will even share with you one or two insider tips. 😉
Read this blog article for more information about slow travel and how a slow trip can look like. Furthermore, join us on an adventurous journey by train through Thailand!
Small Steps also make a difference
You might be thinking that’s okay, but there are just too many things to consider. Where do I even begin? That’s precisely how everyone started who is involved in sustainable travel today. The key is to take small steps initially. If the issue seems too large to tackle right now, start by booking sustainable lodging in your destination. Stay longer in one place instead of spending each day somewhere else. Actively choose vegetarian or even vegan meals. These are all small steps you can take to move in the direction of more sustainable travel.
Sustainable Travel – Different Experience
Travel is indeed a wonderful thing. We meet new people and discover nature. Unfortunately, however, our travel has an immense impact on the environment and people around the world.
It would, therefore, seem logical to say that, even if it’s difficult, we’ll give up traveling if we have to.
However, that is too narrow-minded. Tourism impacts thousands of jobs and livelihoods around the world, and many people rely on us travelers for their livelihood. Especially in countries like the Maldives, there are very few job or income opportunities outside of tourism. Sustainable hotels like Gili Lankanfushi provide a stable income for locals, which encourages a change in mindset. Whether it’s local or foreign visitors, the mindset will be changed. Read here to find out what sustainable vacations in the Maldives can look like and how you can actively participate in a coral conservation project as a diver, for example.
In rural areas, they offer opportunities for sustainable development. The travelers staying at Relais del Maro, located in the small Ligurian town of Borgomaro, not only ensure the preservation of the historic buildings that house the family-run “Albergo Diffuso” hotel, they also support regional farmers, winemakers, and artisans.
In other words, we don’t have to stop traveling. We need to travel differently.
Sustainable travel does not eliminate these impacts. But when we travel sustainably, we make more conscious choices and don’t just accept our effects. We make conscious decisions to forgo flights, take more time to explore a country or place, and search for sustainable accommodations and activities. We strive to help you do that here on the Green Travel Blog and over at Green Pearls.
What’s your favorite way to travel? Do you travel sustainably? And what aspects of your trip are particularly important to you? You are welcome to share your thoughts and experiences below.
This is an update from September 27, 2022.
You want to save this for later? Then save your favourite pin or simply use the button at the end.
