Carbon footprints in the sand: should we all stop travelling now?

Should we all stop travelling now? Some environmental campaigners say that we should curb our huge appetite for foreign holidays and breaks--are they right?

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

This blunt question was recently used as the deliberately provocative title of a debate initiated by travel and tourism charity The Travel Foundation held last month at the British Government's Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Not widely known, the aspirations of organisations like the Travel Foundation should be more familiar to us and deserve to be more broadly promoted, especially among those of us who make a habit of travelling the world on architectural pilgrimages, seeking inspiration by visiting authentic, sustainable and unspoilt communities. Despite the title of their debate, what is clear is that the Travel Foundation is not an anti-travel organisation of agoraphobic killjoys. Instead, they are taking a radical, proactive and practical lead in representing the interests of both international industry partners and local communities settled on the ground.

Facing up to our responsibilities

It is fair to say that the British can claim a certain amount of responsibility for establishing the tourism market as we now know it, and as such it is fitting that a British based organisation has taken the initiative to promote sustainable travel. As an island nation, the eighteenth-century grand tours were one of the earliest forms of organised tourism. With the expansion of the railway network, and having seen myriad international wonders at the Great Exhibition of 1851, many more people were inspired to travel and, as a result, by the 1870s excursion operators were gradually beginning to emerge, with individuals like Thomas Cook providing some of the first affordable package holidays. Less than a hundred years later, however, no one could have anticipated the exponential expansion that the industry would experience in postwar Britain, with its more affluent, upwardly mobile and optimistic outlook. During the 1960s and '70s, however, this largely civilised and broad-minded industry spiralled out of control, taking advantage of jet aviation and capitalising on other nations' poverty, with struggling economies like Spain being exploited and over developed without any meaningful system of regularisation or planning control. While clean white modernism was festive and bright, miles and miles of beautiful coastline have been ruined by inappropriately imported buildings, forcing local communities to move out to make way for thousands of Sangria swilling, donkey carrying, sombrero wearing, Pasadoble shuffling, pink, British foreigners. But most of us have been there, haven't we?

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

What should our attitude to travel be when we hear increasingly bleak forecasts regarding rocketing fuel prices, food miles and habitat destruction, all contributing to an apparently out of control industry that continues to let its enormous and ungainly carbon footprint run riot in the sand? Should we really all stay at home? Should we feel guilty for jet setting, for visiting German Del Sol's delightful hotel in Patagonia (p46), or popping over to Linz to stay in Andreas Strauss' unique sewer rooms (p66)? Fortunately with organisations like the Travel Foundation gaining credibility and becoming more effective, help is at hand. Without stirring up emotion or panic, they draw upon a wide range of industry experts who sit on their board of trustees, and try where possible to lead by example.

Leading by example

The charity itself operates in three principal modes: first, working with key industry partners to help instigate strategic changes in the way they operate their businesses (flight operators, international hotel chains and package holiday providers); second, raising awareness through PR and marketing (providing literature to the trade for wider distribution to the end users); and third, and most interestingly perhaps, by running pilot projects on location (with recent initiatives in Tobago, Sri Lanka, and Mexico). Working on location is without doubt the most direct way to make a difference, and one recent success has been the charity's ability to bring together local communities and suppliers in Tobago with global multinational, the Hilton Group. Until recently, there was little or no dialogue between the Hilton Tobago and the local community, with food supplies being flown in from a small number of remote approved suppliers. Now, however, through the 'adopt a farmer' initiative, successful negotiations have created stronger links with local producers, resulting in a number of significant, sustainable and deliverable supply chains being set up.

In terms of development and architecture, small moves are also beginning to be made with a series of hotel makeover projects whereby the Foundation effectively audit the operation and energy consumption of hotels, more often than not yielding significant savings. In one recent project in Turkey, for example, it was found that the conveyor belt toasters in the kitchen were accounting for over half of the hotel's electricity consumption, and that a simple change to pop up machines would reduce its load by effectively 50 per cent.

Looking ahead, the Foundation hope to extend this sort of work into the pre-planning stage in the development of new resorts, taking advantage of their access to expertise and government support. All this being said, however, the underlying principle that should be made clear is that tourism should ultimately be seen as an extremely positive activity. In the same way that incremental impacts can create long-term damage, the incremental investment that tourism can bring could equate to more than an equal and opposite force. In the United Kingdom alone, 12 million of us will take a holiday this year, and if we invest our holiday budgets wisely, we can be confident that our footprints are welcome, wherever we choose to go.

For more information about sustainable travel, visit www.thetravelfoundation.org.uk