There’s a lot to consider when it comes to booking travel: price, location, facilities and more recently where it falls on the green and red list. But has the environmental impact of your travel ever been considered?
In October 2020, Skyscanner introduced a new carbon offsetting option for bookings, which means, travellers can now choose to offset their flight’s carbon emissions by making a small donation. If selected, this gets added to the final payment.
And just recently, Google have announced a new way to search for hotels, using a sustainability check.
With the rise of awareness around global warming and sustainability in the home, its equally as important to think about our impact when setting off for a holiday or work trip.
1. Try to book non-stop flights whenever you can: It’s the takeoffs and landings that create most of an airplane’s carbon emissions.
2. When traveling overseas, look for seals of approval from other certification programs, such as EarthCheck (Australia), Green Globe, Rainforest Alliance (Latin America, Caribbean), and Green Tourism Business Scheme (UK). Some countries, including Costa Rica, have their own certification programs to rate sustainability initiatives.
3. Take a BPA-free water bottle you can refill over and over again. Many international airports have free water dispensers, which saves you money and wasting plastic bottles.
4. Never use the hotel laundry, as they typically wash every guest’s clothes separately (even when there are only a few items).
5. Hang up your towels after each use, which is the universal sign that you’d like to use them again. You don’t wash your towels every day at home, so why do it when you travel?
6. When you leave your room, always turn off all lights, heat/AC, and television. Closing the curtains and blinds can help keep out the heat of the sun in summer.
7. Take any leftover soap, shampoo, or toothpaste with you. Unused portions are often thrown away, and you can reuse the plastic bottles in the future.
8. Do not buy souvenir photos from anyone exploiting wildlife, such as the famous performing elephants of Thailand.
9. Don’t take any tour that promises hands-on encounters with wild animals, such as riding elephants or walking with lions. If you do, you’re supporting an industry that illegally captures, transports, and abuses millions of animals each year.
10. Book economy, flying economy class is actually better than flying business class. Business class fliers create far larger carbon footprints than economy fliers. First of all, business class takes up loads of physical space, while economy class carries more people and is thus way more efficient.
So why travel seco-friendly?
One obvious reason is that it’s better for our planet. CO2-emissions from aviation, cars and other modes of transport contribute significantly to global warming. The consequences of global warming are pretty disastrous. From biodiversity loss to the flooding of major cities, there are plenty of reasons to want to prevent this.
From booking.com research, however, people also offered other reasons why they would like to travel greener. Six out of ten travellers (60%) said that their own experiences being out in nature inspired them to take better care of the planet. These experiences include;
Having seen the beauty of coral reefs and rainforests (60%)
Having seen the impact of tourism on the location they visited (54%)
Having seen the positive effects that sustainable tourism can have on the local population (47%)
Having seen what effect unsustainable tourism has on the country (42%)
So, it's pretty clear that to continue enjoying the nature of the world, we need to do our bit to keep our holidays looking beautiful for the future!
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