Taking into account the negative impacts of tourism seems all the more important since France, the leading tourist country in the world, welcomes 90 million tourists each year, who generate almost 3 million jobs.
These trips are not without consequences: before Covid-19, one and a half billion travelers per year represented nearly 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Even if the figures tend to fall with the health situation and the reduction in business tourism, the strong post-Covid recovery in travel warns of the need to promote more energy-efficient modes of transport, such as the train or the bicycle.
While transport is responsible for at least 70% of emissions due to tourism, we are also witnessing the emergence of more responsible services among tour operators.
Fairmoove, an agency selecting its trips on socio-environmental criteria, promotes stays that are more respectful of local populations and nature. Its founder, Jean-Pierre Nadir, explains: “We base our selection of hotels on 140 criteria that include elements of energy, local production, treatment of employees. And out of 650,000 hotels sold on Booking, the widest offer on the market, we we selected only 4,000. So we’re not even at 1%!”
This selection aims to encourage the most virtuous practices, especially since the coronavirus has exacerbated the ecological concerns of travelers, despite a strong rebound in tourist activity in the short term.
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Some seek to reduce the carbon footprint of their tourists, such as Voyageurs du Monde. It is one of the few travel agencies to offset, through its foundation, all of its travellers’ CO2 emissions, in the air and on land.
“Of course, that doesn’t prevent us from doing everything to reduce carbon emissions first. And what we can’t reduce, we have to absorb it by planting trees. At home, we plant for a budget of about 1.5 million euros per year, for about 3 million trees, in particular in the form of mangroves in India and Indonesia.”
Jean-François Rial, CEO of Voyageurs du Mondeat franceinfo
Some airlines, such as Air France, offer reforestation programs in agro-forestry, led by “A Tree for You”. For others, the ecological transition is obvious for tourists seeking nature observation, especially during safaris in Africa.
“We have transformed our safari vehicles into electric ones, to approach the animals at night, without frightening them. More noise, more pollution: our tourists are delighted, and so are we because the solar panels power both the lodges and our cars. It’s clean and it’s free!”, highlighted Denis Lebouteux, CEO of Tanganyika Expeditions, in Tanzania.