Recent Survey - 60% of Vacationers don’t care about the Environment

I was very surprised to read an article on TravelMole today that stated: “Six out of ten (59%) holidaymakers say they will not cut down on the number of holidays abroad to save the environment, while one in three (35%) are not prepared to pay an extra £20 per holiday to offset their flight’s carbon emissions.” This survey, conducted by BLM Media, seems to contradict a survey from Lonely Planet that indicated that over 80% of online travel purchasers would consider offsetting their carbon emissions or choosing alternate travel methods in order to reduce their carbon impact. ... Read more »

Only One in Four Top Canadian Travel Sites Support Carbon Offsetting

Today is blog action day, a day when thousands of blogs from around the world, including this one, are posting articles about environmental sustainability. I first discovered this on Kevin May’s Travolution blog. On his post he compared the top five U.K. travel sites and reviewed their environmental policies. Of the top five, only one Easyjet has incorporated carbon offsetting directly into the checkout process. Of the remaining four, only one, Lastminute.com allows customers to offset carbon using a seperate carbon calculator.So, in keeping with Kevin’s analysis, I went online... Read more »

Sustainable Tourism Starts with Communities

I’ve been asked recently how sustainability impacts local tourism and how local tour operators can benefit from the latest initiatives around economic and environmental sustainability. For many local tour operators, the questions surrounding sustainability usually focus on costs and impact on profits. For example, what can a tour operator do to be environmentally active and remain profitable? The answer depends on the operators geographic location and their market. In North Vancouver, for example, which is a rather affluent tourist destination there are a number of local van and bus... Read more »

Offset your travel carbon emmissions

My good friend Tatsuya Nakagawa over at Atomica Creative sent me a link to an post on 21st Century Citizen over the weekend. It was timely considering I just blogged about Carbon offsetting recently. The post is about how you, as an individual traveler, can offset your carbon emissions by using the Sustainable Travel International Carbon Offset calculator. The calculator lets you choose your departure and destination and then calculates the amount of carbon produced as a result of your trip. The calculator then uses a formula to determine a dollar amount associated with programs that would... Read more »

84% Of Travellers Will Consider Offsetting Emissions

I just received my latest newsletter from STI (Sustainable Travel International). In the newsletter was a really interesting article about a new global survey by Lonely Planet. The survey shows that travelers world wide are concerned about their travel impacts on the climate and will support neutralizing their travel related emissions through legitimate offset programs. The survey, which polled over 24,500 people worldwide, “showed 84 percent of respondents said they would consider offsetting their emissions in the future, where only 31 percent had done so in the past. Seventy percent of travellers... Read more »