Ten easy ways to practice sustainable travel on your next trip | The Canberra Times
For a long time, travelers believed a comfortable lie about ecotourism: that reusing a hotel bath towel could offset the environmental impacts of a long flight.
This passive approach to ecotourism has allowed travelers to feel good about themselves and do little to change actual behavior in the area.
But the good news is that there are still many ways for a traveler to be environmentally and socially conscious while vacationing, it just takes a little work.
Professor Kirsten Holmes from Curtin University said true sustainability starts with a holidaymaker considering both the positive and negative consequences of their visit.
“‘What impact will I have when I go somewhere? What can I do to leave the most beneficial outcome from my visit?’ “You have to think,” he said.
To celebrate World Environment Day on June 5, here are 10 ways to be a more thoughtful traveler.
Overtourism is pushing fragile ecosystems and communities to breaking point, but travelers can ease the pressure by spreading their footprint elsewhere.
Plan trips that skip saturated global hotspots entirely or visit only during quieter, off-season times.
“Avoiding major hotspots, or at least avoiding peak times, will mitigate some of the impact,” said Susanne Becken, Professor of Tourism at Griffith University.
Viral social media posts can create tourist destinations overnight; This means fragile natural environments become overrun with garbage and crowds.
“Someone posts a destination online and then everyone says, ‘Oh, we all have to go there now.’ But how do we do it? [local operators] Can you manage this sudden influx of people?” said Professor Holmes.
He said removing location details from social media posts could be a great way to deter overtourism.
Truly sustainable tourism means leaving behind daily habits like taking a long shower and adapting to the local reality.
Professor Becken recommends researching your destination’s restrictions before you arrive and adjusting your habits accordingly.
Immersing yourself in a useful, hands-on task is one of the best ways to ensure that an area you visit will actually be better off.
Instead of taking a holiday just to relax, volunteer for a beach clean-up or another practical local project, Professor Holmes said.
“It’s about trying to leave the destination in better shape than when you left,” he said.
The environmental impacts of international flying make frequent travel unsustainable; So if you are going abroad, make the most of the time you have.
Professor Becken said travelers should prioritize destinations closer to home or book fewer but longer trips.
“We have to think about whether traveling closer to home would be just as rewarding… If we travel long distance maybe we can stay longer, which makes it really worthwhile,” he said.
If you’re spending your travel budget at multinational hotels and corporate restaurant chains, the money probably won’t find its way back into the local economy.
“It’s really important to buy local products. It creates local jobs, reduces transport footprints,” Professor Becken said.
Don’t blindly trust slick marketing or sustainability claims on a resort’s homepage.
Greenwashing, the insidious practice of making a company appear more environmentally conscious than it actually is, is rampant.
Professor Holmes suggested checking to see if the business was certified by an independent body such as Ecotourism Australia.
Sustainable travel also involves the community asking what type of tourism they want in their area.
Professor Holmes said a responsible traveler looks for experiences shaped and approved by local people, rather than forced into a neighborhood by outside tourism operators.
Real traveler feedback provides an on-the-spot reality check; so it’s worth reading online customer reviews about the hotel, tour or destination.
By scanning the spectrum of crowd-sourced reviews, you can compare a business’s real-world practices with their environmental marketing.
Have you noticed dangerous practices while on vacation? Use your voice as a consumer and contribute to online reviews to give other travelers a real insight into what they’re booking.
Call attention to unsustainable practices such as unnecessary plastic waste or mistreatment of wildlife.
“Reporting unsustainable practices in reviews can also trigger a business to respond. If enough guests complain, then the business may see an incentive to change,” Professor Becken said.
