Desirable tourism transport futures

Abstract

The challenge of mitigating climate change is critical to desirable tourism transportation futures, although to date relatively little attention has been paid to this aspect of sustainable tourism. This introductory article to the special issues on ‘Desirable Tourism Transport Futures’ explores approaches to transitioning the tourism sector to a sustainable emissions path. It starts by describing an undesirable tourism transport future associated with a business-as-usual scenario, which will inevitably cause the climate mitigation goals outlined in the Paris Climate Accord to soon become unattainable. We then outline a scenario for a climatically desirable future, and its social and economic implications. It is important that desirable tourism transport futures are critically considered in terms of both spatial and temporal scale. The scenarios that inform this editorial provide some insights at the long-term macro-scale. These scenarios are associated with desirable and undesirable elements that will no doubt continue to be the subject of much debate and contestation. While these scenarios will represent both opportunities and threats to the full spectrum of tourism industry stakeholders, they should also inform manifold avenues of future research at a critical moment in the evolution of tourism transportation and the pursuit of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Keywords:

• Tourism transportation
• futures
• scenarios
• policy
• desirability
• climate change

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 On Friday 7th October 2016 the ICAO 39^th General Assembly passed a resolution to implement a global market-based mechanism (GMBM), the ‘Montréal Agreement’, in the form of a carbon offsetting and reduction scheme for international aviation (CORSIA).

2 A vacuum sealed tube through which a pod can travel without air resistance or friction transporting people at high speeds with little energy expenditure.

3 See for instance fresh food figures for US food imports in https://kanhaul.com/news/kan-hauls-food-transportation-infographic/.

4 See https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2018/02/239911/morocco-high-speed-train/.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Paul Peeters

Paul Peeters is a professor at the centre for Sustainability, Tourism and Transport (CSTT) at the Breda University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands. His main research focus is on mitigating tourism transport’s impacts on climate change.

James Higham

James Higham holds the position of professor at the University of Otago (New Zealand), and visiting professor, University of Stavanger (Norway). His research addresses tourism and global environmental change, with a particular focus on climate change, tourist transportation and emissions mitigation.

Scott Cohen

Scott Cohen is Head of the Department of Tourism and Events in the School of Hospitality and Tourism Management at the University of Surrey. His research expertise is in sociological and consumer behaviour issues in tourism, transport and leisure contexts, with particular interests in sustainable mobility, hypermobility and in business and lifestyle travel.

Eke Eijgelaar

Eke Eijgelaar is Senior Researcher at the Centre for Sustainability, Tourism and Transport (CSTT) of Breda University of Applied Sciences, the Netherlands. His main research interest concerns the environmental impacts of tourism. His focus lies on the monitoring and mitigation of tourism’s carbon footprint, and related topics like carbon management.

Stefan Gössling

Stefan Gössling is a professor at the School of Business and Economics, Linnaeus University, and the Department of Service Management and Service Studies, Lund University, both Sweden. He is also a co-ordinator of tourism and transport research at the Western Norway Research Institute.