A Short History of the Travel Industry's Sustainability Efforts

25.08.2023 - 13:46 / skift.com / Rashaad Jorden / Keith Barr / Airlines

Environmental issues seem increasingly at the forefront of many consumers’ minds. A majority of travelers worldwide recently said sustainability was important to them.

“Sustainable travel is no longer the ambition of the few but of the many,” said Booking.com in its 2022 Sustainable Travel Report.

Yet despite the increasing demand for sustainable travel, companies throughout the industry have struggled to provide greener travel options for consumers. Roughly 31 percent of respondents in the aforementioned survey said they didn’t know sustainable accommodations existed, and 29 percent admitted they knew how to find them.

And travel companies’ large-scale push to promote their loyalty programs is further making greener travel more difficult. Loyalty programs, incredibly lucrative for airlines and hotels, have been described as frequency programs, which require more stays or more miles flown to achieve certain status levels. Luxury hotel brands, in particular, are generally less environmentally-friendly than midscale and economy brands since they usually have larger rooms and more amenities, which result in higher emissions.

The urgency to make travel more sustainable is only heightened because of the industry’s enormous carbon footprint. Tourism contributed roughly 11 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions in 2019, by one estimate. And transport-related emissions from international tourism are projected to grow 25 percent by 2030, predicted a 2019 report from the United Nations World Tourism Organization.

So have travel companies made progress in making their operations greener? Or are they still paying lip service to the environment? With Earth Day taking place this year on Saturday, April 22, here’s a glimpse at how Skift has covered environmental issues over the past decade.

Skift has frequently addressed sustainability issues related to hotels, which account for about a fifth of all travel-related greenhouse emissions. The industry has seen progress in going greener, including more hotels turning to artificial grass to save water as well as the trend of hotel designers incorporating sustainability into their works.

Some of those stories have touched on the growing consumer desire for so-called green hotels. An August 2013 article revealed that 47 percent of business travelers said at the time they prioritize eco-friendly hotels when working out of town. Another seven percent said eco-friendliness is extremely important when they consider lodging. A piece two years later stated an estimated 52 percent of global travelers indicated they were likely to choose a hotel based on its social and environmental impact.

InterContinental Hotels Group CEO Keith Barr credited pressure from guests — not