Booking.com’s 2024 Sustainable Travel Report sheds light on the evolving landscape of sustainable travel, emphasizing the need for cross-industry collaboration to address ongoing challenges.
This annual report, now in its ninth edition, draws from extensive research involving over 31,000 travelers across 34 countries. It provides a comprehensive overview of current traveler attitudes, perceptions, and behaviors regarding sustainable travel.
While this year’s research reveals a continued sense of desire and awareness, with 83% of travelers confirming that sustainable travel is important to them, new insights show a sense of weariness could be emerging globally, fueled by the ongoing challenges that travelers experience to make more sustainable travel choices.
- 28% feel traveling more sustainably is important, but not a primary consideration when planning or booking a trip.
- 28% of travelers even report they are tired of hearing about climate change all the time.
With this in mind, the opportunity for collective action is more pertinent than ever, in order to ensure that progress toward a more sustainable travel industry remains a priority.
Sustainability Trends Among Travelers
Positive Intentions: 75% of global travelers express a desire to travel more sustainably in the next 12 months. Specific intentions include reducing energy consumption (57%), using more sustainable modes of transport (54%) when traveling in the future, and feeling guilty when making less sustainable choices (43%).
Personal Motivations: Of those who want to travel more sustainably 32% believe that it is the right thing to do, 16% believe traveling more sustainably will enhance their experience, 11% believe they would have a more authentic experience of the local culture, 7% will do so because it will make their trip more fun.
Challenges: New areas of research reveal that some travelers don’t recognize the importance of being more mindful of their impact. About 33% feel that the damage already done to the environment is irreversible, and 34% find it pointless to be sustainable in destinations that do not prioritize sustainability. Furthermore, 25% don’t believe climate change is as severe as people make it out to be, and 28% feel their time spent traveling is too precious to put sustainability at the top of their decision-making list.
Shared Responsibility
‘’While many travelers have retained a sense of optimism and a desire to have a more positive impact, there is a critical opportunity for the industry to accelerate efforts to make those choices easier for everyone. It’s important that we continue ensuring that more sustainable options are not only readily available, but also easy to trust and understand. That’s where we believe further education, clear and consistent standards and credible third-party certification of legitimate sustainable practices across the travel experience can really help. While the signals of consumer frustration should be a concern, it’s also a reminder to maintain our focus on the impactful work we know can make a difference not only for travelers, but for communities and destinations everywhere,’’ says Danielle D’Silva, Head of Sustainability of Booking.com.
Certifications
Coming across an accommodation labeled as more sustainable is more appealing to almost half of travelers (45%). Consistency of certification standards is critical to identifying these options with 67% agreeing that all travel booking sites should use the same sustainable certifications or labels.
Sustainable Silver Linings
Despite emerging frustrations, travelers who say they are making more mindful choices also feel that more sustainable travel experiences are actually adding value to their trips.
- 62% recognize that they are the best version of themselves when traveling sustainably.
- 67% feel that witnessing sustainable practices while traveling inspires them to adopt sustainable habits in their everyday lives.
The 2024 Sustainable Travel Report from Booking.com underscores the critical opportunity for the travel industry to make sustainable choices easier for everyone. By maintaining focus on education, standardization, and credible certifications, the industry can continue to make a positive impact on travelers and destinations worldwide.
Read Booking.com’s Sustainable Travel Report 2024 here.
Booking.com officially joined as a member of GSTC’s global network in 2019. If you want to learn more about becoming a GSTC Member click here for more information.
Make your accommodation sustainable now!
As the report mentions, coming across an accommodation labeled as sustainable is more appealing to almost half of travelers.
Sustainability certification for accommodations is a voluntary, third-party assessment through an audit to ensure compliance with sustainable tourism standards. GSTC does not certify directly. Certification is conducted by Certification Bodies (CB) while GSTC provides Accreditation to Certification Bodies.
Accommodations certified by a GSTC-Accredited CB can use the GSTC logo along with the CB’s mark. The logos are also shared with OTAs and other buyers of hotel space.
Learn more about how to become certified as a sustainable hotel/accommodation here.
