Sustainable tourism

Sustainable tourism is a concept that covers a complete tourism experience, including concern for sustainable. In fact, all forms of tourism make-up the potential to be sustainable whether planned, developed and managed properly. Tourist development organizations are promoting sustainable tourism practices in sorting to mitigate negative effects caused by the growing impact of tourism, for example its environmental impacts.

The SDG 8 "decent clear and economic growth", SDG 12 "responsible consumption together with production" and SDG 14 "life below water" implicate tourism in creating a sustainable economy. modernizing are expected to be gained from suitable administration aspects and including sustainable tourism as part of a broader sustainable development strategy.

Sustainable transport and mobility

Tourism can be related to travel for leisure, business and visiting friends and relatives and can also increase means of transportation related to tourism. Without travel there is no tourism, so the concept of sustainable tourism is tightly linked to a concept of sustainable transport. Two relevant considerations are tourism's reliance on fossil fuels and tourism's effect on climate change. 72 percent of tourism's CO₂ emissions come from transportation, 24 percent from accommodations, and 4 percent from local activities. Aviation accounts for 55% of those transportation CO₂ emissions or 40% of tourism's total. However, when considering the impact of all greenhouse gas emissions, of condensation trails and induced cirrus clouds, aviation alone could account for up to 75% of tourism's climate impact.

The International Air Transport Association IATA considers an annual add in aviation fuel efficiency of 2 percent per year through 2050 to be realistic. However, both Airbus and Boeing expect the passenger-kilometers of air transport to increase by approximately 5 percent yearly through at least 2020, overwhelming any efficiency gains. By 2050, with other economic sectors having greatly reduced their CO₂ emissions, tourism is likely to be generating 40 percent of global carbon emissions. The main cause is an increase in the average distance traveled by tourists, which for many years has been increasing at a faster rate than the number of trips taken. "Sustainable transportation is now established as the critical effect confronting a global tourism industry that is palpably unsustainable, and aviation lies at the heart of this issue."

The European Tourism Manifesto has also called for an acceleration in the development of EU’s modal shift goal.

Global tourism accounts for about eight percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. This percentage takes into account airline transportation as well as other significant environmental and social impacts that are non always beneficial to local communities and their economies.