Economic, not just environmental, sustainability for travel

Travelers’ understanding of sustainable travel is generally
limited, and cultural and economic sustainability are no exceptions. 

According to Phocuswright’s travel research report Beyond
Climate Change: Cultural and Economic Sustainability in Travel, among the two
categories, cultural measures evoked stronger comparative recognition. 

Travelers show some intuitive understanding that they should
follow rules and blend in when they’re away from home. Roughly one quarter to a
third of travelers consider obeying rules about what shouldn’t be touched or
handled and where they’re not allowed to go to be part of traveling
sustainably.

Fewer travelers understand that obeying laws that forbid the purchase of
illegal goods like drugs or contraband also contributes to more sustainable
destinations.

On the economic side, travelers enjoy the idea that the
money they spend should benefit the communities in destinations where they
travel. Between half and two-thirds of travelers say they want the money they
spend to benefit the communities they visit.

However, the idea that tourism spend could make a
destination better is more of a sentiment than a guiding principle for
travelers. It’s also not common knowledge that supporting local businesses
makes the travel industry more sustainable.

Most travelers don’t connect the initiative to support local businesses with
the concept of sustainability. The purchases they are most likely to view as
sustainable are locally sourced food options.

Food feels like a win-win: Travelers get to try something new and different
and support local restaurant owners or purveyors in the process. United States travelers
(17%) lag far behind their European counterparts (31-39%) on this measure. But
almost universally, travelers also neglect the importance of supporting local
with larger-ticket purchases.

Using local hotels or tour agencies is viewed less as sustainable travel than
low-stakes purchases like meals and souvenirs.

Economic sustainability may be critical to destinations
themselves, but it suffers from its own brand of short-sightedness from
travelers that’s precipitated by a variety of factors:

• Over-association with environment. Sustainable travel has
  traditionally been so associated with the environment that travelers don’t
  frequently connect economic policy with sustainability.
• Low transparency around spend. Travelers rarely have the
  means to understand where their money goes after they spend it.
• Lack of signals. Other types of sustainability issues
  present with more visible cues (e.g., trash buildup, pollution, poorly
  maintained areas, heavy crowds) while the effects of economic sustainability
  challenges are more concealed. Challenges like shortages of well-paying tourism
  jobs for residents, affordable housing accessibility, or local businesses
  struggling for share against big travel brands are impactful for a destination.
  However, they typically percolate outside of the traveler’s view.
• Limited impact on traveler experience. Lack of economic
  sustainability doesn’t negatively affect the travel experience at the magnitude
  of issues like overcrowding. Travelers can’t detect the issue through the lens
  of their own experience. In addition, these problems often develop over
  extended periods, so travelers are long finished with their vacations by the
  time impacts strike.

Communication or education efforts around economic
sustainability need to take extra care to be direct and transparent because
these issues are too covert for travelers to discern them on their own.