TOU0033

Written evidence submitted by Justin Francis, founder and CEO, Responsible Travel

1. Introduction

1.1.            Having seen some of the best examples over the last 18 years, we believe responsible tourism has the potential to benefit communities, wildlife and biodiversity. When done well, responsible tourism can bring positive impacts on destinations and provide remarkable experiences for visitors too. Tourism can educate, inspire and transcend cultural barriers. It can empower marginal communities, and work to help protect and nurture some of the most beautiful landscapes and species on the planet. However, we’ve also been shocked by the scale and depth of the negative impacts that tourism can have on a place and its people. Not least the catastrophic impacts of the climate crisis which threaten communities and biodiversity around the world, and the recognised contribution that tourism – in particular aviation – makes to that.

1.2.            The tourism industry makes its profits from these ‘public goods’ i.e. biodiversity, landscapes and distinctive cultures, yet ironically, often does very little to help look after them. This has to change. We believe the industry is now at a fork in the road – it is up to us which path we now choose.

1.3.            We need to better measure and understand the impacts and costs of tourism in the UK.   We are unable to determine the net benefit of tourism because we cannot determine how much it costs – economically, socially, environmentally – to host tourists.  

1.4.            Tourism, and its impacts, can only really be managed locally.  We need, but don’t have, effective destination management organisations, and we lack the funding required to create them.  At a national level we need more joined up Government thinking to consider how national and regional infrastructure requirements can support the effective management of tourism.       

1.5.            We need better consultation processes with local communities and residents about how tourism affects them.

1.6.            We need to reduce the impact of aviation and make rail travel much more appealing.

1.7.            We need to revisit the Lyons enquiry which called for tourism taxation to fund local services.  Without this it is very hard to see how local authority tourism management services can be funded. We propose creating a temporary residents levy’ (for this is what tourists are) that covers the cost of hosting and managing them.  We are highly unusual in Europe in not taxing tourists.

2. What can the Government do to support a sustainable inbound tourism industry in the UK?

Existing knowledge on the impacts of inbound tourism

2.1              Our existing knowledge on the impacts of inbound tourism is limited and we urgently need to address this.

2.2              In terms of green house gas emissions, we know that if a visitor arrives by plane to their UK destination, given the energy intensity of jet fuel, their journey has already had a significant environmental impact. In 2018, 77 per cent of inbound visitors arrived by air. Heathrow is already the largest single source of carbon in the UK and we know that aviation is one of the fastest growing contributors to climate change, currently accounting for 5 per cent of emissions globally. With the additional impact of radiative forcing, this impact could be two times as much. This is unsustainable.

2.3              CO2 associated with transport in general in the UK, to which tourism contributes, is also unsustainable, already accounting for 27 per cent - the greatest share of UK greenhouse gas emissions in 2017. Use of cars to reach tourism destinations is a large contributor. For example in the New Forest, 96 per cent of visitors arrive by coach or car. 

2.4              We also know that air pollution from cruise ships is of growing concern with Southampton (welcoming two million cruise passengers every year on 500 vessels) ranking a shocking 4th in a recent study of most polluting European ports. Sulphur oxide (SOX) emissions from 44 cruise ships there equated to 260,000 average cars. SOX emissions form sulphate (SO4) aerosols that increase human health risks and contribute to acidification in terrestrial and aquatic environments. Additionally, cruise ships are emitting poisonous nitrogen dioxide and carbon dioxide.

Knowledge gaps on the current impacts of tourism

2.5              We know almost nothing else about the sustainability of tourism in the UK.  Servicing tourism comes at a cost that we do not currently measure comprehensively. We need to understand tourism’s impact on the UK’s:

• Non renewable energy use
• Waste, sewage, pollution, plastics
• Carbon from hotels
• Water use
• Air quality
• Infrastructure upgrades
• Marine pollution

2.6              We know very little about the impacts of tourism on residents – the increase in the cost of local housing, policing costs, congestion, the impact of bad behaviour, or the closure of local shops. Edinburgh is a prime example of this. The city has seen the number of overnight stays increase by almost a third in the space of seven years, to 4.26 million. Research for the Edinburgh Tourism Action Group (ETAG) has said "collective intervention" was needed to protect the quality of life for local residents.

2.7              In terms of economic impacts, we currently solely measure visitor numbers and revenues. We do not measure how much of the revenues stay in the UK.   We measure none of the infrastructure, social or environmental costs of tourism.    As a result we have no idea of the net economic benefit, or otherwise, of tourism or different types of tourism.  

2.8              Not all economic activity is profitable, and this may well be the case with some types of tourism.   

2.9              We know that we run a tourism net deficit which currently stands at circa £22.5 billion

but this does not necessarily mean that increasing tourism numbers is profitable or sustainable. 

2.10          In terms of management, tourism is not currently managed nationally or locally.

There is no forum to do this at Westminster or locally. 

2.11          Furthermore there is no requirement to consult local residents about the type of

tourism they wish to see where they live (and pay taxes).

2.12          So we have very little concrete data on how much tourism (aside from transport) contributes to the growth in overall UK emissions. However, based on inbound growth figures (Visit Britain is predicting 3 per cent growth – 38.9 million visitor numbers this year) and rising domestic tourism numbers (or ‘staycations’), we can conclude that it is currently unsustainable and will becoming increasingly more so. 

So what do we need?

2.13          To address carbon dioxide, we need:

• A plan to reduce car travel associated with tourism.  There are many good case histories in Europe.

• A plan to reduce domestic flights (currently a small but unnecessary 4 per cent of UK aviation emissions), and encourage rail travel.   We propose a Green Flying Duty. Based on the current Air Passenger Duty (for administrative ease), we propose increasing the rates, particularly for business, first class and private jets, plus adding a dedicated increased band for domestic flights. Renaming the duty sends a clear message that its aim is to begin to tackle to environmental impacts of flying and in addition some of the revenues would be ring-fenced for research and development around lower carbon planes (electric/hybrid, hydrogen and electrofuels) and the improvement of rail connectivity and incentivisation for greater uptake of rail travel both within the UK, and to and from the UK.

• We propose a Green Flying Duty over the idea of a Frequent Flyer Levy. Although we support the social justice principles on which the levy idea are based and believe in it in the long term, we are also realistic about the practical implications of administering this. We believe the changes and additional data collection needed would be prohibitive in terms of cost and time. The IPCC report has made it very clear that we have 11 years in which to act on carbon reduction and we therefore believe we need to act as soon as possible. Increasing APD and reforming it into a Green Flying Duty is the quickest and most immediately effective solution to manage demand and reduce emissions from aviation.

2.14          To address biodiversity loss, we need:

• To change the way we use land, especially the way we farm and produce food and timber.   We need to ask ‘what role can tourism play in diversifying rural and farming incomes to support re wilding?’   As we move to plant based diets we will need less land for farming and can create more room for nature, providing that through tourism and other industries we can deliver local economic benefit.      

2.15          To tackle the data knowledge gaps we need:

• To better understand the net benefit of tourism.
• A pilot study to investigate the social and environmental costs of tourism – water, waste, sewerage, energy – alongside the net economic impact (after economic leakages outside the UK).
• A separate, dedicated study of cruise tourism, given the scale of its likely impacts.       

2.16          To effectively manage tourism, we need:

• Tourism management functions in local authorities – funded by the temporary residents fees we propose.

• To urgently bring together the following government departments and functions to devise the temporary residents levy scheme, and consider how infrastructure development can better support the tourism industry:

-          Department of Transport

-          Department for Culture, Media and Sport

-          Housing, Communities and local government

-          Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

-          Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

-          National Infrastructure Commission

• A cross departmental Council for Sustainable Tourism, Westminster, hosted by DCMS, that works with the private sector to create a 10 Year sustainable tourism plan and reports on progress.   

3                   How should the UK tourism industry balance the need to encourage tourism whilst protecting fragile environments?

3.1              We all suffer the consequences of global warming and biodiversity loss no matter where we live.   So in a sense all our environment is fragile and at risk. Some habitats and places might be more at risk than others.  We need to understand whether it makes economic or environmental sense to increase tourism in all cases (see data studies above).

3.2              We may find it necessary to limit tourism numbers in some places if we wish to protect them.  Sacrificing others may be necessary.

3.3              In line with our recommendations for national and local management process we recommend that all ‘vulnerable places’ have tourism management plans.  

4                   How well is the UK industry managing the impact of tourism in line with its obligations under the sustainable development goals, at home and abroad?

4.1              As before, with no data – apart from carbon from transport – it is very hard for anyone to provide much reliable information.   We recommend a pilot study.

5                   Should the UK Government take more responsibility for the impacts of outbound tourism, for example waste and resource management, protecting habitats and species and community and cultural impacts?

5.1              If tourists are travelling outbound with UK businesses, and we consider the supply chain of business to be important (which we do across all industry sectors) then yes, absolutely we should. 

6                   How can the Government reach its net zero emissions targets through influencing sustainable travel patterns?

6.1              As before we need:

• A plan to reduce car travel associated with tourism.

• To link up the low carbon transport plans of government with the tourism industry and the marketing of tourism.  There are many good case histories in Europe.  

• To reduce domestic flights and encourage rail travel.   We propose a Green Flying duty as detailed above.

• To reduce the food miles associated with the tourism industry – likely to be a major source of emissions.

• Tougher low/renewable energy requirements for hotels and environmental and regulation of Airbnb accommodation.   

6.2              However there is another need.  The IPCC tells us that changing how we use land, farm and produce food is critical to addressing climate change.  We need to review our new agriculture and forestry bills and the 25 year plan and assess the potential of tourism to make a contribution:

• As agriculture and farming grants shift to being ‘for the public good’ what role does tourism have in diversifying farming economies in more bio diverse landscapes?
• What role does tourism have in reforestation?
• What is the role of tourism in re wilding?
• What role does tourism have in our protected areas? 

7                   Is there a role for offsets in sustainable tourism?

7.1              Offset schemes have no role in sustainable tourism as like-for-like alleviators of carbon. We need to move away from using them as a means for the industry to ease its collective guilty conscience. Even the UN Environment Programme has said recently they are not our ‘get-out-of-jail free card’.

7.2              A 2017 study of offsets, commissioned by the European Commission, found that 85 percent of offset projects had failed. And, whilst a small number of schemes may be useful as stand-alone environmental or development projects, we need to stop referring to them as ‘offsets’ and instead ‘decouple’ them from the historic belief that they can negate our carbon output, kilogram for kilogram, thereby acting as a means of carbon ‘payment’ by individual consumers or tourism companies.

7.3              The simple fact is that these schemes should be happening whether or not someone has chosen to ‘offset’.

7.4              We must do much better and the only way to do this is by reducing our carbon emissions. We need to act quickly to do this and offsets can never provide emissions reductions at the speed we need. Take forest planting for example. Trees do not reach their average carbon storage capacity until they are between 15 and 35 years old. There is also no guarantee that those trees will stay standing and not be victims of logging, forest fires, disease or storms.

7.5              Offsets shift our moral responsibility to reduce, to someone else. The concept of paying other people, in another corner of the world, to cut your emissions instead of cutting your own is fundamentally flawed. As  WWF-UK has said, ‘the problem with carbon offsetting is that at best it robs Peter to pay Paul – with no net benefit for the planet.’

7.6              As long as we continue to offset, there is absolutely no incentive for companies to reduce emissions. They provide a quick fix and delay the need for urgent innovation and investment by allowing the continued use of emissions-intensive fuels. If we continue to believe we can merely pay a few dollars to offset carbon use then it is no wonder there is insufficient investment in railways, aviation demand management or decarbonisation research and development.

8                   Where should the balance lie between affordable travel and influencing sustainable travel choices? Are taxes and incentives needed?

8.1              Tourism utilises public goods – our landscapes, biodiversity, culture associated with street life – and natural capital.   As every industry does it creates jobs, but it rarely makes a contribution to these public goods.

Tourists are in effect temporary residents and should be charged as such.

8.2              By placing a very small temporary residents fee (£2-3/day) on very large numbers of people we would generate all the income we need to plan and manage tourism far better.

8.3              The cost of dealing with the consequences of global warming, biodiversity loss and the negative impacts on residents lives in destinations suffering from over tourism far outweigh a £2/3 daily charge    

8.4              If we don’t place a small tax on tourism then we risk degrading places and communities for everybody – residents, domestic and in bound tourism.  There are no winners from this.  

9                   How effective are sustainable tourism practices by large tourism companies such as cruise ship and package holiday operators?

9.1              Cruise companies are some of the worst green washers in any business sector. Small towns, face several ships a day unloading thousands of passengers into the streets. The impact on places such as Venice for example has resulted in the authorities recently restricted the size of ships in the town.

9.2        Cruise companies are regularly fined for environmental breaches, including dumping

            waste at sea. Most recently, Carnival Corp has been fined $20 million.

9.3        There has also been much publicity around the human rights issues of cruise ships               and how staff are treated. Often they are poorly paid, working long hours with little               chance of a break.

9.4        Cruise lines choose which country to register in; unsurprisingly opting for places                 such as Panama which have loose employment laws. They also avoid income tax in               the country from which they sail.

9.5  There is evidence to show that the economic contribution of passengers to the destination are very low. In a report released by Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) Europe in June 2014, the average spend per passenger at each port was cited as just €62. 

September 2019