Climate Change and Tourism - UNEP - Division of Technology ...

UNWTO, 9 July 2008
Emissions from Tourism: Status and Trends
of same-day trips) as compared to the total volume of trips, exception made for interregional travel –
i.e., between Europe, the Americas, Asia and the Pacific, Africa and the Middle East – where air travel
accounts for 92% of all tourist trips. Nonetheless, it is important to note that globally, these long-haul
interregional trips account for no more than 3% of all tourist trips (130 million vs. 4.75 billion trips).
Table 11.1 Approximate tourism volumes, 2005 (a)
(billions) Total of which: of which:
Total trips 9.75 8.00 1.75
Domestic International Intraregional Interregional
Same-day 5.0 4.00 1.00 1.00 0.00
over land/water 5.0 4.00 0.99 0.99
by air 0.05 0.04 0.01 0.01
by air (%) 1 1 1 1
Tourist
Arrivals 4.80 4.00 0.80 0.65 0.15
Trips (b) 4.75 4.00 0.75 0.61 0.13
over land/water 3.93 3.52 0.41 0.40 0.01
by air 0.82 0.48 0.34 0.22 0.12
by air (%) 17 12 46 35 92
(a) Green: estimated volumes based on UNWTO country data or other sources; yellow: approximate volumes (as only little data are
available);
(b) Trip volumes are derived from available arrivals data as one trip can produce more than one arrival (see Annex 1).
Source: UNWTO 2007c (see Annex 1)
11.1.2 Transport Emissions
It is a complex task to determine CO 2 emissions from tourism transport worldwide. For air transport
at least figures on overall traffic are available, such as the estimated number of trips (860 million)
and the number of passenger kilometers (4 trillion). However, assumptions have to be made in order
to reasonably subdivide this into the various categories of trips (same-day and overnight, domestic,
intraregional, interregional) and regions. Surface transport is quite more complicated as only very scarce
data are available on distances travelled for tourism purposes.
Several attempts have been made to analyse tourism transport and its contribution to emissions in
individual nations or regions. 633, 634, 635, 636 These studies indicate, for instance, that for all citizens of
the then EU25 plus Norway and Switzerland, emissions of CO 2 for domestic and international tourism
(by car, train, coach and air) amount to 250 million t CO 2 . 637 It also indicates that 55% of tourism
transport emissions by Europeans are caused by the 20% of trips based on air transport (see Box 24).
Transport volumes are forecasted to grow by 122% between 2000 and 2020, while the number of
trips is forecasted to increase by 57%, thus mirroring a considerable increase in average trip length.
Consequently, CO 2 -emissions from tourism transport in Europe are expected to increase by 85%
between 2000 and 2020. Detailed data are also available for tourism by the French (Suivi de la Demande
Touristique *, a regular survey of 20.000 citizens). Analyses of the data show that passengers arriving by
air account for only 11% of all tourist nights, but represent 46% of all tourist transport emissions.
* See http://www.tns-sofres.com/sofres/secteurs/sesame/souscription-suivi-demande-touristique.php for general information
and http://www.tourisme.gouv.fr/fr/z2/stat/memento/memento_2007.jsp for detailed data (chapter 5 for France).
123