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

136 Climate Change and Tourism – Responding to Global Challenges
Intra-regional travel (within regions)
The vast majority of tourists travelling by air, move within their own region, either on domestic trips
(480 million) or on international trips (215 million). Depending on the geographical characteristics of
the regions, the mix of domestic and international traffic varies considerably. In the Americas and in
Asia and the Pacific, a comparatively big share of traffic is domestic, owing to large countries with large
populations such as United States, China, India or Brazil. In Europe on the other hand, a comparatively
large share is international, due to relatively large number and small size of the countries. Most of the
intraregional trips will be short- and medium-haul, although a limited part of it represents long-haul
travel within regions, such as between North America and South America or between North-East Asia
and Oceania.
With regard to CO 2 emissions, the largest contributions related to intra-regional air travel can be
attributed to, in decreasing order, domestic travel within the Americas (123 Mt), domestic travel within
Asia and the Pacific (42 Mt), international traffic within Asia and the Pacific (40 Mt), international travel
within Europe (39 Mt), international travel within the Americas (22 Mt) and domestic travel within
Europe (17 Mt).
It is interesting to note that air traffic flows within Africa are only very small, with some 6 million
domestic air travellers and 5 million international air travellers, together accounting for less than 1%
of CO 2 emissions (3 Mt) by intra-regional air travel. The contribution of the Middle East is also fairly
small, with 8 million domestic air travellers and 7 million international air travellers within the region,
generating a bit over 1% of all CO 2 emissions (4 Mt) by intra-regional air travel.
Interregional travel (between regions)
A comparatively large share of passenger flight kilometres, and thus emissions, corresponds to air travel
between the various UNWTO regions (Europe, Americas, Asia and the Pacific, Middle East and Africa).
An estimated 125 million of trips by air are to another region. Of these trips, some 20 million are
actually to short- or medium-haul destinations bordering the region of origin, for instance from Europe
to North Africa (11 million) or to the Middle East (11 million), from the Middle East to Europe (2 million),
from the Middle East to South Asia (0.3 million) or from South Asia to the Middle East (estimated at 3.5
million, i.e., some 70% of travel from Asia and the Pacific). Some 104 million trips can be considered
interregional long-haul trips, generating an estimated 1,674 billion passenger kilometres and 208 Mt
CO 2 emissions (40% of air transport emissions).
Although data on a country to country base are only available for the largest flows, UNWTO has
developed a matrix (see Annex 1) allowing for a breakdown of trip volumes by regions of origin and
(sub)regions of destination. Based on this matrix an assessment has been made of the flows between
high-income and developing countries *. It should be taken into account that those flows are categorised
by the predominant direction, as high-income or developing source markets or destinations can not
always be isolated, for instance in North-East Asia, though considered predominantly developing, some
high-income countries are included, such as Japan.
A third of long-haul trips, corresponding to some 40 million, are from predominantly high-income
economies to destinations in developing countries, with as most significant flows:
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from Europe and Americas to North-East, South-East and South Asia, respectively 15 million and
8 million trips;
from Europe to sub-Saharan Africa (5 million trips);
from Europe to the Caribbean, Central and South America (9 million).
* This divison is based on the World Bank Country Classification by Income Group where developing countries are all countries
from the low to upper middle income categories (see http://go.worldbank.org/K2CKM78CC0)
UNWTO, 9 July 2008