Booking.com releases its ninth report on sustainable travel, Sustainable Travel Report 2024, with insights gathered from more than 31,000 travellers across 34 countries and territories, exploring the latest consumer attitudes, priorities, and influences related to sustainable travel. While the annual research reveals a continued sense of desire and awareness, with 95% of Indian travellers confirming that sustainable travel is important to them, new insights show a sense of weariness may be spreading throughout the world as a result of the ongoing challenges that travellers experience to make more sustainable travel decisions.
A recent study shows that nearly one-fourth (24%) of Indians feel travelling more sustainably is important but not a primary consideration when planning or booking a trip. Also, 46% of travellers expressed fatigue from constant discussions around climate change. With this in mind, the opportunity for collective action is more pertinent than ever in order to ensure that progress towards a more sustainable travel industry remains a priority.
Positive intentions meeting new challenges
Indian travellers continue to feel that travelling sustainably is important, and their intentions to do so are clear. 95% of the travellers confirm that sustainable travel is important to them, and 93% say that they want to travel more sustainably over the next 12 months. Almost two-thirds (62%) of Indian travellers stated they would feel guilty when they made less sustainable travel choices, and 20% of them want to travel more sustainably because they believe it’s the right thing to do. However, a sense of disillusionment towards making more sustainable travel choices may be counteracting those intentions. New areas of exploration researched for the first time this year reveal that some travellers don’t recognise the importance of being more mindful of their impact.
● More than half (52%) feel that the damage already done is irreversible and that the travel choices they make are not going to make any difference.
● In fact, 39% don’t believe climate change is as severe as people make it out to be, and 47% feel their time spent travelling is too precious to put sustainability at the top of their decision-making list
.● 53% of travellers believe that being more sustainable in a destination that is not implementing sustainability practices itself feels pointless.
Shared responsibility and critical opportunity for industry-wide enablement
While 42% of Indian travellers think they can have a positive influence on the social impacts of travel, an equal number (42%) think the government holds the most potential for countering economic efforts, and 42% believe travel service providers hold the key to counteracting environmental factors. Therefore, the need for collective action to ensure progress towards a more sustainable travel industry remains a priority. The travel industry can ensure travellers prioritize sustainable travel habits by providing consistency in certification standards and labels.
● 48% of travellers find it more appealing when they come across an accommodation labelled as more sustainable.
● Consistency of certification standards is critical, with almost three-fourths (73%) of travellers agreeing that all travel booking sites should use the same sustainable certifications or labels.
● 85% of travellers are interested in learning more about why the accommodation was given a sustainable label.
Santosh Kumar, Country Manager, India, Sri Lanka, Maldives, and Indonesia at Booking.com, commented, “In its ninth year now, Sustainable Travel Report 2024 presents a timely picture of traveller views, perceptions, habits, and potential barriers when it comes to more sustainable travel. Each year, we see travellers expressing their intentions and commitments to making more sustainable travel choices, but this year’s new insights show that a sense of weariness could be emerging, fueled by the ongoing challenges that they experience in making more sustainable travel choices. Many travellers believe the damage already done is irreversible, and the choices they make will not change that. We believe that working together as an industry and making simple changes together can make a big difference. At Booking.com, our mission is to make it easier for everyone to experience the world, and that includes providing a platform that makes it easier to take the next important steps together on our collective journey to a more sustainable future for travel.”
