Eco Hotel Summit is honoured to have Jeremy Smith as the keynote speaker to set the tone for two days of discussions. It was Jeremy’s book Transforming Travel, which inspired us to launch the event and my copy is covered in notes, as Jeremy has a way of highlighting the challenge the travel industry has, without lecturing, or overwhelming.
Jeremy has kicked off 2020 by co-founding Tourism Declares a Climate Emergency, an initiative that supports tourism destinations, businesses and individuals in declaring a climate emergency and working together to reduce their carbon emissions. To date, 63 travel companies, organisations and professionals have declared and many have posted their plans to reduce their emissions, publicly on the site. Eco Resort Network is working on its own plan. By creating and publishing a plan and announcing our intentions, we are much more likely follow through and make things happen and be encouraged by the example of others.
Jeremy is renowned throughout the travel industry as a writer, speaker and sustainable tourism consultant. As well as writing Transforming Travel – realising the potential of sustainable tourism (2018), he is also the author of Clean Breaks – 500 New Ways to See the World (2010). He is co-founder and editor of Travindy.com, the travel industry sustainable tourism website newsletter and website; and he writes a fortnightly blog on sustainable tourism for World Travel Market.
We caught up with Jeremy ahead of the Eco Hotel Summit event for a short interview
ERN: You suggest in your book that we can achieve more by being positive about travel and climate change, despite facing an emergency. How can we manage this balance?
JS: I am someone who has been highlighting the environmental crisis from around 2001 yet despite seeing how much worse the situation has become since then, I try to remain positive.
I love travel and I firmly believe in its transformative potential. There are many inspiring stories that blow me away and I think – if only all tourism could be like this…
The environmental crisis can feel like a juggernaut and seeing a way forward can be hard and rightly so. Yet when tourism is done well, getting people out into nature, connecting them meaningfully with the communities they visit, I believe this offers a unique chance to engage with them on the realities of sustainability, without hectoring or using a jargonistic tone – after all people are on holiday to relax.
People don’t want to know about your grey water treatment system – instead the quality of the experience will do the hard work for you. I don’t see sustainability as a communication challenge, I see it as a design one.
When people have a brilliant time in Eco Resorts truly enjoying the incredible scenery, beautiful walks and unspoiled paths that a host company focussing on sustainability ensures, then they are more likely to feel the benefits, feel why it matters, and hopefully take that back home with them.
ERN: For those setting up Eco Resorts – what are the easy wins when it comes to factoring in sustainability from the start?
International tourism’s main climate impact most often comes from transport choices. Yet compared to how easy it is to research flight options, it’s incredibly difficult and frustrating to do the same for trains. For resorts and other destinations, they can help their guests travel responsibly by sharing their local knowledge on getting to them by train, and on local public transport, bike hire and other tips that can be quite difficult for travellers to find out for themselves.
ERN: What do you think will be the biggest green travel trends of 2020?
More and more companies are beginning to offer true low carbon holidays. Trains are improving all the time and providing low-carbon transport – there are new routes opening up – for example, night trains from London to Sweden and from Brussels to Austria.
I believe that we will see more sophisticated efforts by companies to measure and be more transparent about their carbon emissions. I’d like to think that our Tourism Declares Climate Emergency initiative is giving people a space to come together, acknowledge what needs to be done, and share best practice towards doing the most we can do as an industry to reverse the climate crisis.
Jeremy Smith will be talking about:
How Does COVID Change the Outlook for Sustainable Travel?
on 27 July 2020, 9:30 am BST at the Eco Hotel Summit digital event
