The World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) and the Sustainable Tourism Global Center (STGC), initiated by the Ministry of Tourism of Saudi Arabia, have released global research on travel and tourism. They have called it the “most comprehensive environmental data in Travel & Tourism’s history.”
The ER data covers 185 countries across all regions and will be updated each year with the latest figures.
Further, the initiative introduces individualised factsheets for each country and major global regions, and a dedicated microsite allowing users to explore the data in detail.
Key highlights from the research include:
· The travel & tourism sector demonstrates a trend of decoupling its environmental footprint from its GDP growth.
· Key achievements include reductions in the intensity of water usage, greenhouse gas emissions, energy consumption, and material extraction.
· Travel & Tourism’s share of global energy consumption amounted to 10.6% in 2019
· The sector represented 0.9% of total global water consumption in 2019
· Travel & Tourism’s material footprint accounts for 5-8% of global material extraction
· The report’s monitoring extends to pollutants such as particulate matter, carbon monoxide, ammonia, and nitrogen oxides, among others.
The data tracks the sector’s performance towards 15 UN Sustainable Development Goals, with the prime objective of the work being to elevate the accuracy and pertinence of sector-specific data, setting the trajectory for future initiatives and realigning with global sustainability milestones.
Find out more about the research here: https://researchhub.wttc.org/global-travel-footprint