Sustainable Tourism: A Practical Guide to Lower-Impact Travel
Tourism causes 8.8% of global emissions. Here is what GSTC certification, transport choices, and destination fees like Venice’s access fee mean for travelers.
Tourism accounted for 8.8% of global greenhouse gas emissions in 2019, or roughly 5.2 billion tonnes of CO2-equivalent, according to “Drivers of global tourism carbon emissions,” published in Nature Communications in December 2024 by Ya-Yen Sun, Futu Faturay, Manfred Lenzen, Stefan Gössling, and co-authors. The study found tourism emissions grew 3.5% annually between 2009 and 2019 — more than double the 1.5% annual growth rate of the global economy overall — and projected continued increases of 3-4% a year on current trends. This guide sets out what the data says about which travel choices carry the largest footprint, how tourism certification schemes work, and what destinations are doing to manage visitor numbers.
How tourism’s carbon footprint is measured
The Nature Communications figure updates an earlier, widely cited study — “The carbon footprint of global tourism,” published by Lenzen and colleagues in Nature Climate Change in 2018 — which found tourism responsible for 8% of global emissions between 2009 and 2013, a figure the authors said was roughly four times higher than prior estimates because it accounted for the full supply chain behind travel spending, not just transport. That 2018 study found annual tourism-linked emissions rose from 3.9 to 4.5 billion tonnes of CO2-equivalent over the study period, and that growth in spending on goods and services — food, accommodation, souvenirs — contributed more to the increase than air travel expansion alone. Both studies found emissions concentrated by country of origin: the United States, China, Germany, and India generate the largest shares on a residence basis, while small island destinations such as the Maldives, Mauritius, and Cyprus record the highest per-capita tourist emissions, reflecting demand for long-haul, resort-based travel.
Transport choices and their footprint
Transport mode is the most direct lever an individual traveler controls. Using UK government emission factors compiled by Our World in Data (August 2023), a domestic flight produces approximately 246 grams of CO2-equivalent per passenger-kilometer, a short-haul flight around 154 grams, car travel with average occupancy around 170 grams, and rail travel around 35 grams — roughly a quarter of the emissions of car travel and a seventh of a domestic flight, per kilometer traveled. These figures include a radiative forcing adjustment that accounts for aviation’s additional warming effect at altitude, not just its CO2 output.
For distances with a practical rail alternative, these figures make train travel the lower-emission option by a wide margin. For long-haul routes without a rail or ferry alternative, the main available levers are trip consolidation — fewer, longer stays rather than multiple short trips — and choosing direct routes, since take-off and landing account for a disproportionate share of a flight’s total emissions.
Compare your route
Enter a trip distance to compare estimated CO2-equivalent emissions across transport modes, using the Our World in Data / UK government emission factors cited above.
What GSTC certification actually verifies
The Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC), a nonprofit founded in 2010, does not certify hotels or tour operators directly. Instead, it maintains two sets of criteria — GSTC-Industry, for hotels and tour operators, and GSTC-Destinations, for public-sector destination managers — built around four themes: sustainability management, maximizing social and economic benefits to local communities, protecting cultural heritage, and reducing environmental impact. The GSTC then accredits independent certification bodies that apply these criteria through what it calls the GSTC Integrity Program. In practice, this means a property advertising “GSTC-recognized” certification has been assessed by a third-party certifier against a published, publicly available standard, rather than self-declaring its own sustainability claims — a distinction worth checking before treating a sustainability label as verified.
How destinations are managing visitor numbers
Some of the world’s most visited cities have introduced fees or caps aimed specifically at day-trip tourism rather than overnight stays. Venice’s Contributo di Accesso charges day visitors to its historic center €5 if booked at least four days in advance, or €10 for bookings made within three days of the visit, on a defined set of high-traffic dates; children under 14, overnight guests at registered accommodation, residents, and several other categories are exempt. In its 2026 season, running across 60 operating days between April 3 and July 26, the scheme generated approximately €5 million in revenue from more than 650,000 paid vouchers, according to Venice city council figures; officials reported early indications that overcrowding had eased on the busiest days compared with prior years, with a fuller assessment to follow.
Practical takeaways
Reader-facing sustainable travel choices with the clearest data support: choosing rail over short-haul flights where a practical route exists, consolidating trips to reduce total flights taken per year, checking for independently accredited certification (GSTC-recognized schemes such as Green Key, EarthCheck, or Travelife) rather than relying on a property’s own sustainability marketing, and checking a destination’s visitor-management rules — access fees, booking windows, or seasonal caps — before travel, since several major European cities now enforce these with fines for non-compliance.
The OECD’s tourism policy tracking
The OECD publishes an annual comparative reference for this sector, “OECD Tourism Trends and Policies”, which tracks tourism’s economic contribution, policy responses, and — in its 2026 edition — a dedicated section on enhancing tourism’s social benefits, alongside country-by-country policy chapters. It is a useful complement to the emissions-focused academic studies above, since it covers the governance and economic-policy side of tourism management that those studies do not address.
What remains unresolved
Neither the 2018 nor the 2024 study identifies a policy pathway that has yet reversed tourism’s emissions growth trend; the Nature Communications authors state that aligning the sector with Paris Agreement targets would require annual emissions cuts exceeding 10% through 2050, a rate not yet observed in the data. Destination-level measures such as Venice’s access fee are aimed at crowding and local infrastructure strain rather than emissions directly, and their effect on visitor numbers is still being assessed season by season.
Sources: “Drivers of global tourism carbon emissions,”, 2018 study, Our World in Data, Global Sustainable Tourism Council, Contributo di Accesso, “OECD Tourism Trends and Policies”
Featured image: photo by Daniel Frese on Pexels (free Pexels license).
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I specialize in sustainability education, curriculum co-creation, and early-stage project strategy. At WINSS, I craft articles on sustainability, transformative AI, and related topics. When I’m not writing, you’ll find me chasing the perfect sushi roll, exploring cities around the globe, or unwinding with my dog Puffy — the world’s most loyal sidekick.
