On the way to your holiday destination with sustainable mobility

1. Tourism is a flourishing sector but also has a downside with pollution from air and car traffic. The biggest challenges facing the industry are climate change and long-distance flying. If you want to reduce the climate impact of the tourism sector, we must fly less far.
2. Dutch tour operators run significant climate risks and European policy is necessary for sustainable business models. Doing nothing is a big risk if, for example, you have hotels in very hot destinations or people want to fly less than you expect. It is the responsibility of policymakers and the sector to make sustainable travel possible for consumers.
3. Part of the solution lies in Sustainable Air Fuel (SAF), but unfortunately, we do not have enough sustainable energy available to produce it for the entire aviation industry. Zero emissions will be very difficult for long the haul because flying is necessary for this and electric flight over long distances with large aircraft is still in the future.
4. Most emissions are caused by a limited number of long-distance trips. All we must do is travel less far. The tourism sector can even grow. Consumers can still go on holiday. Only 14% of the trips must be changed.
5. The limits of aviation must fall within those of the planet. But we cannot expect sharp choices from aviation. Real change will have to come from national governments or ideally from the European Commission. If Europe does not do that, we must start with a cap on emissions in the Netherlands. We will see other countries follow suit.
6. The train is not expensive but flying is too cheap. Flying between Amsterdam and Paris costs 112 euros, the train costs 177 euros and the bus alone is even cheaper at 40 euros. If you want to replace flying with rail, you must make flying less attractive. That is the reality we will have to work on. Moreover, it is not normal that we fly so much.
7. Booking a train ticket to European tourist destinations is still far too complex. The consumer wants and embraces night trains in masse. Unfortunately, financing new rolling stock is very difficult because train operators do not have multi-year guarantees on European train paths. In aviation, you always keep your slots. The fact that aircraft can be deployed anywhere in the world and trains are made for certain countries also makes financing difficult.
8. After the pandemic, international bus transport is on the rise, but here too, financing the electrification of the fleet is not easy. Between 2017 and 2022, the turnover of Dutch bus companies grew by 30% and the number of passengers per bus by 20%. In short, a flourishing market with growth potential.
9. We approach traveller behaviour completely wrong. You must attract travellers to destinations with a good rail connection and not to destinations where there is no connection yet. To direct consumer behaviour, we must exert our influence much earlier in the customer journey. Planning a trip is a one-stop process. Consumers often think of the destination first and then see how they get there. Once people have chosen to fly to New York, you cannot tempt them to go to Brussels by train. That is the task for tour operators. You can't expect that from airlines. They sell passenger kilometres and benefit from the long haul. If we let people choose more nearby destinations, the share of rail will automatically increase.
10. We must realise that we operate in a capitalist system with competition. It is therefore important to tackle this internationally/globally and to pursue one goal together. Fortunately, we see many first movers who take risks. We need them to challenge the status quo and add more sustainable offerings.
11. We see a growing interest in nature-based tourism. This will certainly put a lot of pressure on space with a lot of car mobility, especially after corona. Our challenge is to make the shift from car to walking, cycling and public transport. To this end, recreational mobility must become a much more emphatic part of mobility policy, we must ensure that we speak the same language and, above all, break down silos between policy areas.
12. Tourism and mobility are two separate worlds, and we must try to connect them better. In the mobility sector, they know a lot about travel behavior and have a lot of data at their disposal. But they classify travel motives quite strictly. In tourism, they have known for some time that people combine all kinds of motives. The first step is to share data and see how tourists move around the destination.
13. Changing mobility is not easy, it is complex, and you must collaborate with all kinds of parties. The first step is to make sustainable mobility fun. A good example is a coastal transferium where transport to the beach is free and, above all, fun. There are saved annually 500,000 car kilometres in a very small area.
14. Tourists can strengthen public transport because they bring volume and travel at different times and dates than commuters. Unfortunately, public transport in the Netherlands is exclusively aimed at commuters. An additional disadvantage is that public transport is expensive, of low quality and unreliable. Moreover, taking a bicycle with you is very difficult. Transport must become part of the journey. Both to and from the destination, and at the destination. Include local transport in the package and finance it with a surcharge in the tourist tax.
15. We don't like change, but we have learned that controversial decisions are difficult to implement but public support grows after implementation. For example, no one wanted cars from inner cities, but now the support is enormous. And turn the reasoning around. If there had never been a tax benefit on kerosene, no one would grant such an advantage to such a polluting sector. We would think that is idiotic.

Curious about more insights into tourist mobility? Then keep a close eye on the CELTH site. In the summer we will present a series of interviews with stakeholders and policymakers on this theme.