Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
strategy (to help tourism meet increasing obligations to reduce its carbon foot-
print). However, slow travel is one of many forms of tourism, and while it
brings low-carbon benefits, the extent of this depends on whether it is a sub-
stitute for less environmentally sensitive travel on holiday or whether slow
travel is additional, generated travel. Current tourism predictions are for
growth. While it would be positive if much of this growth were accommodated
by slow travel, this essentially allows for further tourism consumption, as
opposed to the reduced overall consumption that is required to meet climate
change obligations. Exploratory research shows that some slow travellers are
also air travellers in other contexts, and there is evidence that people are bal-
ancing air travel against good environmental behaviour in other spheres of
their life (Dickinson et al, 2010a; Randles and Mander, 2009a). Therefore, an
annual slow travel holiday might be used as justification for higher consump-
tion elsewhere. Stoll-Kleemann et al (2001) refer to this as the 'metaphor of
displaced commitment', and elsewhere it has been described as the rebound
effect (Bows et al, 2009b). Such an outcome is not optimal for low-carbon
tourism.
Car travel
When exploring the origin of the term 'slow travel', it was apparent that some
explanations include car travel (Macquarie Dictionary, 2009; Mintel, 2009b).
Some of the features described in this ingredients list readily apply to car
travel, such as constraints on distance travelled, stopping off en-route and
engagement with places and travel being an integral part of the tourist expe-
rience. On the other hand, car travel fails to meet the key criterion of being
low-carbon travel. However, as Table 4.2 indicates, given high car loadings
and fuel-efficient models, the carbon footprint of car travel is considerably
reduced. With five people in a car, especially if it is a fuel-efficient model, then
the carbon footprint per passenger km approximates to that of train travel.
Therefore, is there a case for including car travel as a slow travel mode? An
examination of statistics on car occupancy suggests not. UK figures indicate
average car occupancy for holidays/day trips of 2.0, while it is 1.7 for leisure
trips generally (National Travel Survey, 2006). In the Netherlands, leisure trip
occupancy is 2.2 people (Peeters et al, 2007). In both countries, car occupancy
is higher for tourism/leisure trips than commuting, but at these occupancy lev-
els the car is unlikely to achieve comparable carbon footprints to public
transport.
At this point it is worth discussing a particular case of car travel, that of
hitchhiking. Hitchhiking, once a widely used form of travel for young people,
has largely gone out of fashion in developed countries in recent years, due to
safety fears of both hitchhikers and car drivers. Hitchhiking was at one point
institutionalized in Poland through a very successful voucher system, and in
parts of the developing world, with poorly developed private transport sys-
tems and stretched public transport, hitchhiking is still a way of life. For
instance, on the Caribbean island of Dominica, there is an expectation that
car drivers will stop to pick up people waiting at bus stops. Hitchhiking
can improve car loadings and reduce the carbon footprint for the car driver;
