Golf trips: Big dreams – small footprint
Traveling is fun. And it can stay that way. Nevertheless, vacations can also be environmentally friendly if the planning is right.
The list of dream destinations is seemingly endless: once in a lifetime to Pebble Beach. Finally the first tee shot on the Old Course at St. Andrews. Faraway Vietnam beckons with all its new courses and to be honest: The trips to Mauritius were always great and golfers actually feel right at home on Mallorca.
Vacation demand has increased
Traveling is fun. A lot of fun, in fact. According to the German Travel Association (DRV), the travel boom in Germany has recently continued unabated. “Demand for vacations rose significantly in the past tourism year – foreign and long-haul trips and cruises were particularly in demand again,” says the DRV. And the ÖRV, its Austrian counterpart, is similarly optimistic about 2024 – especially with regard to travelers’ main vacations.
However, there is a little skepticism when it comes to environmental protection. The fact is, and every golfer is now aware of this, that air travel in particular causes a person’s CO2 footprint to skyrocket. The tourism industry plays a key role when it comes to global emissions. The fact that air traffic will continue to rely on fossil fuels for the foreseeable future and thus contribute significantly to climate change cannot be denied. So how can greater environmental awareness and the desire to travel be reconciled?
Little demand for sustainable travel
And how great is the overall demand for sustainable travel? According to Markus Orth, CEO of Lufthansa City Center Reisebüropartner GmbH, there is little demand for these offers on the German market. “Less than one or two percent book sustainable trips,” said the DRV board member at ITB Berlin 2024 as part of the Responsible Tourism Track lecture series. “We have to change that,” says Orth.
Status quo of booking behavior in Europe
The travel markets in the various countries differ greatly. According to Orth, Germany has the highest price sensitivity in customers’ travel plans and “90 percent of bookings here are price-oriented”, whereas this is much less the case in the UK and Switzerland, according to the manager.
In view of current studies, the reluctance to travel sustainably should actually be much higher. Not only because, according to the sustainability initiative Futouris, the tourism industry contributes a large part to global warming with around eight percent of all emissions. But also because the issue of sustainability is also widely accepted in surveys. According to a Fouturis survey, more than 80 percent of respondents among tour operators have a positive attitude towards sustainability and climate protection. This also applies to holidaymakers, who attach greater importance to social compatibility (56 percent) and environmental friendliness (42 percent). According to the survey, 36 percent of holidaymakers already try to keep the carbon footprint of their trip as low as possible.
The main problem areas
The biggest problem within the travel industry is the lack of transparency for consumers when booking travel. “We have to make the footprint visible at the point of sale,” demandedLaura Meyer, CEO of the Hotelplan Group at the ITB. In order to meet a person’s climate-friendly annual budget of 1,500 kilograms of CO2 per year, Meyer advocates more rail travel and sustainable fuel for airplanes, whereby golfers in particular often shy away from rail travel due to their large luggage.
In general, there is a lot of room for improvement when it comes to sustainable travel. More transparency in communication with holidaymakers, for example, with regard to supply chains in the catering industry, is just as much an issue as the direct carbon footprint of arrivals and departures. There are also issues such as reducing plastic in the hotel, using primarily green energy, avoiding food waste and social responsibility towards the region and the hotel’s own staff. Improving offers for barrier-free vacations also falls under the sustainability segment. And according to Martin Wimmer, Chief Digital Officer of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection (BMZ), there is still room for improvement in tourism, even in the area of digitalization.
Improvements in sight
The tourism industry is aware of the challenges and is committed to continuous improvement. In 2022, 22 companies and associations founded KlimaLink in order to achieve greater transparency for tour operators, distributors and travelers with regard to the climate-damaging emissions of the trips offered and to achieve a common standard for calculating CO2e emissions. A platform that has been working with the German Climate Fund for Tourism (DKT) since 2023. According to KlimaLink Chairwoman Swantje Lehners, anyone will be able to calculate the carbon footprint of a trip on an emissions platform in the summer of 2024.
Tourism associations have been considering further projects for some time. In Germany, this also includes the federal state of Bavaria. The BTM integrates 32 destinations into its network for sustainable destination development, focusing on the role of locals in the tourism market in addition to the classic areas of sustainability. Christian Nordhorn, who presented Sustainable Destination Development in Bavaria at the f.r.e.e. leisure and travel trade fair in Munich in February, is certain with reference to data from the Bavarian Center for Tourism. “By 2040, guests will pay close attention to sustainability.”
There is generally no shortage of positive examples of sustainable travel offers. The Green Pearls platform, which focuses on gentle tourism, climate protection and sustainable vacations, presents numerous hotels and destinations that are committed to sustainability. Green Sign also has numerous hotels that meet high sustainability standards.
Planning a sustainable golf vacation
Anyone planning their next golf trip with sustainability in mind should consider one or two important factors. The general rule is: choose local destinations before long-distance travel. Golf flights to Mauritius, for example, may have their appeal in view of the beautiful scenery, but you have to be aware of the carbon footprint they leave behind. Depending on the departure/destination airport, this can be four times as much as for a short-haul destination.
There are also clear differences between traveling by plane, train or car. As an article by Golf Sustainable based on the University of Graz’s footprint calculator shows, train journeys can cause significantly less CO₂ emissions than golf trips by car. Air travel can also be planned with the help of CO₂ compensation offers. The Bund für Umwelt und Naturschutz Deutschland (BUND) lists atmosfair, myclimate and moorfutures as selected offsetting providers.
The choice of accommodation also plays a role. Vacation apartments have a much better balance sheet than 5-star hotels, both in absolute and relative terms, because they do not have energy-intensive spas, for example. Regardless of the destination, the percentage shares for accommodation vary greatly. The rounds of golf themselves should not be ignored when it comes to the carbon footprint.
The topic of water plays a role in the choice of vacation destination. Portugal, for example, currently uses hardly any recycled process water for irrigation and has little water available, which means that water has to be used extremely sparingly on the golf courses. There are also massive water restrictions in Spain, such as the ongoing drought in Catalonia in 2023. However, recycled process water is also used for irrigation on many southern pitches, so that there are no direct emergencies.
Certificates:
If you want to get an overview of the jungle of travel certifications, the Destinet.eu portal of ECOTRANS, the European network for sustainable tourism development founded in 1988, provides a good overview with information on the more than 150 certificates in the tourism market.
If you also search online for providers of travel certificates and seals, you will find a wealth of results with certificates. When it comes to providers of sustainable hotel certifications, it is not a bad idea to stick to certifications that are listed as valid by the Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC). Labels that are valid there, such as Stay Fair, are intended to ensure that all accommodation here meets the same ecological, social and economic standards with a uniform sustainability label. Internationally, Green Key is one of various seals that you can take into account when choosing a hotel.
So a little research is required if you want to make your vacation a little more sustainable. In this way, you can discover destinations, resorts and hotels that are not part of the classic golf tourism inventory. Discovering new things is therefore a motto that can be combined with the desire for a more environmentally friendly vacation. This openness to new things increases the appeal of the trip anyway.
The article was also published in the 2/2024 issue of Simply Golf magazine, which was produced with a focus on golf and sustainability.
