With a new EU sustainability strategy for tourism, the European Commission is focusing attention on the future of Europe’s tourism sector. For golf tourism, the new sustainability strategy is important for several reasons.
Climate change and political crises as a risk
For one thing, golf tourism is increasingly affected by international crises. Political unrest in the Middle East alone has led golfers to change their travel plans this winter.
Climate change, with consequences such as wildfires, heatwaves and water shortages, is having a significant impact on the golf tourism sector. Golf facilities without future-oriented water management often struggled with course quality in summer 2026. In view of the heatwaves in Central Europe, installing air conditioning also became a topic in hotels and resorts in regions such as Germany, Switzerland and Austria, which to date have not offered fully air-conditioned rooms. Wildfires have also become a bigger problem for golf tour operators: France’s Bordeaux region, where the European Senior Championship took place in 2026, for example, made headlines for weeks due to severe fires. The Bordeaux Gironde Chamber of Commerce examined the economic consequences of the wildfires: for 51% of the surveyed companies in the hotel and catering sector, turnover fell by more than 25%.
Given that “crises are highly likely to persist and new ones will emerge”, an EU Tourism Crisis Coordination Network is to be established to improve the sector’s ability to respond. At the same time, for example, existing legal gaps in the insurance industry that have so far existed with regard to the consequences of climate change are to be closed. Of particular interest to golf tourists is likely to be the aim of ensuring more reliable, more transparent and more resilient air connections in Europe.
In principle, the European Commission emphasises the tourism sector’s obligation to “further reduce its climate and environmental footprint by cutting emissions, pollution and waste and by protecting biodiversity, animal welfare and natural resources.” Business models based on a “circular economy, innovation, renewable energy and the ESG approach” open up enormous opportunities for the sector in the context of environmental sustainability. “Therefore, climate and environmental sustainability is a priority for tourism stakeholders that must be delivered,” the EU concludes.
By the end of 2028, the European Commission will present new EU Ecolabel criteria that will apply to all services related to tourism. However, the introduction of an EU standard for a general environmental label for all tourism services was not announced. Final guidelines for determining the ecological footprint of hotels are to be published, though. A European heatwave plan will follow in 2027.
In future, the EU’s new sustainability strategy will focus primarily on supporting small and medium-sized tourism businesses and improving digital tools intended to help companies optimise their management. The aim is tourism from which visitors, businesses and local communities benefit equally.
This is also relevant for golf tourism: when golf facilities work together with hotels, suppliers or local nature-based experiences, they become destinations that also offer regional value creation.
