According to research by hotel booking platform Hoo, three-quarters of travellers don’t consider their carbon footprint when it comes to booking vacations. Jenny Southan reports
Climate change may be dominating headlines but the reality is that most consumers don’t appear to think about the impact of travel abroad. According to a November 2021 survey of 1,520 people in the UK, 74 per cent of respondents said they don’t consider their carbon footprint when booking a vacation.
However, Hoo’s research does suggest that more awareness of the issue during the booking process could help increase the number of people seeking to reduce their carbon footprint.
Interestingly, 44 per cent of people said they would pay more for a greener flight that produced fewer carbon emissions, which will be great news for airlines looking to pass on the cost of more expensive sustainable aviation fuel, for example, to consumers.
44 per cent of respondents also stated that they would travel from a less convenient airport in order to take a greener flight that produced lower carbon emissions.
Finally, 40 per cent said they would be happy to travel on different or less convenient dates to those they had initially planned to travel on, in order to take a greener flight that produced lower carbon emissions.
Hoo co-founder, Adrian Murdock, said: “It’s not unusual for those in the public eye to come under fire for travelling by plane. But there are more carbon-friendly options when looking to book our holidays.
“If we can’t travel by car or by boat, then opting for a flight with a lower carbon footprint is one way to make a small difference and it’s these small changes that will help lower our own impact on the environment
“Perhaps not surprisingly, the majority of us fail to consider our carbon footprint when booking a holiday but there certainly seems to be a growing appetite to decrease carbon emissions when travelling.
“We’re now starting to see some comparison websites highlighting which flights are better in this respect, but there’s certainly more that can be done to help us make these decisions when making that holiday booking.”