Sustainable Tourism

What is Sustainable Tourism?

Green tourism and responsible travel are key concerns for AITO and its members. Each potential member's sustainable tourism credentials are examined before they may join, to ensure sustainability and that local cultures and the environment are treated with the utmost care and respect. AITO members recognise that the destinations where they provide holidays are the life blood of the industry. and that they need to protect them with a responsible travel and sustainable tourism policy.

What is Carbon Offsetting?

Most students will already be highly aware of climate change and global warming. All modes of transport produce CO² emissions which add to climate change. Coach travel is one of the greenest travel options with the lowest CO² emissions per passenger per kilometre of any mode of transport. What better educational project than to get your students to calculate the CO² emissions for the tour and then donate to a project that will offset the carbon emissions.

How to calculate the carbon emissions

On the website below you can use the CO² emissions calculator. First estimate the journey in miles or kilometres using the Google maps facility. Then simply enter the total mileage for your tour and it will instantly calculate the amount of CO² produced (measured in kilogrammes per passenger). You will see that coach travel has the lowest CO² emissions per passenger compared to all other forms of transport: roughly a sixth of the amount produced by air travel, half the amount produced by train and a quarter of the amount produced by car travel.
www.transportdirect.info

Offsetting emissions – from 30p per person!

It costs a lot less than you would imagine to offset the carbon emissions produced by your tour. The UK Government now has a dedicated website explaining the various ways you can offset the CO² we produce by travelling. They also provide a list of approved websites offering ways to offset the carbon. Planting trees has a long-term benefit but many of the projects are aimed at helping third world communities with clean electricity generation programmes (wind and hydro-electricity projects).
www.direct.gov.uk

Once you have calculated the amount of CO² you can then go online and pay towards offsetting the carbon. As an example a tour to Paris from Birmingham would produce roughly 2 tonnes of CO² (850 miles - 50 x 40kgs). This could be offset against a clean electricity project from £16.60 for the Group or just 40p per student – less than the cost of a chocolate bar! To offset your CO² see
http://www.carbonfootprint.com

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