Economic and environmental impacts of vacation: is there a trade-off?

I’m always curious about how travel impacts the environment. I know many people, including myself, who travel to natural places in order to connect to nature and break from “the real world.” Clearly, there are other issues to unpack in this, not the least of which is that so many see nature as an escape from the world rather than part of it. But, one of the discussions is the balance between economic benefits and environmental impacts.

Wicker and colleagues (2020) examined this question in England. They looked at leisure trips which involved travelling to experience natural environments. The trips included a wide range, including weekly trips to nearby spaces for less than a day. Participants engaged in a wide range of activities, with the most common ones being walking, playing with children, and picnicking. Motivations for the trips included health, relaxing, enjoying fresh air, exercising dogs, entertaining children, and spending time with family. Due to the short length of the focus trips, spending on the trips was quite low but still varied depending on the target activity or location.

The researchers found that trips for walking, cycling, running, playing with children, health, or walking the dog had lower economic benefits and less environmental impact. This was compared with trips that involved watersports, picnicking, beach visits, appreciating scenery, and spending time with family and friends which had higher spending and higher environmental impacts.

An interesting mention in the discussion that I may need to explore in a future post is that the carbon footprint of nature-based leisure trips was lower than spectating at sporting events (Collins et al, 2009, 2012 as cited by Wicker an colleagues). But as these authors point out, if people are making weekly nature-based leisure trips then the annual carbon footprint may end up being higher.

As with so many things, this doesn’t give us answers like we can’t travel to nature. Clearly there are many benefits to spending time in nature. But it does highlight the connection between different types of activities and the trade-offs between economic benefits and environmental impacts. Particularly for destinations this is an important consideration as they look at what will fund the destination but what their overall sustainability impact might be.

How much and far do you travel to nature?