Climate risks of tourism in Europe: need for action to reduce emissions

Summary of this study

Europe plays a central role in international tourism: 51% of all international tourists travel to Europe and the tourism industry provides around 10% of jobs in Europe.

Climate change will affect tourism in many ways. At the same time, tourism itself contributes significantly to greenhouse gas emissions.

This article assesses the climate and CO2 risks for the European tourism industry based on a systematic review of scientific literature. Of the studies analyzed, 313 (74%) deal with climate risks and 110 (26%) with CO2 risks.

The analysis reveals several research gaps:

• Geographical gaps, especially in countries of the former Soviet Union and former Yugoslavia
• Lack of consistent studies on the emissions of national tourism and its sub-sectors
• Lack of research on how climate change mitigation measures could affect tourism demand
• Insufficient assessments of the combined CO2 and climate risks
• Too little evidence on the relationship between climate indicators and tourism demand
• Lack of research on policy and institutional instruments for climate change adaptation in tourism regions
• Insufficient research on the impacts of rising sea levels and coastal erosion on tourist destinations and tourism demand.

Findings from this study

• Tourism contributes significantly to greenhouse gas emissions, with national levels between 5% and 11% of total emissions. The greatest reduction potential lies in the transport sector.
• European destinations are characterized by strong domestic or nearby international source markets, which represents a large potential for a shift to less carbon-intensive modes of transport such as rail.
• Tourism is hardly mentioned in the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and even national tourism strategy papers hardly define clear reduction targets.

Publication: Robert Steiger, O. Cenk Demiroglu, Marc Pons, Emmanuel Salim (2023)