Inter-market variability in CO2 emission-intensities in tourism: Implications for destination marketing and carbon management

There is a growing gap between tourism's rapidly growing greenhouse gas emissions and the sector's ‘aspirational’ emission reduction targets as well as the international policy consensus to reduce emissions from this and all other sectors of the economy. The transport component is the largest GHG contributor to the global tourism system. In the absence of supranational policy agreements to curb emissions from international aviation and cruise tourism, as well as limited national policy initiatives, there has been a recent shift in research to the potential role of market-based carbon management for destinations to reduce emissions. Air travel is the most important subsector generating GHGs in international tourism. This article analyses the composition of international tourism markets arriving by air and their respective contribution to emissions at 11 selected countries with distinctly different tourism economies. The implications of changes in the market composition of these countries between 1995 and 2010 for average tourist carbon intensity and total emissions are examined. Results indicate variations in inter-market emission intensities of up to a factor 30 (127–3930 kg CO2/tourist) if comparing individual markets for the whole range of destinations, and up to a factor 5 (370–1830 kg CO2/tourist) if comparing average emission intensities between destinations. Findings are discussed with regard to the potential for destinations to reduce emissions from tourism by strategically fostering specific markets.