The WTM Industry Report quizzed 700 travel professionals from around the globe as well as 1,000 UK travellers about their attitudes to sustainability.
Responses from professionals found 59% said sustainability “became the top priority” during the pandemic, with a further one in four adding it was top priority before the outbreak and remained so.
Nearly half of responses – 43% – placed sustainability as a top three priority, with only 7% saying it was not currently part of their thinking.
Responses from travellers revealed four in 10 claim to have used carbon offsetting, with 8% saying they offset every flight and 15% doing so most of the time.
However, one in three was “actively refusing” to offset flights when offered the chance to do so, meaning the net result was “a slight positive for offsetting”.
Alarmingly, the remaining 24% replied they did not know what carbon offsetting meant.
WTM London also asked professionals about whether their own business had a formal carbon reduction strategy in place.
A quarter (26%) were unable to say if such a policy existed and 37% said there was no policy in place.
The remaining 36% acknowledged there was a policy, but only 26% had implemented it. One in 10 travel executives admitted their employer had a carbon reduction policy in place which it did not implement.
Simon Press, WTM London exhibition director, said: “While we are proud of WTM’s decades-long efforts to lead the debate around sustainable and responsible tourism, we are not complacent. These findings show that we still have some way to get the industry fully on board with our vision for a sustainable and responsible tourism future.”
